God Condoned Chattel Slavery

Originally posted by @ghost-of-a-duke
I'll respond, but drop you like a stone sir if any of your nonsense arises.

If you replace 'slave' with 'unpaid servant' in the following passage, are you saying it then becomes acceptable to you as a Christian?

'Anyone who beats their male or female slave with a rod must be punished if the slave dies as a direct result, but they are not to be ...[text shortened]... hed if the slave recovers after a day or two, since the slave is their property.' (Exodus 21:20)

I was responding to the specific point about kidnapping. I’ve already addressed the point you’re raising here by saying God was working within a system developed by man, to whom He gave free will.

As for “nonsense,” to what are you referring?

Originally posted by @ghost-of-a-duke
My thoughts linger on, "...but they are not to be punished if the slave recovers after a day or two, since the slave is their property.' (Exodus 21:20)

If the slave is 'their property' how can it be claimed that God is against kidnap into slavery?

Think man.

The phrase, I think, is properly understood to mean that his injured slave is punishment enough for the unwise master.
The slave, after all is HIS OWN monetary benefit.

"Don't need to punish the master. That his money bag has suffered as a result of his rashness is punishment enough."

That's how I take it.

If the clause is about NOT punishing the master, I don't think there is a need to remind the Israelites that the master has unlimited right over "his property".

Originally posted by @romans1009
I was responding to the specific point about kidnapping. I’ve already addressed the point you’re raising here by saying God was working within a system developed by man, to whom He gave free will.

As for “nonsense,” to what are you referring?

Tiger, amigo, kiddo etc etc.


God said slaves (unpaid servants) were 'property', and was, therefore, validating them as such.

Originally posted by @sonship
The phrase, I think, is properly understood to mean that his injured slave is punishment enough for the unwise master.
The slave, after all is HIS OWN monetary benefit.

"Don't need to punish the master. That his money bag has suffered as a result of his rashness is punishment enough."

That's how I take it.

If the clause is about NOT punishing t ...[text shortened]... here is a need to remind the Israelites that the master has unlimited right over "his property".

Not a great answer, to be honest.

Originally posted by @romans1009
Maybe because “slavery” is more akin to indentured servitude where the “slave,” unable to pay off a debt, agrees to be an unpaid servant of the person to whom the debt is owed. No “kidnapping” takes place.

Unless I’m mistaken, the KJV uses the term “servant,” not slave.

You know some of these posters you can tell that to them a hundred times. Its just too good to them to believe that they don't have to listen to Christ because His Father was a supporter of Slavery.

This is one of the re-cycled Internet Infidel gems.
Kind of like who did Cain marry?

It won't be the last time it is brought up.

Originally posted by @ghost-of-a-duke
Tiger, amigo, kiddo etc etc.


God said slaves (unpaid servants) were 'property', and was, therefore, validating them as such.

Did God designate individuals as property or did the individuals themselves designate themselves as property by running up an unpayable debt and agreeing to become an unpaid servant to pay it off?

Originally posted by @ghost-of-a-duke
Not a great answer, to be honest.

Your attempt to teach unlimited chattel slavery was ordained in the Law of God, to be honest, is not a great analysis.

Your theory is severely undercut by the very instituting of the year of Jubiliee. Time for all slaves to be released.

And I already wrote of the foreigner in Israel, evidently, could rise in the social ranks so as to get slaves among the very Hebrews themselves.

How could that happen if the treatment of foreigners as slaves was permanent? There would be no possibility of non-Israelite in the land of Israel to advance in social status.

These are old battles argued by the Mennonites, the Quakers, and the Methodists to abolish slavery in Europe and in the Americas. (Some denominations were more theologically on the side of the slavers).

You're just re-hashing old debates of "God supports our having Slavery, you know?"

Originally posted by @romans1009
Did God designate individuals as property or did the individuals themselves designate themselves as property by running up an unpayable debt and agreeing to become an unpaid servant to pay it off?

God described them as property. He validated them as such. Wouldn't you expect an all-loving deity to say 'you may designate them as property, I do not?'

Instead of:

' not to be punished if the slave recovers after a day or two, since the slave is their property.'

Originally posted by @sonship
Your attempt to teach unlimited chattel slavery was ordained in the Law of God, to be honest, is not a great analysis.

Your theory is severely undercut by the very instituting of the year of [b]Jubiliee. Time for all slaves to be released.

And I already wrote of the foreigner in Israel, evidently, could rise in the social ranks so as to get slav ...[text shortened]... lavers).

You're just re-hashing old debates of "God supports our having Slavery, you know?"[/b]

That's okay sonship. This is just one of those areas where you don't really know what you are talking about. We all have them.

Originally posted by @ghost-of-a-duke
God described them as property. He validated them as such. Wouldn't you expect an all-loving deity to say 'you may designate them as property, I do not?'

Instead of:

' not to be punished if the slave recovers after a day or two, since the slave is their property.'

So you favor the translation of "property" over the admissible "money".

So if the master kills his human "property" by a beating it is judged as capital murder. That's what we have. Let's then work with that, just for argument's sake.

How come the master can't do whatever he well pleases with his property then? Its his property. He can save it or destroy it. He can do whatever he wants with his property.

Could you document a few cases in my country, the US, which was heavy into Slavery for a few centuries, of a white slave master tried and convicted for murder, at killing his African slave? Its his property, recommends the Bible.

Could you submit an instance of "avenging" or being "punished"at the hands of society in the antebellum South for a black African slave dying under the hands of his or her white American master?

Let me see if we're dealing with two identical systems.
I'm out here on a limb now. You just might find an instance.

Originally posted by @sonship
You know some of these posters you can tell that to them a hundred times. Its just too good to them to believe that they don't have to listen to Christ because His Father was a supporter of Slavery.

This is one of the re-cycled Internet Infidel gems.
Kind of like who did Cain marry?

It won't be the last time it is brought up.

Why don’t you post a few more links to books which help us “understand the god of the OT” or whatever it was you said?

So you think slaverly is morally acceptable

You think burning people alive for ETERNITY is morally acceptable

How about burying a woman up to her neck and having men stand around her and throw rocks at her until her skull caves and she dies...

Is that also morally acceptable?

Originally posted by @sonship
The phrase, I think, is properly understood to mean that his injured slave is punishment enough for the unwise master.
The slave, after all is HIS OWN monetary benefit.

"Don't need to punish the master. That his money bag has suffered as a result of his rashness is punishment enough."

That's how I take it.

If the clause is about NOT punishing t ...[text shortened]... here is a need to remind the Israelites that the master has unlimited right over "his property".

"Don't need to punish the master. That his money bag has suffered as a result of his rashness is punishment enough."

That's how I take it.


This for all intents and purposes is the same as the antebellum South: Slaves were beaten into submission as with any other beast of burden. Beating slaves so severely so as to kill them was a waste of money as was injuring them so severely that they were unable to work.

Originally posted by @sonship

"You shall not deliver to his master the slave who has escaped from his master to you; (v.15)

He shall dwell with you, even in your midst, in the place which he chooses among your towns wherever he pleases;

you shall not oppress him." (v.16)

Someone will object that [b]Deut. 23:15,16 only goes for Hebrew slaves and not fo ...[text shortened]... napping and slavery we know about in the Atlantic Slave Trade for hundreds of years in the West.[/b]

Following are other translations:

Deuterony 23:16

JPS 23:16 Thou shalt not deliver unto his master a bondman that is escaped from his master unto thee;

ONK 23:16 Thou shalt not deliver up a slave of the Gentiles into the hand of his master, when he hath escaped to thee from his master;

PAL 23:16 Thou shalt not deliver up a stranger into the hand of the worshipper of idols; (the sojourner) who hath escaped to be among you shall be under the protection of My Shekinah; for therefore he hath fled from his idolatry.

Pasted from <http://juchre.org/targums/comp/deut23.htm>

The specifics of the latter two make them consistent with Leviticus 25:44-46 as opposed to the first,

Originally posted by @thinkofone

If you have not yet answered my question to you - whether or not you honor the EXISTENCE of God in the first place, I have nothing further to talk about with you.

If you can't bring yourself to stand by an honest answer to that question, you and I are at a dead end in exchanging discussion on matters of Spirituality. .

Originally posted by @sonship
Let's talk about the part you didn't include:

[quote] [b]"Now if the means of a stranger [ger] or of a sojourner [toshab] with you becomes sufficient, and a countryman of yours becomes so poor with regard to him as to sell himself to a stronger who is sojourning with you, or to the descendants of a stranger's family, then he shall ...[text shortened]... aking Sense of the Old Testament God ] by Paul Copan, pgs 140,141, BakerBooks ] [my bolding][/b]

The fact of the matter is that in the OT were two basic groups: 
1) Hebrews that were indentured servents 
2) Non-Hebrews that were permanent slaves. 

The US similarly also had a separate system for indentured servants which was not chattel slavery.

The focus of this thread is on the second group which is described in Leviticus 25:44-46.

You keep conflating the two systems.