Clearly you did not read the entire article (as predicted).
So, as promised, I read the rest. Here are my findings:
So, I notice a lot of claims like this, and support with quotes from The Bible about other laws that were supposed to be followed:
The 'slavery' of the OT was essentially designed to serve the poor!
Can you address how this cancels out the violence that is supported by law, or the equating of people to "money" in Exodus 21:20-21? Can you please explain that to me?
And assuming statements like this:
in the OT context, this benefit is the SOLE JUSTIFICATION for even allowing a watered-down, temporary, semi-servanthood
Note how the author of this insane amount of (mostly useless) information just keeps trying to use more and more terms to make sure the reader believes that the slavery the Hebrews may have practices, as referenced in The Bible was "watered down", hell they almost make it out to be that the Masters were actually SAVING the slaves by taking them "under their wing" or something. Please explain how this excuses The Bible from equating people with "money." Please explain how this, in any way, excuses The Bible for describing the conditions by which you can beat another human to the point of death and not suffer any consequences yourself.
And more like this:
Forced enslavement of Hebrews was punishable by death.
Please explain how this excuses The Bible from equating people with "money."
Or this:
Although most of these arrangements were limited to six years in length (e.g. Deut 15.12 above), continuation of this relationship was possible, but ONLY AS a strictly voluntary act of the 'slave'
Note the fun use of quotes to try and denote that slavery here isn't really slavery. Please tell me how the use of quotes like this excuses The Bible from describing the conditions under which one can beat another human being to death and get away with it - because the "six years and voluntary continuation" bit certainly doesn't do that... so I am figuring these quotes must have something to do with it.
And then there is this whole huge detour that this UTTER CRAP takes that talks about daughters being sold by their fathers to "save the household" and tries to make that out to be some noble thing, and talking about how this isn't really slavery either, but more a "better" situation for the daughter to be in because she is then some well-to-do neighbors concubine, etc. EVEN IF I take none of it as "slavery" - let's say I grant that selling your daughter off to someone isn't slavery - even IF I accept that, guess what none of these girls was given? A choice. We're still left with laws and a system that traps probably nearly ALL girls in these societies into situations they didn't necessarily want to be in, but had no choice in the matter.
In the ancient world, a father, driven by poverty, might sell his daughter into a well-to-do family in order to ensure her future security.
not sold into slavery for general purposes, but only as a bride, and therefore with provisions restricting her owner-husband concerning her welfare if he should become dissatisfied with the union
Some Hebrew fathers thought it more advantageous for their daughters to become concubines of well-to-do neighbors than to become the wives of men in their own social class.
So, these girls are going somewhere with someone they hardly know, to be obligated to have sex with these people, and this is just "okay" because "the law" provided that they should be cared for? Do you think that law held up in ALL circumstances? Are you naive? Aren't you the one saying that all people are fallen, and sinners, and have all these predispositions to bad behavior? And you want to tell me that all of this is entirely "on the level?" Honestly... reading some of this stuff, it is probably WORSE than the slavery stuff in The Bible! Like this, WHAT THE HELL is this?
When you acquire a Hebrew slave... if his master gave him a wife, and she has borne him children, the wife and her children shall belong to the master, and he shall leave alone.
It literally says that if the "master" procured the wife of the slave for him, then that woman and any children the slave and the woman had are THE MASTER'S property! The guy who wrote this first recognizes this passage, quotes is, and then sets up like he's going to handily/easily refute how absolutely HORRIBLE this idea is and says this smug bit of garbage:
Sure, pal--I'll be glad to (but you'll regret asking me to interrupt the flow of this, with my typically verbose response…smile)
But when he "Defends" this passage/law, all he does is talk about how any wife to a slave must have also been a slave, and therefore was the master's property. Ummm... and this excuses the situation how? Well, let's see, the guy who wrote this crap says:
So, this should not be a serious issue for us.
which I guess is supposed to take care of it from his point of view. This guy is completely desensitized by his religious zeal to anything he's saying, obviously. When he added that gem about how this "should not be a serious issue", he had just got done quoting this:
In the ancient Near East is was a common practice for a master to mate a slave with a foreign bondwoman solely for the purpose of siring 'house born' slaves.
So apparently it is just fine and dandy for "master's" to force slaves to go have sex with strange women, in order to produce a child to then "own" also. What the hell is going on here? If anything, this guy is just digging deeper and deeper into a pit of heinous acts and possibilities that I would liken to some sick, twisted cultural underground and black market of sex and debauchery. I mean... if there were a society today doing these types of things, you Christians would be ALL OVER IT. Pointing to it as a sign that the world has turned to crap, and how everything is going downhill and "the end times are coming!" But, see this stuff in The Bible and it's "Oh, but everybody loved each other back then, so it's okay." You are seriously deluded. Just as deluded as the idiot who wrote all this crap up. Get with the program, man. Stop lying to yourself. I'm dead serious.
The general scholarly assessment is that this domestic "slavery" was not very atrocious, went way beyond "property only", and instead created family-like bonds:
Once again, please explain to me how this excuses The Bible from equating people with "money" and describing how you can beat another human to death and get away with it.
ALL servants were required to take the Sabbath day off--just like the masters.
Please explain to me how this excuses The Bible from equating people with "money" and describing how you can beat another human to death and get away with it.
And then the piece that is apparently in there to excuse Exodus 21:20-21:
"The second case involved a master striking his slave, male or female. Since the slave did not die immediately as a result of this act of using the rod (not a lethal weapon, however) but tarried for "a day or two" (v. 21), the master was given the benefit of the doubt; he was judged to have struck the slave with disciplinary and not homicidal intentions. This law is unprecedented in the ancient world where a master could treat his slave as he pleased.
So... this passage may actually have been "unparalleled in its humanitarian considerations." FOR THE TIME - let's even just grant that. The Bible was written to withstand ALL times, was it not? So, we have a book that exposes that some pretty horrible stuff has gone on, and instead of challenging it outright, it instead tries to soften the horror of it all a little. Do you get where I am coming from here? In many of our societies now, we would take a law like this being written onto the books as a serious backslide into uncivilized behavior, and an affront to our humanitarian efforts. And yet, this book is supposed to be the instruction manual for the ages, right? So how is it that this stuff made it into the book? How is this relevant for all times? Do you think we should adhere to these practices now? Should we revert to holding people, in our estimation, as "money?" Should we be allowed to beat our "money" for disciplinary reasons? If the "money" should eventually die as a result of our disciplinary actions, should we then be allowed to get out of any punishment for the act ourselves? If not, then why not? Isn't this all perfectly acceptable? How did your guy put it? "It should not be a serious issue." Right?
It is a remarkable assertion of human rights over property rights.
This is actually listed as a point defending Exodus 21: 20-21, within which a human being was just equated to "money." You'll have to forgive me if I am not on board with this. Not going to happen.
Summary: It should be QUITE CLEAR from the above, that the institution in the Mosaic law involving voluntary, fixed-term, flexible, and protected servant-laborer roles was unlike "western", chattel labor in almost ALL RESPECTS.
About as clear as mud. The law, as written, fosters certain ideas about people's relative worth and opens the possibilities for humans to own other humans. This is what it does. Period. And that is, in no way, "good." You, yourself, would probably already claim that people are prone to do terrible things to one another - to lie, cheat, steal - predisposed to sinning. Do you seriously want THE LAW to contain things that put such things into a light that casts them as acceptable? Like referring to other people as "money?" Drawing lines between people - this person can be owned, and this one can't? This person is "money," while this person is the owner of "money?" This person can beat the other for disciplinary reasons, and this other person cannot even lift a finger in protest to the law. Remember the part about slaves being unable to seek litigation against their masters? It's in there. And even that right there almost assuredly means that SOMEONE ELSE would have to advocate for the slave in any and all disputes against the master. They probably couldn't even take matters of abuse of the law to law officials themselves! And THIS is the system your guy wants us to think was hunky dory. I'm not buying it. You shouldn't either. That you have says A LOT about your character, honestly. If you think it doesn't, then go peddle your wares elsewhere. You are not welcome in my camp.
