Posted on 05/31/2009 9:26:02 AM PDT by Freepmanchew
The topic of slavery is usually accompanied by bitter feelings and condemnation for Americas past. Like America, many civilizations have used slavery as a means of providing labor. Samarian drawings on clay tablets dating back to 4000 BC show captives taken in battle being tied, whipped, and forced to work. Then there are ancient papyrus manuscripts from 2100 BC that record the ownership of slaves by private citizens in Egypt. The earliest mention of slavery in the Bible would be Genesis 9:25 when Noah cursed the descendants of Canaan. From Abraham on down we read of the men in the Bible owning slaves and the Israelites themselves becoming slaves, but never do we read of God condemning slavery. We do read of Him telling Moses how to treat slaves in Exodus chapter 21, but neither God nor Jesus ever condemned the practice.
(Excerpt) Read more at norcalblogs.com ...
>to say that slavery is evil (sin) is to take a step further than the gospel or NT is willing to go.<
I did not say that N.T. slavery, when examining all that was required of both parties, was sin, and if it were then the N.T. certainly would be willing to say so. What i am saying is that
1. The command to keep slavery was not a moral imperative like laws against idolatry, stealing, illicit sex partners, etc., but was used to subject enemies, as well as (mainly) regulating and ameliorating an integral and established part of a cultural economic system. And which, taken together with other aspects, worked quite well for Israel, and thus ultimately for all.
2. Under the N.T. the totality of commands regarding slavery radically reformed it, and while slaves were only recommended to obtain freedom, and owners not outright commanded to give them such, yet it is seen working toward such, with slavery being left as a cultural appendage that the fuller outworking of Holy Christian love could jettison when such opportunity enabled. In contrast (in case any pro homosexuals are trolling), purely moral laws of the Old Testament, versus judicial and civil legislation, are affirmed and even made stricter.
The very fact that slavery, even without the awful imagery recent history left us, seems so antithetic to the overall Christian doctrine of love of neighbor, makes abolition a goal, with its regulated allowed form works toward such.
Today, if China was a slave state as Rome was, i can see how the church treat it the same way, with the Christian ethos of love for God and man working toward the same effect.
I see no way around it. But I'm than happy to be corrected, because I really don't like the conclusion.
As far as the dollar losing value it's one way we get out of debt. Not pretty - and the Chinese are catching on...
I don't know where you "sock" your money away that makes you feel like a enslaved fool, but if it's making you feel that way, you need to sock it some place else.
>Does that mean its also ok to kill babies,,, sometimes?<
Actually, conditionally, yes. Taking the larger context, when your God does things like
part a sea for you to go through,while drowning all your oppressors,
after outdoing all their supernatural competition big time,
and feeds you clearly miraculously,
and you wake up in the morning and are led day by day by a cloud that stops for day or so, and a pillar of fire at night,
etc.
and the nations He commands them to destroy have been engaging in gross sinful behavior (read what God told Israel not to do morally) which was destructive to self and other cultures (we are doing much now also)
and you live in a physical theocracy, which used physical means of warfare, unlike the church is given
and this God is manifested as the true God, the author of life, and has the right to take life, not only the wicked who deserve to, but the innocent which he can save from following their steps.
He will do such again, but in time, in His long suffering toward mankind who has unjustly hurt the innocent and each other, and and messed up His earth, disobeying His good laws and misusing the good things that he gave us, which are all for our good. Best to be on the Lord’s side when the age of grace is over. Or your own life.
Ecc 7:29 Lo, this only have I found, that God hath made man upright; but they have sought out many inventions.
Act 3:19 Repent ye therefore, and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out, when the times of refreshing shall come from the presence of the Lord;
1Pe 3:18 For Christ also hath once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh, but quickened by the Spirit:
>I’m sure Wikipedia will be updated with that information soon.<
I know well that WP noticeably slants to the Left, often explicitly, but i read some from others who contended that some non-Christian were openly opposing slavery before us. If the Lord leads, sign on to WP as an editor and add what you can verify.
Funny you should mention that. I had an ancestor who is recorded as serving terms of indenture to completion.
Now where's my 40 acres and a mule?!?
; D
well whoop-dee-do, mr bigshot investor.
Do you think it’s normal for us to scramble like this while trying to compensate for inflation eating away at our savings? If so maybe you are just a good little slave trained to scramble very well whenever he’s told. Sure you’ve been brainwashed into thinking inflation is normal, but that doesn’t make it true. It just means you’re a good little slave.
If we spend like a drunken sailors, and borrow every dime to try to live on future earnings, we're going to have financial troubles.
It doesn't mean I'm in favor of people weighing 500 pounds and it doesn't mean I'm in favor of financial ruin - - it just means cause and effect are alive and well.
It all really depends on whether you are the slave or the master doesn’t it?
What did Jesus teach? And if the Bible says slavery is okay, then why do we not have it to this day? Instead of putting all these people into jails, feeding them at taxpayer's expense, why not distribute them as slaves to housholds that could use and exra pair of hands for the duration of their snetences?
Surely, slavery must be morally right and good—if the Bible says it is! So, why have Christians abolished it (along wiht another Biblical classic—polygamy)?!
I don't know where you are getting your ideas from. The printing press was invented in Europe in 1453 (15th century) and last vestiges of slavery were abolished in Europe and the US in the latter half of the 19th century, more than 400 years later.
In addition to that, there was no need to wait the printing press: there were tens of thousands of hand-made copies of the Bible available (the so-called 'majority text').
And even after they were printed en masse, most of the people were illiterate and couldn't read them, let alone afford them!
Actually it was common to make slaves of convicted felons right into near the end of the 20th Century.
They were used in "chain gangs" for road maintenance and other functions, and to make things in prison workshops, and grow food on prison farms.
13th Amendment: "Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction."
People first must free themselves from the tyranny of warlords before they can free anyone else.
Also....I suggest that you do a Google search in the words: “Gutenberg, Literacy, and rise”. You will see that literacy spread rapidly throughout Europe after the invention of the printing press in the mid-1450s.
The big breakthrough was Luther's and Tyndall translations of the bible in the early 1500s. There is a reason the English warlord, King Henry VIII, burned William Tyndall at the stake. The bible is a genuine threat to any tyrant's power. Imagine that! We are equal in the sight of God!
The warlords of Europe were tamed because the common people understood that if we are equal in the sight of God, then we must also be equal when standing before earthly law. The common people demanded it and got it.
Once free they could turn their attention to others. It was Christians, especially, and their tireless preaching and work that finally abolished slavery throughout the world. Please do a Google on William Wiberforce and his tireless work.
But...I suppose you would prefer to hold to your anti-Christian prejudices. Where did you learn this? A government K-12 school? A university?
The rule of law, peace, freedom from slavery, and prosperity that you and I enjoy to today is built entirely upon the philosophy of Christianity. We no longer need to be tribal with allegiance only to our clan. We can trust our neighbor and others beyond our tiny village. Trade is possible because we have honest courts to enforce contracts.
Destroy Christianity and we will soon be living under warlords like the barbarians in Somalia.
Surely, I hope you do not stand with those bigots who hate Christianity.
is everything in the bible translated 100% correct? No. Is it evil to try and use a holy book to justify a very evil practice that is enslaving so many Sudanese innocents and murdering their men? Yes. I challenge the author to read the book by Mr. Bok “ Escape from Slavery” And then come back and answer his own question. And, I ask, if he were to be enslaved against his will would he then consider it evil? Of course he would!
you didn’t even know that the endentured worker and slave meant the same in those days. Seems like you should have done your homework better.
Thanks for the ping!
But racially based slavery was condemned by the pope in 1430’s...POW slaves yes, enslaving others because of race no...
In the days when starvation was a real issue, some poor men sold themselves into slavery in the ancient world...similar to Chinese selling their girls into slavery during famines...
And it required the master to care for his slaves when they were sick...unlike the good Brits who threw out the Irish and destroyed their houses when the potato famine came and they couldn't pay rent, and then ignored them when they died on the side of the road.
Ironically, the slaves of ancient Rome had more civil right than those of the American south...and a freedman's son actually became an emperor.
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