Well… I’m pretty sure none of it is right.
But probably the reason the wife is still a slave is that she was probably a slave before being wed to the Hebrew bond servant.
The children… there’s just no excuse for that…
Indeed.
George, I’m going to try a little story out here for you to see if it can help you connect. It will take place in two settings one present day, and the next one far far into the future. Go grab some chips and a drink … and settle in. I think I’ll title this “Modern Sensibilities” by Mervin Bitikofer.
Present day setting: Some environmentally sensitive editorialist waxes eloquent about how people need to drive less than they do now. They extol the virtues of car-pooling and driving more fuel efficient vehicles. They also speak approvingly of municipal regulations and accommodations that encourage and promote public transportation alternatives, and to especially favor pedestrians and cyclists. Their wise words are preserved for posterity on the editorial pages of a local paper …(this is totally fictitious by the way, though I would like to think that such editorials actually do get written.) Anyway … this wise author’s words were lost among the millions of other words of newsprint of the day.
Setting change … now we fast forward to a thousand years from now, and a very different world indeed.
Some unlikely scraps of writing from early 21st century humans had been unearthed in the prior centuries --including a typeset copy fragment that seemed to be pronouncements about ancient transportation habits. In any case, a certain religious sect had, for reasons of its own has collected many of these scraps and compiled them into a volume of sacred history that people studied and even (for some of the strict religious adherents) drew moral guidance from. And it is between a mother and daughter from just such a pious community that we will now eavesdrop on … keeping in mind that we are over a thousand years to the future side of our present 21st century.
“Mommy, is it really true that the ancients at one time put themselves in metal containers that took them at high speeds far away from home?”
“Yes indeed dear – for a very brief period of history we’re pretty sure they did exactly that.”
“But mommy! --if it was so brief, how could that have caused the great upheaval? Did their cannisters really put that much fire into the air?”
“Well, it’s a bit more complicated dear. There were also lots of wars and terrible weapons --you know we’ve still had those kinds of things on much smaller scales in our times here too (remember your grand-dad?) though not nearly so terrible. The ancients were very persistent in devising powerful weapons to sell to each other and even to their own enemies. They were extremely religious and worshiped those weapons as gods. They even sacrificed their own and especially other people’s children to their gods! It was a barbaric time. But it also had a lot to do with how they thought about the world as their own. They needed a lot of energy to make their big metal cans take them away from their homes. But they ended up stealing and squandering a lot of that energy for just a very few people, which made all the rest jealous so that violence became more and more common.”
“But mommy, the sacred stories also talk about how clever those people were. They must have had great ways to share everything, and weren’t some of those traveling cans so big they could hold lots of people if they needed to go places?”
“Actually, dear according to some of our best authorities today most of those people had their own personal cannister and didn’t like to share it with anybody if they didn’t have to!”
“WHAT!!? But mom— that’s such a simple thing! Wouldn’t they at least know better about that! Were they really that primitive? And I thought that one story … you know the NYTimes fragment – doesn’t it teach that this way of getting around was a good thing? He even tells people how to do it --what was that translated word … ‘carpooling?’, so that means the sacred writings had to be in favor of their old practices, right?”
“Let’s not be hasty, dear! There are some scholars today who think that actually the author of that may have even been against some of those practices of that day. It was just part of that culture and wasn’t going to change overnight, and maybe the author just wanted them to do those things less. Perhaps we shouldn’t judge them too harshly.”
“But no mom – it clearly says (you read this part to me before bed just last week!) that people should put more than one person in each of these cannisters to burn energy. Obviously he was a very wicked writer because otherwise he would have told them all the truth straightaway, not give them advice on how to keep doing it! How could he condone such barbaric practices? It’s obvious to everyone that such such pillaging is and has always been wrong!”
“Yes dear --that is very obvious to us isn’t it! But you see, it may not have always been obvious to all peoples of all times. Perhaps we shouldn’t be reading our modern sensibilities back onto their culture.”
“Well, … maybe. I’m glad we’re not doing that any more, though. Those must have been terrible times, huh, mom?”
“Indeed I’m sure they were, dearest. Be we are no strangers to hardships and idiocies of our own, though, are we? I’ll have to read to you from another fragment tonight, even from a much later and much more civilized time – we’re not angels either. But yes, dear, our community is blessed to be here. Blessed indeed.”
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That was a good serving of apologia… but I can’t accept this kind of explanation coming out of the same minds as 6 days of creation and a global flood that would have wiped out the Egyptians shortly after they built the Great Pyramid of Giza.
And for those who BioLogos folks … there’s just no need to try to rationalize away error… when all you have to do is accept the human agency on biblical error.
It is kind of troubling that God didn’t outlaw slavery, isn’t it? Especially since there are 613 laws in the OT. Isn’t Exodus 21:20–21 even a little disturbing? Is it okay to admit that one finds it disturbing?
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As a male I find God’s OT circumcision commands disturbing. 
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I don’t think indentured service is slavery. And when you’re going to be released from service after seven years regardless of whether you’ve paid your debt, and when you have the right to flee from your master and no one is allowed to take you back and your service is automatically terminated and you’re completely free, we’re looking at something which isn’t slavery.
, I’ve specifically avoided texts on indentured service. I have highlighted perpetual slavery…
Well you’ve made a number of unsubstantiated statements, sure. But I haven’t yet seen you actually exegete the texts. And since it’s important to you that the Bible commanded slavery, I doubt anyone is going to convince you otherwise.
If you want to see my approach to slavery it’s here.
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Hi Richard
Thanks for that info. I can’t claim to be an expert on Chicago, but I have read it, and can’t recall an outright rejection of evolution. Is the hermeneutics statement actually part of the inerrancy statement, or a separate document?
Jay
You state your own basis clearly - but you are clearly still firmly convinced of Scripture’s authoriy as “infallibility regarding doctrine, faith, praxis and experience.” There are many who aren’t keen on infallibility either.
I was talking about real slavery–men and women as property.
Well, yes, out of common courtesy, since you specifically asked for it.
No, this is importing your own modern sensibility, based on the recent American experience with slavery, into the ancient world. Again, it was an accommodation to the social, cultural, and (perhaps most importantly) the economic realities of the time. If you did not own land and were faced with starvation, would you prefer begging on the streets, robbing and stealing, or becoming a slave? This was the stark choice that thousands faced. This is not an apologia for slavery. It is simply recognizing the historical context of the original audience. Basic hermeneutics.
This is a restriction compared to the previous practice of buying anyone and everyone as a slave. The same with the Exodus passage. Restrictions and regulations are being introduced.
I’ve stated my opinion. You and beaglelady have stated yours. Never the twain shall meet! Haha. In any case, I don’t have that much interest in the topic, so I’m bowing out of that portion of the thread.
Yes I understand that. What I am arguing is that the servitude under the Law of Moses did not classify men and women as property. They were not chattel slaves.
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No time to read it fully now, but I glanced through the first pages, and it looks like a pretty thorough examination of slavery in ancient Israel. Good work!
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What about Exodus 21: 20-21
20 Anyone who beats their male or female slave with a rod must be punished if the slave dies as a direct result,
21 but they are not to be punished if the slave recovers after a day or two, since the slave is their property.
That’s as clear as Genesis saying the universe was created in six days, six thousand years ago. In my article I give the academic definition of chattel slavery and quote the arguments in the literature which demonstrate chattel slavery did not exist under the Law of Moses. That verse (and its Hebrew lexical components, which do not include the word for “property”), must be understood within the context of the entire Law.
That is some choice. Enslaving poor people would really solve problems.
Fortunately that isn’t the range of choices offered in the Law of Moses.