Bob Lee said:

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What I said was that Chattel slavery requires an element of kidnapping people against their will. If you want to quibble with that, then I'll grant your definition of it. It has nothing to do with my argument, and I didn't retreat from my claim. My point is that slavery was regulated for the benefit of slaves. The Israelites are reminded not to become the oppressors. And they retain their human dignity under the law.

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Property has no dignity. They are property. Their children are property. That's chattel. You have to be some kind of psychopath not to think that's chattel. Also I pointed out last time how you are misquoting the kidnapping provision. And I further shown how the provisions context is clarified in Deuteronomy to only apply to Israelites which was always obvious.

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I've addressed every argument and passage put forth.

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Not even a little bit. you didn't even begin to address this one:

"4 "'Your male and female slaves are to come from the nations around you; from them you may buy slaves. 45 You may also buy some of the temporary residents living among you and members of their clans born in your country, and they will become your property. 46 You can bequeath them to your children as inherited property and can make them slaves for life, but you must not rule over your fellow Israelites ruthlessly."

By all means tell me what this means and what is allowed.

Or this one:

When you go to war against your enemies and the Lord your God delivers them into your hands and you take captives, 11 if you notice among the captives a beautiful woman and are attracted to her, you may take her as your wife. 12 Bring her into your home and have her shave her head, trim her nails 13 and put aside the clothes she was wearing when captured. After she has lived in your house and mourned her father and mother for a full month, then you may go to her and be her husband and she shall be your wife. 14 If you are not pleased with her, let her go wherever she wishes. You must not sell her or treat her as a slave, since you have dishonored her."

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You keep equivocating purchasing slaves with American slavery. That's it. No further questions. Case closed. Except there's no reason to believe it's not an arrangement being entered into willingly. There's every reason to believe it is. Your disposition won't allow you to read it any other way.

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It's not my disposition, it's my literacy. You are seemingly not literate because I've quoted you the exact rules which equate it with American slavery. You've done nothing to address those quotes. I've shown you the verses. You can take prisoners of war as slaves, even sex slaves. You can purchase slaves from abroad with no stipulations on how they came to slavery. You can keep your slaves for life, you can keep your slaves children for life. You can beat your slaves and as long as they survive the beating and you haven't taken out eyes or teeth and they recover after a few days. Just what else do you suppose is required in your view?

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I also addressed the jubilee and the return of the Israelites to the land promised them by God, but that foreigners didn't have land promised to them by God to return to. None of this implies that they're not willing participants, and compensated.

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I swear you've never read these verses. The text about jubilee is stated literally right before stating you can keep foreign slaves for life. It is punishingly obvious that foriegn slaves are not released upon the year of jubilee. In fact the entire concept of keeping them and their children for life makes no sense if what you say is true.

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You're projecting attributes of American slavery onto the law where it doesn't exist. There's no racial component, they aren't talked about as lesser humans, and there are laws against their cruel treatment. Their humanity is affirmed. Not denied like it was here.

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There is an ethnic but not racial component. Are you denying the ethnic component now, even though it's plainly stated in the text? And they are explicitly talked about as lesser humans, in fact it warns when describing what you can do to a foreign slave that you must never treat a fellow Israelite this way. They are literally called property denying their humanity.

I'm actually impressed at how many falsehoods you fit in that short paragraph.

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I think it's that you don't like the distinction. There's a difference between condoning something and regulating it, and what the Israelites actually did, as has been mentioned by me and others.

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You are on a roll. You haven't managed to state one true thing this whole post. I even gave you the hint to inspire you to have the basic curiosity to look up what condoning means so you don't keep misusing it.

The lack of curiosity is astonishing.

Here I'll do it for you:

condone
[kndn]
verb
[ol]

accept and allow (behavior that is considered morally wrong or offensive) to continue:
"the college cannot condone any behavior that involves illicit drugs"

• approve or sanction (something), especially with reluctance:

[/ol]

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The standard is and always has been that it's not condoned. I gave the example of a governor signing an allowance for abortion, but placing constraints around its practice. He doesn't approve of it. He just permits it given the circumstances.

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Yup still need to look up condone.

Rocag said:

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I decided to quit this thread when Bob declared that "You can bequeath them (foreign slaves) to your children as inherited property and can make them slaves for life" means slaves aren't to be treated as property and they have to be freed on the seventh year.

This is an excellent example of why I think Christians boasting about the superiority of their so called objective standard is foolish. If the words can't even be trusted to mean what they literally say the standard could be anything. Completely open to interpretation.

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In Genesis 47:13, Joseph's brothers come to him begging to become his slaves due their poverty and hunger: "Why should we die before your eyes, both we and our land? Buy us and our land for food, and we with our land will be slaves to Pharaoh; and give us seed, that we may live, and not die, and that the land may not be desolate" Gen. 47:19

What y'all are missing is this. Slavery was a better alternative for some people. What I said specifically to that, is that the children would have to take up their grievances with their parents, but their parents would have entered into that arrangement on their children's behalf, and judged it was best under the circumstances. When it says you "may" do this, the juxtaposition is with the Israelites to whom God promised land. So it's not required of them like it was with Israelite slaves. It's a voluntary arrangement. "You may" also means "you may not". It's voluntary though. But in both cases, the foreigner and the Israelites, it was not supposed to have been a reality.

It doesn't make sense to be boastful about belief in an objective moral standard. I've accomplished nothing, and I'm not under any illusion that God's impressed with me. So, I don't boast. We're just talking. Truth isn't open to interpretation even if it's possible for it to be misinterpreted. I wouldn't think it was silly if you said, there are objective morals truths, but it's sometimes difficult to perfectly understand them. Or it's not always easy to know what the right thing is to do in every situation. That would be a reasonable take. Not knowing isn't evidence for a lack of objectivity.

You believe there are right and wrong things, but if you can't judge things against a standard that's external to you, then it would come from within yourself. You're just convicted out of a sense of self satisfaction or something. Another person will make the opposite choice, and if we're all a God unto ourselves, then no one's ever wrong. And in a conflict of wills, the strongest person will probably always end up being right. Does that seem plausible?

How about this, He doesn't endorse (or approve of) it even though He regulates it. We agree now?

Edit: good grief you're just not even reading what I'm writing anymore. Leviticus 25:8-55 pertains to the year of Jubilee. I didn't say there's no difference in the rules for Israelites and foreigners.

Do you agree that it's not analagous to the way slavery was practiced in America?

Edit: I do also deny that there was an ethic component. Because Israelites sold themselves to foreigners as slaves. Anyone could be a slave.

I think I'll leave it here. I think there's a kind of slavery that can be practiced wherein we retain our dignity. Christianity is a slave religion in that we submit ourselves to the will of our master. Our bodies don't belong to us. In doing so, we retain our dignity as humans persons.

And you think all kinds of slavery inherently deprive us of our humanity.

But I can't draw a connection from there to Objective morality doesn't exist.

Bob Lee said:

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Do you agree that it's not analagous to the way slavery was practiced in America?

Edit: I do also deny that there was an ethic component. Because Israelites sold themselves to foreigners as slaves. Anyone could be a slave.

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There is no intelligent way to explain the laws and hold the views stated above.

If there is no ethnic component why are there different rules for Israelites and foreigners? An Israelite selling themselves to a foreigner doesn't change the rules. You continue to refuse to simply read the rules.

This is another words have meanings situation.

Ethnic has a meaning. Component has a meaning. Israelite has a meaning. Foreigners has a meaning. For life has a meaning. Property has a meaning. Capture has a meaning.


I've addressed all this in the post above, respond to that one if you have an actual argument.

Aggrad08 said:

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Bob Lee said:

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Do you agree that it's not analagous to the way slavery was practiced in America?

Edit: I do also deny that there was an ethic component. Because Israelites sold themselves to foreigners as slaves. Anyone could be a slave.

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There is no intelligent way to explain the laws and hold the views stated above.

If there is no ethnic component why are there different rules for Israelites and foreigners? An Israelite selling themselves to a foreigner doesn't change the rules. You continue to refuse to simply read the rules.

This is another words have meanings situation.

Ethnic has a meaning. Component has a meaning. Israelite has a meaning. Foreigners has a meaning. For life has a meaning. Property has a meaning. Capture has a meaning.


I've addressed all this in the post above, respond to that one if you have an actual argument.

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It feels a little like you're trying to score points instead of understanding what I'm getting at, and I'm more than willing to acknowledge I haven't been able to convey what I'm saying that well. I keep doing this because I think it's at least edifying. There was "scientific proof" African slaves were sub human. That's not what's going on here. Right?

If you were simply stating the OT slavery was not based on racial supremacy the way American slavery was then we would never have argued. That hasn't been your argument, feel free to re-read the thread.

There was an undeniable ethnic component, the rules for Israelites and foreigners were very different. But this stemmed from ideas of gods chosen people and purpose rather than a genetic superiority. Slaves were property, property is subhuman. But it's a different kind of subhuman than American slavery. Black people were considered subhuman even if free.

Genetically they were the same as most their neighbors

You're granting yourself the slaves are property, property is subhuman equation. They were property in the sense that they owned the right to their slaves' labor. I get the language itself is de-anthropomorphizing. But for example why should a master be punished at all for killing his slave, if they were merely property in a class with other non-human property?

We punish people for harming their pets while still confirming their property status and subhuman status. And yes, owning people is subhuman. Being born to slavery with no way to free yourself is subhuman. It's genuinely sad that defending your faith makes you say otherwise.

The opposite question is much harder for you to answer. Why can you beat a slave within an inch of life as long as you dont remove eyes or teeth if they have full personhood? Why can you never treat an Israelite this way, but can do this to a foreigner?

Of course there was no requirement to own slaves. That's just such a strange point to make and I don't think it presents the Biblical narrative in any better light. There wasn't a requirement to own slaves in America either, for example. The fact that some people willingly became slaves does not at all imply that all people who were enslaved did so willingly. You insist Biblical slavery was always voluntary in spite of clear examples where people were forcefully taken as slaves on God's command.

You're free to believe whatever you want to believe. From my point of view, this part of the Bible makes perfect sense when viewed as a product of its time and place. Consider the Code of Hammurabi in which people who sold themselves into slavery to pay debts were only to work for three years before being freed. Better than the Biblical six, I'd say. Other cultures also set different rules for slaves from within their own cultures versus foreigners. There's little in this part of the Old Testament that actually sets them apart from their contemporaries. And while this form of slavery was certainly different from the African slave trade millennia later, make no mistake it was still brutal.

Aggrad08 said:

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We punish people for harming their pets while still confirming their property status and subhuman status. And yes, owning people is subhuman. Being born to slavery with no way to free yourself is subhuman. It's genuinely sad that defending your faith makes you say otherwise.

The opposite question is much harder for you to answer. Why can you beat a slave within an inch of life as long as you dont remove eyes or teeth if they have full personhood? Why can you never treat an Israelite this way, but can do this to a foreigner?

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You can't, and here's where I guess you'll just say, well it literally says it right there, but verses 26 and 27 forbid it. The eye and teeth aren't meant to be an exhaustive list of the ways you can't harm your slave. You're appealing to a section that is about the death penalty. A lesser punishment is appropriate if they don't die. Their servant goes free. That's the punishment.

Rocag said:

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Of course there was no requirement to own slaves. That's just such a strange point to make and I don't think it presents the Biblical narrative in any better light. There wasn't a requirement to own slaves in America either, for example. The fact that some people willingly became slaves does not at all imply that all people who were enslaved did so willingly. You insist Biblical slavery was always voluntary in spite of clear examples where people were forcefully taken as slaves on God's command.

You're free to believe whatever you want to believe. From my point of view, this part of the Bible makes perfect sense when viewed as a product of its time and place. Consider the Code of Hammurabi in which people who sold themselves into slavery to pay debts were only to work for three years before being freed. Better than the Biblical six, I'd say. Other cultures also set different rules for slaves from within their own cultures versus foreigners. There's little in this part of the Old Testament that actually sets them apart from their contemporaries. And while this form of slavery was certainly different from the African slave trade millennia later, make no mistake it was still brutal.

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You MUST free the Israelites. You NEED NOT free the foreigners. It's a restriction on the length of the arrangement you could enter into with Israelites that doesn't pertain to foreigners. Conjuring images of slave auctions doesn't make sense.

I think it's fair to ask then, where does this idea about universal human rights come from? Why do you find it morally repugnant? For all of pre modern history, it was practiced in every culture in existence. It's fine to observe a change in people's attitudes about a thing over time. But why did it happen though? And if people's attitudes shifted back, and we it wasn't taboo to own slaves, much less illegal, can you imagine yourself accepting that it's a moral good at that point in time?

Bob Lee said:

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Aggrad08 said:

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We punish people for harming their pets while still confirming their property status and subhuman status. And yes, owning people is subhuman. Being born to slavery with no way to free yourself is subhuman. It's genuinely sad that defending your faith makes you say otherwise.

The opposite question is much harder for you to answer. Why can you beat a slave within an inch of life as long as you dont remove eyes or teeth if they have full personhood? Why can you never treat an Israelite this way, but can do this to a foreigner?

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You can't, and here's where I guess you'll just say, well it literally says it right there, but verses 26 and 27 forbid it. The eye and teeth aren't meant to be an exhaustive list of the ways you can't harm your slave. You're appealing to a section that is about the death penalty. A lesser punishment is appropriate if they don't die. Their servant goes free. That's the punishment.

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You are making this up. It's not the first time. Quote the scripture and examine the meaning of the words. If you say there is a lesser crime, show the scripture and demonstrate how it's not contradictory with "if they survive a day or two" you shall not be punished because they are your property.

But we both know there is no such provision. Or this is another example of you trying to bait and switch rules for Israelites with those for foreigners.It's like you think I'm illiterate and incapable of fact checking you.

Aggrad08 said:

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Bob Lee said:

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Aggrad08 said:

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We punish people for harming their pets while still confirming their property status and subhuman status. And yes, owning people is subhuman. Being born to slavery with no way to free yourself is subhuman. It's genuinely sad that defending your faith makes you say otherwise.

The opposite question is much harder for you to answer. Why can you beat a slave within an inch of life as long as you dont remove eyes or teeth if they have full personhood? Why can you never treat an Israelite this way, but can do this to a foreigner?

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You can't, and here's where I guess you'll just say, well it literally says it right there, but verses 26 and 27 forbid it. The eye and teeth aren't meant to be an exhaustive list of the ways you can't harm your slave. You're appealing to a section that is about the death penalty. A lesser punishment is appropriate if they don't die. Their servant goes free. That's the punishment.

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You are making this up. It's not the first time. Quote the scripture and examine the meaning of the words. If you say there is a lesser crime, show the scripture and demonstrate how it's not contradictory with "if they survive a day or two" you shall not be punished because they are your property.

But we both know there is no such provision. Or this is another example of you trying to bait and switch rules for Israelites with those for foreigners.It's like you think I'm illiterate and incapable of fact checking you.

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The Hebrew word translated here as vengeance is first used in the Genesis story of Cain's murder of Abel and his fear that he would be sought out and killed himself. It's talking about the death penalty. What you're doing is typical of atheists. You use the most cynical translation, and that's the one that's right. Zero contextualizing, zero deference to any school of exegesis that isn't the least charitable possible.

What's remarkable I think is that the idea that humans are created in the image of God, and are inherently valuable and human rights are universal, comes from Christianity. You want to argue that Christians ought to be in favor of slavery or at least indifferent based on your interpretation of the Mosaic law, but won't move a muscle to try and account for the fact there's no disagreement at all among Christians and even your aversion to it ultimately comes from a Christian view of the human person. How else could you arrive at it? Especially considering it's apparently not self evident because it was widely accepted and practiced by every culture prior to Christianity. The Old Testament places restrictions on it. The idea that someone could even be punished for killing his slave, as opposed to someone else's slave, as compensation to his master, was completely novel at the time.

Sigh,

You do everything you accuse me of while not once actually quoting scripture to present your argument:

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What you're doing is typical of atheists. You use the most cynical translation, and that's the one that's right. Zero contextualizing,

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This is not us disagreeing on translation meanings. I simply have text and rules I can quote that agree with me verbatim, and you have nothing but bold and completely indefensible assertions. And the funny thing is, you are the only one who refuses to use the quotes in context. I've always provided the quote and the surrounding context and made sure the context of the rule was the treatments of slaves, particularly foreign slaves. You've repeatedly erred in context by trying to use rules that force contradictions by using them out of context or bait and switching rules for Israelites with rules for foreigners.

So I'll repeat my previous request. Quote the scripture that supports your claim. Explain how it's not contradictory to the plain reading of the scripture I quoted. Stop talking in nonsense vagaries and simply own what the text really says. The bible is right in front of you. You've made a bold claim, defend it with scripture.

It's pretty clear the Israelites were buying and selling slaves. Slave auctions aren't that much of a stretch. Perhaps not for Hebrew slaves, but foreign ones certainly.

Are you claiming I said I find the idea of universal human rights morally repugnant? What? I don't. I think they'd be a nice idea but I don't think they actually exist. The whole concept of rights is a human creation. That doesn't mean it's not important though. What rights people have and who is entitled to them has been something people have been arguing about for a long time and will continue to for a long time more. So when you speak of "universal human rights", I'm not even sure what you think that means.

And certainly I'm a product of my environment. No argument there. We all are. I suspect my beliefs and attitudes would be quite different if I'd been raised in a different time and place. I'd hope if nothing else I'd keep my ability to feel empathy for other people because I think that's the starting point for most human morality.

Aggrad08 said:

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Sigh,

You do everything you accuse me of while not once actually quoting scripture to present your argument:

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What you're doing is typical of atheists. You use the most cynical translation, and that's the one that's right. Zero contextualizing,

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This is not us disagreeing on translation meanings. I simply have text and rules I can quote that agree with me verbatim, and you have nothing but bold and completely indefensible assertions. And the funny thing is, you are the only one who refuses to use the quotes in context. I've always provided the quote and the surrounding context and made sure the context of the rule was the treatments of slaves, particularly foreign slaves. You've repeatedly erred in context by trying to use rules that force contradictions by using them out of context or bait and switching rules for Israelites with rules for foreigners.

So I'll repeat my previous request. Quote the scripture that supports your claim. Explain how it's not contradictory to the plain reading of the scripture I quoted. Stop talking in nonsense vagaries and simply own what the text really says. The bible is right in front of you. You've made a bold claim, defend it with scripture.

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"26 When someone strikes his male or female slave in the eye and destroys the use of the eye, he shall let the slave go free in compensation for the eye. 27 If he knocks out a tooth of his male or female slave, he shall let the slave go free in compensation for the tooth".

Bob Lee said:

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"26 When someone strikes his male or female slave in the eye and destroys the use of the eye, he shall let the slave go free in compensation for the eye. 27 If he knocks out a tooth of his male or female slave, he shall let the slave go free in compensation for the tooth".

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Which contradicts nothing I said nor any other part of the text. You are trying to extend the rule way beyond whats written and force a contradiction. You know that CONTEXT you were accusing me of not following, this is you committing that actual error. Let's quote the entire area of scripture, you know, for context.


"If people quarrel and one person hits another with a stone or with their fist[d] and the victim does not die but is confined to bed, 19 the one who struck the blow will not be held liable if the other can get up and walk around outside with a staff; however, the guilty party must pay the injured person for any loss of time and see that the victim is completely healed.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. 22 "If people are fighting and hit a pregnant woman and she gives birth prematurely[e] but there is no serious injury, the offender must be fined whatever the woman's husband demands and the court allows. 23 But if there is serious injury, you are to take life for life, 24 eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, 25 burn for burn, wound for wound, bruise for bruise.26 "An owner who hits a male or female slave in the eye and destroys it must let the slave go free to compensate for the eye. 27 And an owner who knocks out the tooth of a male or female slave must let the slave go free to compensate for the tooth.28 "If a bull gores a man or woman to death, the bull is to be stoned to death, and its meat must not be eaten. But the owner of the bull will not be held responsible. 29 If, however, the bull has had the habit of goring and the owner has been warned but has not kept it penned up and it kills a man or woman, the bull is to be stoned and its owner also is to be put to death. 30

So put on your big boy pants and tell my how, according to you, just 6 verses away the author really meant you could not beat your slaves, and the eyes and teeth limitations were not exhaustive.

It's so absurd I can't imagine you've ever read the whole passage and still tried to make the argument.

So go on, tell me how you make your argument hold up in context without a contradiction.

Honestly man, the snarkiness is exhausting. You should probably dial it down some.

Your translation is fine I guess. Mine uses vengeance instead of punishment, and I think that captures it better. Like I said that word in Hebrew in this context is talking about the death penalty, but the only thing that matters is it refers to the same punishment as the verse earlier. It's describing the circumstances that rate that penalty. But if he doesn't die as a result, then he doesn't rate the same penalty.

Read just a little further, and you can see it lays out a lesser penalty for a lesser crime.

Eta: the eye and tooth references are colloquial. It's talking about personal injury more broadly. The eye for eye, tooth for tooth terminology just conveys a notion of reciprocal justice. The punishment has to fit the crime.

Which contradicts nothing I said nor does it contradict the earlier passage. Taken in context it's clear beating your foriegn slaves is acceptable within the limits set forth.

I'd be less snarky if you stopped trying to gaslight me when I keep saying things that are objectively correct. By all means try a quote a scripture you think disproves what I say. I've asked you many times…

I wish ancient texts were as perspicuous as you apparently think they are.

Yea that's between you and god. If you are going to claim I'm false when everything the scripture does actually manage to say agrees with me your going to have a hard time.

Your self-assuredness is remarkable.

It's because I've actually read it. Reading isn't hard. And I've seen your arguments and familiarity with the subject. You are trying to wish your views into existence.

Views which by the way most Christians I've met do not try to espouse. As I said an honest reading of these texts leads to real morality issues that Christians and Jews must contend with. They do so in all sorts of ways.