DEBUNKING THE ALARMING CLAIM THAT GOD IN THE BIBLE CONDONED NICE SLAVERY NOT NASTY SLAVERY! 

If another religion came along that opposed slavery, the Christians would object to the religion. They are so arrogant that they consider having Christianity to be worth any slavery or "mistakes" no matter what the human cost.

The Old and New Testaments claim to be the word of God and they condone and even encourage slavery though it seemed obvious that it was wrong. The Bible laws on slavery are all stated to have been made by God and spoken by him. The New Testament makes it clear, and so did Jesus, that the Old Testament is infallible scripture, authored by the God who cannot err. To say the Old Testament makes no moral mistakes is to say slavery is not intrinsically wrong and that it is acceptable.  We do not know what Jesus Christ did before his ministry and what would we think if it came out that he own slaves or was employed to control them?

Modern Christians want to forget that the book they say has the authority to tell them what to do blesses slavery. It is a shock to many that the New Testament sanctions it.

Jesus told a parable saying we naturally expect slaves to come in from the fields and serve us at the table. Is he only saying slavery is happening? Or is he normalising slavery-promoting attitudes? It is the latter. He did not need to use slaves as examples. Evil always thrives when somebody normalises it or at least stops anybody wanting to be the odd-one-out by criticising it.
 
It is interesting how some Christians claim that we must accept no doctrine unless it is in the Bible and these are the ones who say, "Slavery is wrong and God didn't want to just order people to stop the practice immediately. He regulated and tolerated it hoping to wean the people off it gently and with mercy and understanding." This teaching is not in the Bible. Leviticus 25:44-46 tells Israel that it may buy male or female slaves. It even says they may be bequeathed to your sons. This is permission and not tolerance. Tolerance would be, "I am the Lord and I do not like slavery. But I will let you buy slaves." God had hundreds of years to wean them off it if the Old Testament is to be believed. And he didn't. Nothing in the Old Testament explicitly condemns slavery. No matter what massive social or cultural change Israel suffered, its acceptance of slavery was never challenged by God. When they didn't need slaves or couldn't use them, God still said nothing. The argument that God was only accommodating himself to the flawed social structures of those times in order to gently overcome them and the people's devotion to them is only a rationalisation. LGBT Christians argue that God may have banned homosexuality in the past for the same reason!
 
We must remember that Exodus gives the words God used when he legislated that a slave may be beaten badly but care must be taken not to do them permanent damage. It was okay to beat them up savagely as long as they didn't die during the beating but after. Read Exodus 21:7-11. When God went out of his way to make such an evil law in relation to slaves, he clearly accepts the notion of slaves being inferior beings. Nobody can be sane and argue that Israel needed the right to abuse slaves which was why God tolerated the abuse. That excuse cannot hold water here and it in fact insults those who suffered because of God's law. God gives no hint that he let the beatings take place for cultural reasons or because the people were intransigent. In fact he gives no hint that the laws are temporary or provisional. The :Law of Moses claims to be an everlasting law. Indeed Exodus attacks the culture of occultism and idolatry. Exodus presents Israel as struggling to accept the law so it is nonsense to imagine that poor God had no choice but to make some bad laws to avoid having to make worse ones.
 
Instead of trying to pretend that God had to put up with slavery in the Bible, it is better to say the Bible is man-made and the doctrine that God put up with slavery is merely a mistake or an example of human craftiness. You cannot accuse people of being so stubborn that even God has to make evil laws to please them. You must never accuse others on faith grounds.
 
The Hebrews had foreign and even Hebrew slaves and God approved and controlled slavery. God's book, the Bible - see Deuteronomy 23:15-16, says that if the Hebrew finds a runaway slave then he must not give her/him back to her/his master. It cannot mean Hebrew and foreign slaves for that would mean all slaves would be running way. It cannot mean Hebrew slaves if most slaves were Hebrew. That would mean too many would be getting their freedom. It means foreign slaves must not be returned. The book Christianity is Not Great notes that the context is about runaway slaves from roundabout nations. They are given refuge simply because they were not enslaved under Hebrew law and because sending them back to the pagans would be doing the pagans some good. They were not given refuge out of kindness.

The Bible God made laws permitting buying and selling of slaves and even let masters beat them to a pulp as long as he took care to ensure that they would live for a day or two after. Do you really think he had to make this law even if Israel was stubborn? Demanding the right to have slaves does not mean you will demand the right to batter them. Also, God surely could have got Israel to buy only foreign slaves and not be buying and selling its own people as slaves. If poor God was forced by bad Israel to tolerate slavery then he still had no excuse for going that far. The conclusion is obvious, God endorsed slavery and was not merely putting up with it.

Ebed, the Hebrew word for slave, is used to describe being forced to submit to an alien power (Encyclopaedia of Bible Difficulties, page 87) so evidently to be a slave is not a nice thing. The nobles might have been said to be slaves of the king in a honorific sense (ibid, page 87) but still to be a slave is not to have real honour. If a master honours his slave he is mocking that slave for slavery is wrong and unloving. It is the same principle as a man praising you for letting him beat you up.

The Bible God regulates and condones slavery in its worst and most evil form.  That people would lie about this says a lot about their dark hearts. No mainstream Church would have the power and money and influence it has today without its members selling slaves and exploiting them.

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