Do you really think it was okay for the Jews to have slaves ?
Do you think it was okay for Christians (or anyone else) to be or have slaves ?
If not (the correct answer) then why is it tacitly approved of in scripture instead of emphatically condemned as it was for the Jews in Egypt ?
Most slave ship owners in New Amsterdam were non Christians with hispano-iberian names.
Most slave ship owners in New Amsterdam were non Christians with hispano-iberian names.
Slavery was commonplace in ancient times—still is today in parts of the world. The difference with the Israelites is that most slaves went into servitude voluntarily, and even if bought were to be released after six years, iunless they chose to stay with their masters.
God was dealing with an ignorant and backward people, not modern society. Don’t judge the past by the standards of today. That’s what the left does.
And no, I don’t believe in Slavery, and i don’t think God does either, but therre’s no way, especially before Christ’s time, that Man was going to change overnight. But God sl;owly and surely led the way, teaching him Justice and Mercy, and the difference between the two.
Exodus 21 :: NIV. "If you buy a Hebrew servant, he is to serve you for six years. But in the seventh year, he shall go free, without paying anything. If he comes alone, he is to go free alone; but if he has a wife when he comes, she is to go with him.
Yes, in its regulated ameliorated form in that very labor-intensive slave-state (ANE and Rome and Greece) and competitive agrarian world context which the frontier Hebrews had to endure and compete with the rest, for whom slavery was an integral established institution, and 1st century Christians where in no position to change the system.
But slavery was quite different from that as typically described in the antebellum South (USA) as is typically understood, and with no recourse in case of mistreatment, from which there was no escape to freedom rather than freedom being given in case of debilitating injury caused by the owner, such as the loss of a tooth, or the lack of care for a wife, and an escaped slave was not to be returned to his master, but was free to go wherever he choose. See here.
And I think that "Thou shalt not deliver unto his master the servant which is escaped from his master unto thee: He shall dwell with thee, even among you, in that place which he shall choose in one of thy gates, where it liketh him best: thou shalt not oppress him" (Deuteronomy 23:15-16) may be applicable in principle to both a mature son who wishes to leave the family farm when other help is there, as well as the American revolution.