I don’t think anybody here is trying to defend any kind of slavery as a great option – much less desirable whether in its most cruel or even significantly less cruel forms. Life would have been hard for nearly everybody in O.T. times – especially servants/slaves. And I don’t hear Jonathan denying that many masters back then would have been despicably cruel. In fact the need for law and regulation would be testimony to that very fact.
It is also a fact that the gold standard for despicable exploitive cruelty seems to have been set by the early American chattel slavery – though probably closely equivalent with the kind that also existed in the Roman world of N.T. times (after reading Jonathan’s studies on this --thanks for that, Jonathan.)
What would be interesting to me would be the comparison with today’s slavery which is massive, probably mostly sexual, and happens under the radar since it is illegal – at least here. If you had to get randomly plopped into one of those categories as a slave (O.T., N.T., Early American, or modern) which would you choose? Would you rather be in the institutionalized sort of the first three? Or off the grid and therefore totally unregulated and invisible as in the last one? It seems to me that you may have better chances of at least thriving just a little bit in the first category over the other three. Lord help you if your skin is the wrong color in the third one – and even more so if you are the wrong age or gender in the last.
But for those who are desperate to view our modern age as superior in every way and aspect to pre-scientific times, I can see why they would want to ignore facts and just push the “Bible supports slavery” narrative. I used to have some sympathy for that, but now after reading these couple of studies, the case for it is pretty weak.
No one seems interested in the idea of getting a loan and then having it completely forgiven after seven years (or even one year), no matter how much still remains to pay back. I don’t know any bank today offering those terms.
Speaking of legalized financial slavery right here and now … those with big economic power today aren’t about to live up to even old testament standards which puts a different light on this too. In all fairness, I guess the Hebrews of the time never really lived up to it either. But you probably said more on that which I may have missed on my quick readings.
I found your handful of comments about non-Hebrew slaves (pages 23-24). I tell you what, Jonathan… I just can’t tell you how disappointed I am in your treatment of the issue. It’s a good thing I had NOT read that before I cavalierly associated you with Vatican lawyers. You wouldn’t have liked the wording I would have used.
I’m going to let other people dismember your analysis of non-Hebrew slavery. I wouldn’t want you to think I was acting out of a personal bias!
@beaglelady… I suspect there are some other categories of slavery, even if not “chattel slavery”, that would be pretty dreadful for anyone who had to suffer it.
You see how Jonathan is handling the issue, right? Create the straw man …then slay the straw man.
Well, I called it. I said you would represent this as my view instead of the view of the scholarship I cited. I said you would ignore the commentary.
I address a range of different forms of servitude in my article; chattel slavery, indentured service, “bride sale” (improperly called as I explain from the relevant scholarship), corvee labor, and vassalage. I explain which are found in the Law of Moses and which aren’t, and demonstrate that chattel slavery is not found in the Law of Moses. Calling every form of servitude in the Law of Moses “slavery”, is not only inaccurate it’s misleading.
No this is not a straw man. The claim was that slavery (specifically chattel slavery), was legislated by the Law of Moses. I have presented the standard arguments and evidence against this, from the relevant scholarly literature. There is no straw man here.
Both these things are true. Slavery is just such a repugnant topic that it is hard to distance yourself from the ugliness and mentally place yourself in the ancient context to understand their attitudes and experience. I can sort of understand why a desperate person would choose the life of a slave rather than death. But, like beaglelady, I cannot imagine being on the opposite side of that equation.
You can see how modern attitudes on slavery affect even Bible translation. Paul begins Romans by calling himself “a slave (duolos) of Jesus Christ,” but our English versions translates it as “servant,” which destroys the parallel in Romans 6 where he discusses being a slave to sin or a slave to righteousness.
Here is a link to an article translating raqiya not as firmament, but as expanse. I agree with the author that this is a better translation of the word. True Paradigm: The meaning of "expanse" in Genesis 1. Part 2
Raqiya’ is a noun that derives its meaning from the verb raqa’ which means to hammer or stamp, and could therefore also mean to hammer flat or spread out. Creation Science: Raqia Revisited - Another View of Genesis 1 When we look at the text of Genesis, what is being spread out is the narrator’s perception in the visual sense. Genesis begins with fog over water. Next light penetrates the fog for the first day. On the second day, the fog lifts and the area visible to the narrator expands outward until the narrator can see the sky, which God then names sky, or shamayim. I do not dispute that the ancient hebrews believed in a three tiered universe with a solid firmament holding up an ocean. God did not dissuade them of that view. God also did not explain to them the dew point or how clouds actually form Yahoo | Mail, Weather, Search, Politics, News, Finance, Sports & Videos This is an error on the part of the early Hebrews, not on the part of God or the bible. The bible is inerrant, but our translation of it and our understanding of it is often flawed.
As to your second question about Eve being formed from the rib of Adam, you should know my thoughts on that from my earlier posts about local Eden. Adam was created through special creation, unlike the rest of humanity which God creates through evolution in Genesis 1:27. Adam was created as a test case to prove that all people prefer to know good from evil and therefore choose to be culpable for our actions (before salvation). Eve being created from Adam simply means that she too exhibits that same quality of being a perfect test case for the rest of humanity. Eve is not the first woman, nor is Adam the first man, but they are hyper-typical in that their choice in the garden is the same choice that each of us would make.
Sorry to jump so far back, but I wanted to reply to this briefly. I agree with Fee that 1 Cor. 14:34-35 is a scribal gloss (later addition not from Paul’s pen). I also wanted to point out, though, that Reformed theologians are generally strong proponents of inerrancy, but they have nevertheless been the driving force in offering evangelical interpretations of Scripture that are more amenable to science. Some examples:
B.B. Warfield famously declared that Darwin’s theory was not inconsistent with Scripture.
W.H. Green proved from Scripture that the genealogies of Genesis are not a chronology and cannot be used to determine the age of the earth or the date of the flood in his 1890 essay, Primeval Chronology.
Arie Noordzij first offered the “framework theory” of reading Genesis 1 non-literally in 1924.
Meredith Kline resurrected and popularized the theory in his famous essay, Because It Had Not Rained. (Herman Ridderbos, as well.)
There are many recent examples, but the short version is that Reformed theologians have been at the forefront of what BioLogos represents since the late 19th century.
No. It begins by regulating and restricting the practice. It does not do what you and I and every other modern person would prefer – outlaw the practice. But regulating it rather than outlawing it is an accommodation to the cultural and economic development of the human race. Trying to second-guess it is just another form of the argument: God would not do it that way. Well, he did. We can try to understand it or reject it. I choose to try and understand it, however imperfectly I am able.
No. The Evangelical Theological Society created 3 statements. The first one was the famous Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy in 1978. They then reconvened in Chicago in 1982 to create the Statement on Bible Hermeneutics and again in 1986 to write the Statement on Bible Application. Afterwards the society disbanded, having felt their work finished. But though there are 3 different documents they were forged by by and large the same cast of characters and the 1st two touch on similar themes, with statements and commentaries in the Hermeneutical statement at times expanding on ideas from the Inerrancy statement. Hope that helps. My paper really lays out the issues with science in the bible in a lot of detail if you’re up for reading it.
@Richard_Wright1
I would be curious to know whether any evangelical organizations and seminaries require adherence to the Statement on Biblical Hermeneutics, as the Evangelical Theological Society and many conservative seminaries require with the Statement on Inerrancy.
ETS is still very much active. Did you mean something else?
Correct. Not in the sense that you or George seem to think it does anyway. I do agree with you though that it does tolerate a now lamentably wide category of employer relations in ways that we should be making distinctions about now were we writing of God’s character today. Moses had some gall it would seem, failing to anticipate all the even crueler forms of slavery that would unfold in future millennia so that he could make sure to issue the appropriate condemnations of those things in advance.
We rightly condemn slavery now because we have seen what that has come to mean. But we would not say that a free (and respected) personal employee of some wealthy person now was a slave. Back then such a person would have been called exactly that: a slave. Only by conflating our modern meaning for slavery back onto a time when it was the blanket term for what we now call “employment” (which would, as in all times, have included both beneficial and cruel situations) do we then have this confusion about thinking the Bible supports slavery (as the modern now interprets that word).
Since we have seen all the cruel permutations of slavery, we rightly now condemn that state of affairs and its treatment of humans as mere property. We condemn that with ideas which we seem to have gotten from, and found affirmed in … the very Bible so discussed just as it is!
Thanks Richard - I’m on the wrong continent, but it would be good to get the background right. I’ve found a more direct link to your piece, I think, here.
I’ve done a brief scan of the paper and put it on my reading list for careful reading later. I’ll have to be aware of “confirmation bias” since I resonated with what I read. Thanks for your paper Richard