1over137 wrote:Words of my friend:
1. It's not prohibited to whip people to the blood, that's why in times of slavery not so long ago, people were whiped. Whipping your back does not break your teeth or destroy your eyes.
2. Furthemore, what when slave died in 7 days? Nothing probably.
I'm not quite sure what your friend means by number 2, but with number 1 he/she has made at least one mistake that I can see. The teeth and eyes are not the only thing covered by this law. It would apply to any serious, permanent, or debilitating injury. The use of teeth and eyes are likely just an example. After all, when Hammurabi's code says "an eye for and eye and a tooth for a tooth" it certainly doesn't mean to apply its logic of retribution to eyes and teeth only. It simply means that a loss will be repaid in kind, no matter what it is. A severe beating (as any that surpasses the maximum punishment set by the OT law could be), might leave the recipient with any or all of a number of lasting problems which would fall under verses 26 and 27. Even if all that is meant is the eyes and teeth, this is still a provision to protect the slave's honor, as it would be shameful to be struck in the face in the ANE. The Israelites would have understood this.
The fact that 'in times of slavery not so long ago' people were furiously beaten using the OT as justification doesn't matter (a minor point would be that in Israel they wouldn't use whips but rods, which wouldn't be nearly as lasting, painful, or bloody). God clearly states in Leviticus 25 that one must not treat servants ruthlessly and that they should be treated as hired help. If your friend wishes to complain about Exodus 21. 20-21, he/she should note that it directly follows instructions on what to do if two free men fight and one is injured but not killed. The punishment is the same as it is for a master and servant, except that in the case of a free person the victim must be compensated for time and healed, something that in the case of a master and servant would be taken care of already since the master is required by law to take care of his servants and since the servant's time belongs to him.
If by point 2 your friend means to suggest that if the servant died after seven days nothing would happen, he/she is certainly wrong. The punishment for killing another human being (unless it is entirely accidental) is execution. This applies wether the victim is male or female, an Israelite or a foreigner, a slave or a slave owner. If local authorities were convinced that a death occurred because of a beating a week or more ago, it would be no different than the case of a bandit who stole a man's supplies in the middle of the desert, causing him to die several days later from a lack of water.
Let us remember one more thing. Such beatings as mentioned here were probably quite uncommon (as were rapes as we discussed earlier since families went to great lengths to protect their female members). This was not American chattel slavery. Slavery as we understand it today is a cruel system that perpetuates and gradually increases its own atrocious nature. It was damaging not only to the slaves themselves, but to their masters. It was a system that often turned slave owners into immoral beasts. White slaveholders were separated from their slaves not only spatially and racially, but culturally as well. It is only natural that slave owners and drivers became brutal and merciless in such a system. Not only did their slaves not look like them, they doubtless SEEMED inferior. Slavery in America reinforced its own stereotypes of black slaves as unintelligent, cowering, wild brutes by forcing them to remain ignorant (it was illegal to teach a slave to read) and shaping them from the moment they were born into fearful, servile chattel. To many slave owners, it doubtless APPEARED that slaves were less than human because they had been stripped of any chance to better themselves, robbed of their hopes, and beaten into a generally defeated and worn population, having their humanity snatched away from them by the institution of slavery. Their ability to rise from such a low point in human history is a testament to the strength of their spirit. But this institution was NOT what was in place in Israel. The slaves of the Israelites were mostly Israelites, and even foreigners didn't have to worry because slavery was not about race at this time. Most slaves were not employed in agricultural labor, acting as house servants and actually residing among their master's family members. Quite regularly, the servants employed by a household would be drawn from their own neighbors, families they associated with on a semi regular basis. Servants attended festivals and rituals with their employers, were taken care of and provided for, and could even marry into the family they worked for. Does your friend think that many masters would savage such servants--people whose relatives they might very well know, who eat at the table with their sons and daughters, who are most likely fellow Israelites and who, because they must be released after seven years, may very well one day be neighbors or in laws that they'd need to rely on? I doubt it. They'd be, for the most part, respectful of their servant's rights, and that doesn't even take into account God's orders for them to do so