I wonder why the OT people or prophets living in such cultures did not condemn the practice, but make regulations around it?
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The prophets usually condemn oppression rather than dismantling embedded economic institutions; Torah regulations function as restraint within a world where slavery was assumed, and prophetic rebukes focus on abuses (and on reneging on mandated release), not on modern-style abolition of the institution itself.
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I mean, Matthew 25:31–46 could hardly be clearer on this point.
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I think this stems from understanding the Bible as a rule book as opposed to a record of salvation history with God trying to correct human behavior from the inside. From my perspective, the regulations were an improvement of a fixed social institution and part of reality in both the OT and NT. The ethical and moral precepts needed to end slavery came from the Judeo-Christian religion.
If you think God sat and heaven and said…“Let me think up the most amazing moral laws I can” and decided “don’t wear clothing of two different fabrics,” I would disagree with your approach to the Bible.
Slavery has been practiced in most major civilizations that existed throughout history. While we are virtue signaling about how ourbeliefs are so much better than our ancestors, I note that while we may have ended chattel slavery, slavery via economic exploitation is still very real today as well as trafficked humans. There are tens of millions of people who fit the bill of slavery, some in its most horrific form and some in its less horrific but still morally bad forms.
Slavery does nothing but demonstrate the world is fallen, evil and in need of a savior. It is hardly a credible objection against non literalist Christianity. That would be like saying a house on fire demonstrates water doesn’t exist.
Vinnie
Edited are vs our annoyed me 
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I agree with everything that you wrote but when reading this
I literally spat out my drink while having lunch. 
Thank God I’m at home and not at a restaurant.
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Not to mention other pagan practices which, in my view, are even more horrific than the already abhorrent institution of slavery—practices that have been reintroduced into the modern world after having been effectively abolished by Christianity. The only difference between then and now is that today we carry out such acts with a smile, within sanitized systems, and under the cover of euphemistic language.
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While we live in a fallen world, not only slavery. Materialism, capitalism, etc all represents the fallenness of our human nature. I wonder if God is not really focused on bettering this world system, but rather preparing us for a better world to come.
If we look at OT, slavery was not looked as inherently evil as with many other world cultures. It was not looked down like worshipping idols, child sacrifices etc. Perhaps the malpractice of chattel slavery that should be looked down. I am not defending chattel slavey, but I am just curious why God who never hesitate to say the wrong has nothing to say about that like “abolish slavery”?
I think it quite possible (plausible … no … even probable) that any human civilization in any given cultural era (including all of our modern ones now) would not be able, much less ready to even just receive something like “moral perfection” - whatever that might even all involve. By way of example, imagine trying to teach a two-year-old toddler about pride or humility. Those aren’t going to be “age-appropriate” lessons. A toddler is going to just naturally be a greedy little person - and rightly so. One is doing well just to begin to train them not to have screaming fits if they don’t get their way. Higher moral lessons are just going to have to wait for more maturity and life experience so that they even just have some mental categories for “sharing” or “putting others first”. In early societies where blood-thirsty gods, and nations serving them were competing (by warfare and conquest) to dominate each other, or sometimes even just survive, what would it have been like for God to teach them: “by the way, you need to love your enemies and do good to all those who persecute you!” Could they have even received that or lived by it? Or would it have been over the pale? Perhaps the best improvements that could have been expected of them at the time might even just have been to put some limits on vengeance: No - you shouldn’t wipe out their whole village because they killed one of you. Just keep it to an eye for an eye, please. Even today yet, we still struggle to receive what Jesus showed us - and we see entire movements here in the U.S. who not only reject Jesus’ teachings, but can’t even live up to just the old testament limits on vengeance! (think of the Satanically inspired motto of our current Homeland ‘security’: “One of ours - all of yours!”) and you realize that you don’t have to look far to see that even our present day cultures can be just as morally depraved even as the bloodiest ancients - they are like the grown person who at the moment is struggling even just with toddler-level challenges!
So it’s not a stretch to think that we aren’t even close to receiving moral perfection yet now, even after being visited by the perfect moral exemplar: Jesus. Most today reject his teachings even while they want to use him as an icon for their causes. And to be fair - all of us struggle to know what it means to “pick up our crosses and follow Christ”! It is not something any of us can claim we have done or are consistently doing, much less doing perfectly.
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Indeed! Just think about millions of people who work full time and yet can’t afford to support themselves. And that’s just the 1st world countries.
I am intrigued. What exactly do you have in mind?
Let’s say he did say that. Do you think that people would have actually listened? And let’s say they would. What would have happened to thousands of slaves? They would suddenly be homeless, jobless and had no money. And please, let’s not kid ourselves that all of a sudden they would come up with employment laws or state benefit system to protect and support the newly freed slaves. Unless you were expecting God to also include all the instructions for that as well?
Satanic indeed. Goodness, I had absolutely no idea 
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Abortion. Which, in one European country, is even allowed up to the 24th week (and routinely, not just for “special cases”), i didn’t want to mention it explicitly as it is a sensitive topic.
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Human nature: you can only push people so hard and so far before they just say, “Screw that!” and ignore you. Heck, one of the factions in second-Temple Judaism noted that in regards to the Law (Hillel’s bunch, IIRC).
Yes – the prophets pounded on people to live up to the standards that pushed in the right direction; they went further only when people were either “caught up” to a given standard or were so woefully failing a tougher stance was needed – and then they didn’t harp on rules but on principles.
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I think the fact that most of the Decalogue is moral material people assume it’s all moral – I’ve even bumped into a few extremists who insist that breaking ceremonial rules is immoral!
Most definitely.
Anything that betters this world system is just a side effect of changing minds (psyches) to fit that better world.
The bumper sticker “Medieval peasants didn’t have to work as hard as you do!” is true – and they were better taken care of.
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35 posts were split to a new topic: Abortion discussion
Nothing is new under the sun. I said people won’t be atheists, but you’re right that doesn’t mean they’ll be Christians. More likely they’ll create new idols and worship AI gods or eastern religion.
What is the definition of a girl exactly?
If you are going to be splitting hairs to the extent of differentiating between girls and young women sure let’s go there…
In this context we would construe “young women” as being females after puberty but before maturity and “girls” as females before puberty.
So even by your own terms, the passage is talking about not looking at, for example, an 11-year-old girl who just had her first period, as a potential sexual partner or wife. That’s right within the literal scope of the passage.
Defining it this way actually makes the case stronger, since the term “young woman” specifically calls out what we understand to be the 11-18 age range.
That would leave you with with the unenviable position of having to say “well he didn’t mention there was anything wrong with prepubescent girls…” You can, but I think you’d only be embarrassing yourself further.
The clear underlying point with this passage as clarified by Jesus’s reference to it in the New testament is that The way it was in the beginning between Adam and Eve is the way that it is intended by God to be between men and woman: nothing less than monogamous adult marriage without divorce or adultery.
Adam and Eve are of course created as adults. They have no parents so they have no childhood. They are not born. They are formed by God directly.
Job knows all this and has no problem deriving God’s true feelings about these topics. He knows that to look lustfully at young females of all varieties is evil and leads to a variety of sins.
You and atheists in general are categorically wrong about all of this. That your confidence in joining Gary’s attack was only a display of your own ignorance and disingenuous intent to discredit the Bible.
Well you may also want to retract your defense of Richard Dawkins Here’s a link: https://sojo.net/articles/richard-dawkins-under-fire-mild-pedophilia-remarks
In his book ‘A Brief History of Time’, Stephen Hawking, a self-proclaimed atheist, states “Even if there is only one possible unified theory, it is just a set of rules and equations. What is it that breathes fire into the equations and makes a universe for them to describe? The usual approach of science of constructing a mathematical model cannot answer the questions of why there should be a universe for the model to describe. Why does the universe go to all the bother of existing?” Now, Stephen Hawking may not speak on behalf of all atheists, but he was a scientist and he raises a very interesting question that would suggest that the universe has a purpose.
No they believe your “meaning in life“ is a lie you tell yourself. Maybe you truly believe the lie and truly do feel like your life has meaning. That doesn’t change anything. It’s still a lie.
Do you understand now?
Or will you go on pretending you’re too smart to believe in things that aren’t true, unlike us provincial religious types.
@Claude Good point but Hawkings himself wasn’t wise enough to take his insight to its only conclusion. He remained an atheist, and a fool.
“The fool has said in his heart, ‘there is no God’”. Psalm 14:1
It doesn’t matter. The passage you quoted said “young woman”. You claimed it was specifically about “young girls”.
Why? So you can pretend that Job was talking about “young girls”, and not “young women”?
Those aren’t my terms. They are your terms.
That might be what you understand by “young woman”, but don’t extend it to me. Or anyone else.
Jesus doesn’t refer to this passage in the NT.
If you want to tell lies about the Bible and paedophilia go somewhere else.
If you want to not use your brain, maybe try tiktok.
Your replies aren’t even arguements at this point and you’re contradicting yourself.
Jesus refers to the passage in nothing less than the Sermon on the Mount, everyone knows that. (Or at least they should)
The actual Hebrew word in the passage is the Hebrew word betulah (בְּתוּלָה). The word literally means “set apart” and is broadly understood to refer to an unmarried girl, a virgin, after puberty, still under her father’s protection.