Slavery in the Bible

[Gman]

So fallen man sets the rules?

Does fallen man not have rules now?

Why didn't God give us a Bible that prescribed exactly how we should live and make allowances for the current reality in the "enforcement"? What advantage is there to having The Bible written to address the 2cd millennium BCE realities and then having all the discrepancies between 2cd millennium BCE and 2cd millennium AD make The Bible seem "out of date" giving ammunition to all the atheists. If He had The Bible address 2cd millennium BCE reality to make it "marketable" in the then current world, He should have planned on revisions as man changed. Why wouldn't He have made revisions?

The Bible is marketable for the current world. That being a framework to live by.. Why wouldn't God have made revisions? God can through man.. Man isn't exactly helpless you know.

If the NT is His "revision", why is the OT still in effect?

That's an entirely different subject, but basically many of the OT laws are not in effect anymore such as the ceremonial laws..

If your assumption that Biblical slavery was as benign as you claim is accurate, possibly. On the other hand, if Biblical slavery was more like slavery in the anti-bellum south, probably not, at least not physically.

You seem to be equating Exodus 21:20-21 with justified brute force by the master. What I said before is that we don't know what the motive was. We simply can't lock it into one's own understanding like what happened with blacks in America. The issue being around the word "if" not "why."

[Jac3510]

Gman,

I'm reading through Zuck, Merrill, and Bock's Biblical Theology of the Old Testament (Moody, 1991), and I came across this quote that I thought you might find very interesting with respect to Hebrew slavery:

Appropriately, the first stiulation concerns bondage (21:2-6) because the essence of the covenant was the deliverance of Israel by Yahweh from bondage to Egyptian domination. Hebrews who found themselves indentured to other Hebrews were allowed to go free in the seventh year, a fact that clearly relates the significance of redemption to creation. The universe was created by Yahweh in six days and on the seventh it entered into the rest of His sovereignty, a rest in which man shared the freedom of lordship. But the other side of the matter was the freedom of the slave to decide to remain with his master. This shifts the focus from that of deliverance from an evil master to commitment to a gracious one. The slave, given the opportunity to disrupt the relationship with his lord, declared his covenant loyalty by asserting that he loved his master (v. 5). He followed this declaration by submitting to the slave mark (v. 6), thus bearing witness to the world of his voluntary vassalage and of his intention to serve his master forever. The analogy to Israel as a vassal people to Yahweh is obvious. (41-42)

I don't have time to fully put this quote in its broader context, but very briefly, he is pointing out the fact that Ex: 20-23 are written in the form of a sovereign-vassal treaty, with the Ten Commandments serving as the general stipulations (the apodictic laws) and Book of the Covenant (20:22-23:33) serving as the specific stipulations, or explanatory applications of the generals (casuistic laws).

In light of this, the passage on slavery is very much an application of the Ten and speaks more broadly to Israel's relationship with God. It is in that view that biblical "slavery" ought to be understood.

[Gman]

Gman,

I'm reading through Zuck, Merrill, and Bock's Biblical Theology of the Old Testament (Moody, 1991), and I came across this quote that I thought you might find very interesting with respect to Hebrew slavery:

Very interesting Jac.... Now that makes perfect sense.

Thank you very much for the input.

[Gman]

Of course a fight may involve injuries. But 21:18 and 21:22 explicitly state they apply to quarrels and fights. You are assuming 21:20-21 is intended to as well.

I just remembered something... In the Hebrew, there is no punctuation. No periods at all.. Punctuation was added by the English translators including chapters and verses etc... So technically, Exodus 21:20-21 could very well be used in context of a fight, although we really don't know the motive here.

[waynepii]

Of course a fight may involve injuries. But 21:18 and 21:22 explicitly state they apply to quarrels and fights. You are assuming 21:20-21 is intended to as well.

I just remembered something... In the Hebrew, there is no punctuation. No periods at all.. Punctuation was added by the English translators including chapters and verses etc... So technically, Exodus 21:20-21 could very well be used in context of a fight, although we really don't know the motive here.

Interesting.

They didn't have any way of indicating pauses and breaks in their writing?

[Gman]

Of course a fight may involve injuries. But 21:18 and 21:22 explicitly state they apply to quarrels and fights. You are assuming 21:20-21 is intended to as well.

I just remembered something... In the Hebrew, there is no punctuation. No periods at all.. Punctuation was added by the English translators including chapters and verses etc... So technically, Exodus 21:20-21 could very well be used in context of a fight, although we really don't know the motive here.

Interesting.

They didn't have any way of indicating pauses and breaks in their writing?

True.. No pauses, periods, capitol letters, indentations, commas, verse numbers, etc.. Just one big long scroll, with differnet books however. The greek bible (new testement) was the same as well.

[Canuckster1127]

The greek new testament didn't have chapters and verses but koine greek does have a bit more differentiation than Hebrew. Different set of challenges there.

[Gman]

The greek new testament didn't have chapters and verses but koine greek does have a bit more differentiation than Hebrew. Different set of challenges there.

Bart, I read somewhere that the original greek was in all capitol letters. Do you know anything about this?

Also was the NT written in koine greek?

[Canuckster1127]

The greek new testament didn't have chapters and verses but koine greek does have a bit more differentiation than Hebrew. Different set of challenges there.

Bart, I read somewhere that the original greek was in all capitol letters. Do you know anything about this?

Yes. Uncials and miniscules is how it's referred to.

http://www.skypoint.com/members/waltzmn ... cript.html

This might help a little bit to understand what it is talking about.

[Jac3510]

In case anybody is still interested in this topic, here is a GREAT article (long!) by Glenn Miller on slavery in the ANE, Israel, and the Western world.

http://www.christian-thinktank.com/qnoslave.html

That is all.

[Alex G]

Slavery is a human institution and it is not immoral or moral per se. That is to say, being owned by someone or owning someone is not a moral context. Hence the Bible does not treat owning or being owned by someone, rather it deals with how we are to conduct ourselves either as slave or master and that is with a good conscience regarding our duties to either.

People don't like to hear this but that simply the way it is. The truth is the Bible neither condemns or condones it, this is a matter of human institutions.