The new testament and slavery.

How can you consider a book that condones such violence and mistreatment of humans, at all capable of being taken seriously as a case against slavery?

The whole reason we are having this discussion is because we are concerned with the humane treatment of others.

How at all does the Old Testament a violent and intolerant book, add any weight to an argument concerned with the just treatment of others?

Care to explain?

And finally, I can find myriad examples in the old testament that shows that slavery was brutal and forced.

I just guess that any reasonable individual would find it ludicrous and patently absurd to quote a book that condones the brutal murder and killing of individuals, in any way supporting equality and as being anti-slavery.

But fine, different strokes for different folks...... so let's start with the most obvious.

1 Kings 12:1-19

New International Version - UK (NIVUK)

1 Kings 12
Israel Rebels Against Rehoboam
1 Rehoboam went to Shechem, for all the Israelites had gone there to make him king.

2 When Jeroboam son of Nebat heard this (he was still in Egypt, where he had fled from King Solomon), he returned from Egypt.

3 So they sent for Jeroboam, and he and the whole assembly of Israel went to Rehoboam and said to him:

4 Your father put a heavy yoke on us, but now lighten the harsh labour and the heavy yoke he put on us, and we will serve you.

5 Rehoboam answered, Go away for three days and then come back to me. So the people went away.

6 Then King Rehoboam consulted the elders who had served his father Solomon during his lifetime. How would you advise me to answer these people? he asked.

7 They replied, If today you will be a servant to these people and serve them and give them a favourable answer, they will always be your servants.

8 But Rehoboam rejected the advice the elders gave him and consulted the young men who had grown up with him and were serving him.

9 He asked them, What is your advice? How should we answer these people who say to me, 'Lighten the yoke your father put on us'?

10 The young men who had grown up with him replied, Tell these people who have said to you, 'Your father put a heavy yoke on us, but make our yoke lighter'— tell them, 'My little finger is thicker than my father's waist.

11 My father laid on you a heavy yoke; I will make it even heavier. My father scourged you with whips; I will scourge you with scorpions.'

12 Three days later Jeroboam and all the people returned to Rehoboam, as the king had said, Come back to me in three days.

13 The king answered the people harshly. Rejecting the advice given him by the elders,

14 he followed the advice of the young men and said, My father made your yoke heavy; I will make it even heavier. My father scourged you with whips; I will scourge you with scorpions.

15 So the king did not listen to the people, for this turn of events was from the LORD, to fulfil the word the LORD had spoken to Jeroboam son of Nebat through Ahijah the Shilonite.

16 When all Israel saw that the king refused to listen to them, they answered the king:

What share do we have in David, what part in Jesse's son? To your tents, O Israel! Look after your own house, O David!

So the Israelites went home.

17 But as for the Israelites who were living in the towns of Judah, Rehoboam still ruled over them.

18 King Rehoboam sent out Adoniram, who was in charge of forced labour, but all Israel stoned him to death. King Rehoboam, however, managed to get into his chariot and escape to Jerusalem.

19 So Israel has been in rebellion against the house of David to this day.



Relevant to this discussion would be the following passage;

God blesses Solomon-1 Kings 4 vs. 29:

And God gave Solomon wisdom and understanding exceeding much, and largeness of heart.

RELEVANCE

You can't simply argue that god did not approve of Solomon's forced labor because apparently he was responsible for Solomons wisdom and his largeness of heart.

God clearly approved of Solomon and thus his actions; which makes perfect sense because Jesus himself never condemned those who owned slaves, it says it clearly in the new testament.

You can't get around this one, no matter how hard you try.

 

You know, I once heard that Jefferson, although he owned slaves, he would make sure that the families were kept together and not apart unlike most owners of slaves. I'm not going to hand him the humanitarian award or anything, but I thought it was overall better than what most owners were doing and I shared it because I thought it was interesting and relates to the thread.

A kind of humanitarian slavery some would say.

 

I don't know great detail about it. I just know that during the empire that Xerxes I was a part of (Wiki tells me it's the Achaemenid Empire) slavery was mostly banned. But different king of kings did different things. And from what I heard, following the controversy of 300, Xerxes was one of the ones that didn't allow slavery at all.

 

Wait so are you still behind the idea that Jesus didn't condone slavery?

I don't get your position on this issue.

 

I find a lot of the Old Testament really inspiring, especially the Prophets, Ecclesiastes, Job, even parts of Leviticus--parts that never get quoted. I was at a meeting of a church group recently, and a woman brought up Leviticus with reference to gays. After dealing with that, I brought up passages dealing with social justice, in Leviticus and other parts of the Bible. The woman broke into tears and said she felt judged. I really did nothing other than quote the Bible, but it obviously touched a nerve and caused some guilt to surface.

For the Old Testament, I take my cues from Micah 6:8 ("And what does the Lord require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God") and from Jesus, who told us the First and Second Commandments are the crux. I agree with you that taken literally, the Old Testament has a lot of passages condoning genocide, slavery, subordination of women, homophobia, etc. And I refuse to try to justify them. Taken in historical context, they reflect a variable effort on the part of humans to understand God, and the evolution of their thinking on the subject is impressive. But I also draw on other spiritual traditions, like Buddhism, Hinduism, Islam, Zoroastrianism, and Aztec-Toltec theology, which is also inspiring once you get past all the human sacrifice.

 

There was and wasn't an evolution of human thinking from the OT to NT. God himself commanded many of the most atrocious and heinous acts in the OT. It's not as if the violence in the OT was purely from humans. It was from two things; humans thinking that god wants them to do this and god commanding it these violent act's be done.

There is plenty of proof god commanded that these acts be done.

Also, you shouldn't really be commenting on this thread if you read the bible for inspiration. Were taking the claims and breaking them down, exposing nonsense and showing how the bible is generally a book of hatred and domination.

We are looking at the bible rationally and as a whole, not this pick and choose fairytale that you would love to believe.

If you want to ignore these things, all power to ya, life isn't serious after all. When you die you will know the truth anyways.

I know you like to believe that god exists, but just stay out of arguments like these and spare me of your 'I believe what I want to believe attitude'

Deal?

 

You like the prophet elisha son of elijah?

Apparently he cursed 42 children for offending him for calling him bald head and then seconds after the curse 2 bears came from the woods and mauled all 42 of them.

Ain't that something.

2 Kings 2:23-25

23 Then he went up from there to Bethel; and as he was going up by the way, young lads came out from the city and mocked him and said to him, “Go up, you baldhead; go up, you baldhead!” 24 When he looked behind him and saw them, he cursed them in the name of the LORD. Then two female bears came out of the woods and tore up forty-two lads of their number. 25 And he went from there to Mount Carmel, and from there he returned to Samaria.

 

This is a case of some one wanting to prove something so badly that they will try to make something out of nothing.

First, These Scriptures are talking about slavery, they are talking about the relationship between a government and it's people.

Next, the Scriptures you point out here are necessarily proof that Solomon was ever a "cruel" ruler because him being a "cruel" ruler is not mentioned anywhere else and so could be the people just exaggerating their actual conditions to get a favorable change in their conditions.

But let's suppose the their complains were not exaggerated and that Solomon was a "cruel" ruler that put heavy burdens on his people. Let's see if God was in favor.

Please keep in mind that Solomon did not remain loyal to God:
1 Kings 11:1-8 (NIVUK)
1 King Solomon, however, loved many foreign women besides Pharaoh's daughter— Moabites, Ammonites, Edomites, Sidonians and Hittites. 2 They were from nations about which the LORD had told the Israelites, You must not intermarry with them, because they will surely turn your hearts after their gods. Nevertheless, Solomon held fast to them in love.
3 He had seven hundred wives of royal birth and three hundred concubines, and his wives led him astray.
4 As Solomon grew old, his wives turned his heart after other gods, and his heart was not fully devoted to the LORD his God, as the heart of David his father had been.
5 He followed Ashtoreth the goddess of the Sidonians, and Molech the detestable god of the Ammonites.
6 So Solomon did evil in the eyes of the LORD; he did not follow the LORD completely, as David his father had done.
7 On a hill east of Jerusalem, Solomon built a high place for Chemosh the detestable god of Moab, and for Molech the detestable god of the Ammonites.
8 He did the same for all his foreign wives, who burned incense and offered sacrifices to their gods.

And it is likely that it was during this time, when turn he turned away from God, that Solomon began to treat subjects with increasing cruelty. How did God feel about it?
1 Kings 11:9-13 (NIVUK)
9 The LORD became angry with Solomon because his heart had turned away from the LORD, the God of Israel, who had appeared to him twice.
10 Although he had forbidden Solomon to follow other gods, Solomon did not keep the LORD's command.
11 So the LORD said to Solomon, Since this is your attitude and you have not kept my covenant and my decrees, which I commanded you, I will most certainly tear the kingdom away from you and give it to one of your subordinates.
12 Nevertheless, for the sake of David your father, I will not do it during your lifetime. I will tear it out of the hand of your son.
13 Yet I will not tear the whole kingdom from him, but will give him one tribe for the sake of David my servant and for the sake of Jerusalem, which I have chosen.

Since God here says; you have not kept my covenant and my decrees, which I commanded you, it would seem plain that Solomon was not doing God told him to do, to me that would include the "slavery" you say was going on.

And I didn't even have to try very hard.

 

Yes, Jesus didn't condone slavery as we understand slavery today.

 

"“Young lads.” The KJV has “little children” which really misses the meaning here. These were not children, but young men. The word “lads” is the Hebrew naar and was used of servants, of soldiers and of Isaac when he was 28 years old. This was a crowd of young men, perhaps students of the false prophets, who were here as antagonists to Elisha’s prophetic ministry and authority. If not students, they were sent by the false prophets or idolatrous priests of Bethel to stop Elisha from entering the city. In Elisha Satan had an enemy and he was acting to protect his territory. Remember, however, Elisha was going to Bethel not to curse, but to bless."

Those 'kids' were most likely men in their thirties, and they weren't making a friendly jibe at him. Whenever someone was in great distress, they would tear out their hair, so a bald head signifies grief. He was grieving the loss of his friend and mentor. Other than that, these ones were working for Jezebel, and were a form of an ancient gang set out to kill the prophet by command of Jezebel. In order to work for Jezebel, they chose not to help out their families and back then that pretty much could mean death for their family.

So what really happened was that grown men who were in a gang set out to kill the prophet, were making fun of his grieving the loss of his friend and mentor.

Also, do you think only 2 little female bears could kill so many? What it says is that they were torn up, in other words ruffled up and they scattered.

As well, an interesting fact, well I thought it was interesting, is that the creator of Lord of The Rings was a self professed Christian and he made the Hobbit's coming of age at 30. He could have been inspired by the Bible to make it that way.

Here's for more information:
http://bible.org/seriespage/elisha-and-two-bears-2-kings-223-25

 

I disagree.

Young Lad's probably means children. Other versions of the bible even have it as children and not young lads. Considering that a man was considered full grown at about the age of 16(and judging from the fact that life expectancy was 40-50 before, they would have considered 16 year olds to be adults.

2:23 And he went up from thence unto Bethel: and as he was going up by the way, there came forth little children out of the city, and mocked him, and said unto him, Go up, thou bald head; go up, thou bald head.
2:24 And he turned back, and looked on them, and cursed them in the name of the LORD. And there came forth two she bears out of the wood, and tare forty and two children of them.
2:25 And he went from thence to mount Carmel, and from thence he returned to Samaria.

 

And would it matter? Mauling of adults for insulting a prophet is okay? Does it seem a little harsh to you? Do you think there is a firm basis for saying that these were thirty year olds, and that they were not fatally injured, or could the apologetics factory be up to its usual tricks? If these were 30 year old adults who were students of a false prophet opposed to Elijah's ministry, wouldn't you think that the Bible would have clarified that relevant point? Would someone like to give us an enlightened account of those Midianite kids who met their comeuppins, or those kids who died at Sodom--bad to the bone, the whole prepubescent lot of them!

 

What a blunder of a post that was Oldwaterbrother.

 

So you're a biblical literalist. Many of us aren't. As for picking and choosing, I like to think of it as thinking, analyzing, and evaluating on the basis of experience, available evidence, and scholarship. You can believe as you like. It's a free country, I guess.

 

Evidence, show me the evidence.

Show me how do unto other's the way you would have them do unto you in any ways is involved in this humanitarian slavery that you speak of??

I can't agree with you, until you do.

I believe that Jesus's law was specific and only applicable to owners of property(love thy neighbor) and/or persons.

In these times slaves had no rights and were not considered persons more rather like property, so Jesus commanding us to follow the golden rule doesn't apply to slavery's abolition because the treatment was only meant to be directed amongst persons to person and not person to property.

In short, if a slave is property, technically people could still follow Jesus's golden rules of love and keep slaves , because keeping slaves is akin to owning a house/land.

I know it's a hard one, but since you have been very nice I would be happy to answer any other questions.

Unlike oldwaterbrother who charges me of dishonest debating, ignoring crucial information and having clear bias.

:2thumbsup:

 

Yes. I tend to take thing's as they are and not pick and choose whatever it is I want to believe, so that I can feel inspired.

Show me one piece of Scholarship that show's that god didn't mean or never said "Kill that man because he was collecting stick's on the Sabath".

I don't beleive as a like, your the one who believes as they like. You said it yourself, "You search for inspiration not truth"

What a shame, you seemed like an intelligent guy.

And yes I am waiting for your scholarship....

oh and BTW you probably meant something different than scholarship.

schol·ar·ship/ˈskälərˌSHip/Noun
1. Academic study or achievement; learning of a high level.
2. A grant or payment made to support a student's education, awarded on the basis of academic or other achievement.

 

So do I. I just believe what I think can be supported by substantial evidence, is not contrary to reason, and I'm willing to bet my life on. And I take metaphors seriously, as keys to deeper truths.

Unless you mean that passage specifically, there are so many it would take considerable time to list them (particularly if we include atheist literature), but let's try Marcus Borg, Reading the Bible Again for the First Time: "The Bible should be taken seriously but not literally". I'd also recommend Finkelstein and Silberman, The Bible Unearthed, which presents evidence that neither God nor the Hebrews committed many of the atrocities people complain about, because they never happened but were made up by Yahwehists long after the periods in which they were said to have occurred. Along the same lines, try Friedmann, Who Wrote the Bible? But we may be speaking of two different levels of reality. You sound like a soap opera watcher who takes the characters way too seriously. I don't think God said that , because I don't think (S)he ever "said" anything.

As I said, I try not to believe as I "like" but I do try to uphold a view of reality that's consistent with reason and the facts. I realize and accept that humans, including myself and presumably you, are, in fact, governed by non-rational influences that color their choices. Besides trying to be aware of these and keeping them to a minimum, I give it my best shot, place my bets and take my chances on the basis of reality as I perceive it. But I don't delude myself into thinking that either of us will ever have a full understanding of "the truth". By the way, I think you misunderstood the meaning of the quotation. I don't read ancient religious texts for factual truths, particularly about science or historical facts. And I think inspiration is a good thing. Truth and inspiration aren't mutually exclusive. As an existentialist, I think reality is largely what we make of it.

Wishful thinking. Humans have no understanding of "the mind".

Thanks. On a more peaceful note, I'd like to thank you for your contributions to this thread, in providing solid refutation of some of the apologetic arguments put forward by the literalists.

 

The only blunder is that you are so blinded by your prejudices you couldn't understand it.

 

Looks like someone gave up.

:2thumbsup:

Good, you were arguing out of your ass.

You will soon see the truth anyways.

Death is close my friend for both of us my friend.

 

You are the one who didn't answer my post, so I guess it is you that gave up.

As for death I don't see it my near future but if you want to die, feel free.