Using the Bible as an excuse for bigotry

[Outrider]

I'll join you on the limb and say that the Old Testament never uses the word 'slave'.

If you buy and sell people, they are slaves.  You can call them 'servants', you can call them 'chattel', you can call them chinchillas if it makes you happy, but they're slaves.

You could buy or sell a servant, but you had the same master as him/her which was God.

Which just suggests that one of the reasons God doesn't speak out about the abhorrence of the practice is that he partakes of it.

So, according to the NT, just as wives are told to submit to their husbands and husbands to love their wives and give themselves for them, servants are to obey their masters and masters are not to threaten their servants, Ephesians 6:5,9. However, both these ideals have been abused over millennia, and so today the first is taboo and the second is illegal, in order to prevent abuse.

The idea of women having to submit to their male relatives is not 'an ideal'.  The only way to enforce slavery is through the threat of violence - even God maintains his slaves with the threat of an eternity of torment.

Drugs are illegal because they are abused, but can be good if used in the right way, eg antidepressants for someone who can't produce the chemicals in their brain.

Some drugs are illegal (i.e. heroin). Some are tightly controlled (i.e. most medications). Some are loosely controlled (i.e. aspirin) . Some are freely available (i.e. coffee).  Within those categories are some that are illegal, ostensibly because they are horrendously harmful, but without any strong evidence to support that claim (i.e. marijuana), whilst others are loosely controlled but demonstrably cause great harm to society and the people within it (i.e. alcohol, tobacco).  Drugs are not illegal because they are abused, necessarily, drugs are ostensibly controlled because they are potentially harmful, and to an extent dependent upon the ease and extent of that harm.

I can't see a problem with someone who has nothing becoming a servant to someone who can give him food and a roof over his head. That person has saved his life, so in a sense he owes him his life, but that doesn't make him a slave!

But him being a commodity that can be sold does.  Working for your keep is not, intrinsically, a moral problem, even if you barely get a subsistence living - it might not be in keeping with the concepts of Christian charity or our more modern sensibilities around a living wage and a suitable work-lift balance, but it's not a categoric evil.  Owning people is.

So I'll go further out on the limb and say that the word 'slave' by default implies mistreatment, as well as being owned.

Nope, just the ownership bit.  A well treated slave is still a slave, because you can still decide that you've had enough of them and that you're going to sell them to Bob down the road and they don't have a say in that because they're property and your rights over them supersede theirs.

O.

[Christine]

I'll join you on the limb and say that the Old Testament never uses the word 'slave'. You could buy or sell a servant, but you had the same master as him/her which was God. So, according to the NT, just as wives are told to submit to their husbands and husbands to love their wives and give themselves for them, servants are to obey their masters and masters are not to threaten their servants, Ephesians 6:5,9. However, both these ideals have been abused over millennia, and so today the first is taboo and the second is illegal, in order to prevent abuse. Drugs are illegal because they are abused, but can be good if used in the right way, eg antidepressants for someone who can't produce the chemicals in their brain. I can't see a problem with someone who has nothing becoming a servant to someone who can give him food and a roof over his head. That person has saved his life, so in a sense he owes him his life, but that doesn't make him a slave!

So I'll go further out on the limb and say that the word 'slave' by default implies mistreatment, as well as being owned.

I agree with Outrider. 

Also, you quoted a Bible passage that used the word "slave". 

Men used to be able to treat their wives very badly indeed and the women had no recourse to justice or, realistically, usually, possibility of escape.  That you think arbitrary control of one person over another is an "ideal" comes as no surprise given your attitude towards slavery.  I think that people kept as slaves thousands of years ago were just as human as I am and probably felt things in much the same way I do.  I think many women subjected to men's control have suffered terribly throughout history and I'm very glad I'm not one of them.  Being able to imagine myself in less favourable situations lets me empathise with the downtrodden and abused.

Your book has been used to justify the most appalling torture of human beings for millennia.  That's torture by people who believe in it.  Christians.  Of other Christians.  You can quibble about slaves being called slaves all you like, you've given me no reason to think Thomas Paine was wrong.

Blimey, never mind Good Omens or The Good Place, Bill and Ted had a better moral code than your God. 

[jeremyp]

I'll join you on the limb and say that the Old Testament never uses the word 'slave'.

I hear that limb cracking.

There are 375 uses of the word slave in the NRSV (considered a fairly accurate translation) - 204 in the Old Testament.

http://bible.oremus.org/?ql=447929519

 

[Spud]

If you buy and sell people, they are slaves.  You can call them 'servants', you can call them 'chattel', you can call them chinchillas if it makes you happy, but they're slaves.

According to who? What's the origin of the word? I think it comes from the word for serve, according to etymology online.

[Spud]

I hear that limb cracking.

There are 375 uses of the word slave in the NRSV (considered a fairly accurate translation) - 204 in the Old Testament.

http://bible.oremus.org/?ql=447929519

Zero in the Hebrew, which comes from the root meaning 'to serve'.

[Nearly Sane]

According to who? What's the origin of the word? I think it comes from the word for serve, according to etymology online.

You support owning and beating people. Your god is a thug and you worship its violence and support for slavery and beating

[Nearly Sane]

Zero in the Hebrew, which comes from the root meaning 'to serve'.

or the hebrew for god likes people to be owned and beaten and tells you the rules on beating. And you worship that thug god.

[Outrider]

According to who? What's the origin of the word? I think it comes from the word for serve, according to etymology online.

The etymology isn't really of anything other than academic interest, but according to Wiktionary it's nothing to do with 'serve', it's derived from the ethnic term Slav.

slave (plural slaves)

A person who is the property of another person and whose labor (and sometimes also whose life) is subject to the owner's volition.
A person who is legally obliged by prior contract (oral or written) to work for another, with contractually limited rights to bargain; an indentured servant.
(figuratively) A drudge; one who labours like a slave.
(figuratively) One who has lost the power of resistance; one who surrenders to something.
a slave to passion, to strong drink, or to ambition
(figuratively) An abject person; a wretch.
Art thou the slave that with thy breath hast kill'd/ Mine innocent child? Shakespeare. Much Ado About Nothing.
A submissive partner in a BDSM relationship who (consensually) submits to (sexually and/or personally) serving one or more masters or mistresses.
A person who is forced against their will to perform, for another person or group, sexual acts or services on a regular or continuing basis.
(engineering) A device that is controlled by another device.

According to the OED online, the first entry:

slave
/sleɪv/
Learn to pronounce
noun
(especially in the past) a person who is the legal property of another and is forced to obey them.
"they kidnapped entire towns and turned them into slaves"

Or if you prefer Cambridge:

slave
noun [ C ]
UK  /sleɪv/ US  /sleɪv/
 
B2
a person who is legally owned by someone else and has to work for that person:
Black slaves used to work on the cotton plantations of the southern United States.
I'm tired of being treated like a slave!
 More examples
a galley slave
a slave and his master
Slaves were treated with sickening cruelty.
The slaves were kept in bondage until their death.
Get your own drink - I'm not your slave!

So, are we collectively happy that the term slave means someone that is owned?

O.

[bluehillside Retd.]

Spud,

Again - if you think that the rules of an inerrant god are correctly written down, would you be ok with those rules being the law of the land now so, as an example, the buying and selling of people should be legalised? It's a simple enough question I'd have thought?

[ippy]

'Using the Bible as an excuse for bigotry'.

Apologies if someone has already said something like this, it's a rather an obvious fact that bible inspired bigotry's done wonders for Northern Island in the past and hopefully it'll stay in the past forever.

ippy.

[Spud]

The etymology isn't really of anything other than academic interest, but according to Wiktionary it's nothing to do with 'serve', it's derived from the ethnic term Slav.

You're right. And therefore it's associated with kidnapping for the purpose of selling on, which is apparently what happened to the Slavic people. This a capital offence in the OT, so how can it be said that God allows slavery?

According to the OED online, the first entry:

Or if you prefer Cambridge:
So, are we collectively happy that the term slave means someone that is owned?

O.

Going further back than the word Slav, the general and most common Latin word for a person who is chattel, is Mancipium. So the term for someone who is owned is, in Latin, completely different.

So the Old Testament word commonly translated slave in modern Bibles should not be translated in that way, because it is associated with oppression, which the OT itself forbids (see Deuteronomy 23:15-16). It should still be translated, servant. This is also consistent with contexts in which it is used where one person says to another, something like "I am your servant".

[Outrider]

You're right. And therefore it's associated with kidnapping for the purpose of selling on, which is apparently what happened to the Slavic people. This a capital offence in the OT, so how can it be said that God allows slavery?

Going further back than the word Slav, the general and most common Latin word for a person who is chattel, is Mancipium. So the term for someone who is owned is, in Latin, completely different.

So the Old Testament word commonly translated slave in modern Bibles should not be translated in that way, because it is associated with oppression, which the OT itself forbids (see Deuteronomy 23:15-16). It should still be translated, servant. This is also consistent with contexts in which it is used where one person says to another, something like "I am your servant".

Leviticus 17-26: "10 Neither an unauthorized person nor a priest’s tenant or laborer may eat of any sacred offering. 11 But a slave[an] whom a priest acquires by purchase or who is born in his house may eat of his food."

Seems to me they're perfectly capable of differentiating between slaves and servants of various kinds, they classify slaves as possessions (acquires by purchase) and they set rules about what they can and can't do regarding permission.  It's there in black and white that there are rules for what slave can and can't do, and those slaves are owned - it was common practice in the day, but it's something that modernity recognises as abhorrent.  It doesn't make the Israelites of the time any worse people than anyone else of the time, but it does suggest that if this work was divinely inspired that the divinity behind it recognises a different - and I'd argue questionable - moral code.

O.

[Spud]

Outrider,
I don't think you've understood my post. Slavery is not defined only by ownership. It is also someone being forced to work against their will. Otherwise, you are implying that the word 'Slav' was adopted for no other reason than to depict an owned person. Surely it was also because those particular owned people suffered hugely?

The servant in your quote was not held against his will, given that he could run away to anywhere he wanted, see the verses in my previous post.

[Outrider]

Outrider,
I don't think you've understood my post. Slavery is not defined only by ownership. It is also someone being forced to work against their will. Otherwise, you are implying that the word 'Slav' was adopted for no other reason than to depict an owned person. Surely it was also because those particular owned people suffered hugely?

I don't think I've been clear then - whilst the word slavery, since the abolition of the ownership of people, has been co-opted into other uses to depict despicable or distasteful practices which are already illegal, there is something more fundamentally immoral about a legislative system that permits the ownership of people.

Regardless of well or badly someone is treated, the very concept of owning people is itself abhorrent. People deserve to have as much control of their own destiny as we can give them, and the institution of slavery, the idea of buying someone's very existence for your benefit is fundamentally immoral before you even start to consider whether there should then be laws or rules about their treatment by their owners.

That slaves suffered all sorts of additional abuses of treatment on top of that is not to be ignored, but the concept of owning people is wrong in and of itself.

The servant in your quote was not held against his will, given that he could run away to anywhere he wanted, see the verses in my previous post.

The one that his owner 'acquires by purchasing' was just permitted to leave?  The slave born into the household was free to change their mind? That seems, at best, unlikely.

O.

[Spud]

I don't think I've been clear then - whilst the word slavery, since the abolition of the ownership of people, has been co-opted into other uses to depict despicable or distasteful practices which are already illegal, there is something more fundamentally immoral about a legislative system that permits the ownership of people.

Regardless of well or badly someone is treated, the very concept of owning people is itself abhorrent. People deserve to have as much control of their own destiny as we can give them, and the institution of slavery, the idea of buying someone's very existence for your benefit is fundamentally immoral before you even start to consider whether there should then be laws or rules about their treatment by their owners.

That slaves suffered all sorts of additional abuses of treatment on top of that is not to be ignored, but the concept of owning people is wrong in and of itself.

The one that his owner 'acquires by purchasing' was just permitted to leave?  The slave born into the household was free to change their mind? That seems, at best, unlikely.

O.

The problem is poverty. Not through their own fault, people in some regions of the world can barely scratch a living. They become so desperate that they move to a more habitable place in search of a more comfortable life. That may mean attaching themselves to a willing citizen in the new country, and working in exchange for their food and lodging.

Similarly, concubinage might be practised to facilitate a woman's survival. Neither of these situations are how God intended people to live, but since they were necessary for survival they were permitted in Israel.

An example of the first is where the people of Egypt sold all their land to Pharaoh in order to pay for food during the famine. Once their property was gone, they sold themselves to Pharaoh as his servants, and would give him a percentage of the harvest every year after the famine. 

Whilst I agree that the concept of people being owned is abhorrent, it is unfortunately the only way some people could survive. There may be modern equivalents, loopholes used by big companies to entice poor foreigners to work for them, but those people are desperate and so they do so in order to have a better life than the one they had before.

[bluehillside Retd.]

Any thoughts yet Spud on why, if you think the biblical rules were written by an inerrant and good god, those rules shouldn't ideally therefore be the law of the land now so, for example, people could be bought and sold as commercial transactions?

[Outrider]

The problem is poverty. Not through their own fault, people in some regions of the world can barely scratch a living. They become so desperate that they move to a more habitable place in search of a more comfortable life. That may mean attaching themselves to a willing citizen in the new country, and working in exchange for their food and lodging.

That's not slavery, that's economics without the safety net of a welfare programme.

Similarly, concubinage might be practised to facilitate a woman's survival. Neither of these situations are how God intended people to live, but since they were necessary for survival they were permitted in Israel.

That's a similar, if slightly creepier example.

An example of the first is where the people of Egypt sold all their land to Pharaoh in order to pay for food during the famine. Once their property was gone, they sold themselves to Pharaoh as his servants, and would give him a percentage of the harvest every year after the famine.

Notwithstanding the fact that there's no evidence of any considerable population of Jews in Egypt through these times, that's slavery... 

Whilst I agree that the concept of people being owned is abhorrent, it is unfortunately the only way some people could survive.

But rather than, say, put an expectation for a Welfare Safety Net in work that he divinely inspired, your God instead instituted rules for how slaves were to be treated, not only failing to point out the moral problems of slavery but actively normalising them in a way that directly resulted in the Christian nations of Europe going on to enslave vast swathes of the African population for hundreds of years.

There may be modern equivalents, loopholes used by big companies to entice poor foreigners to work for them, but those people are desperate and so they do so in order to have a better life than the one they had before.

They do so in the hope of a better life, and they don't get one.  One of the reasons they don't get one is that they are functionally property according the laws that actually affect their lives - those of their owners/captors, even if the nominal laws of the land they are in prohibit slavery.

O.

[Spud]

That's not slavery, that's economics without the safety net of a welfare programme.

That's a similar, if slightly creepier example.

Notwithstanding the fact that there's no evidence of any considerable population of Jews in Egypt through these times, that's slavery... 

It isn't anything to do with the Hebrews, it's the part of the story where the Egyptians themselves sell themselves to Pharaoh during the famine.

But rather than, say, put an expectation for a Welfare Safety Net in work that he divinely inspired, your God instead instituted rules for how slaves were to be treated,

You've used that word again. Let's take the definition of a slave as "the act of recruiting, harboring, transporting, providing or obtaining a person for compelled labor or commercial sex acts through the use of force, fraud, or coercion" (Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons).

Now compare it with this use of the Hebrew word, ebed:

Joseph to Jacob: "When Pharaoh summons you and asks, ‘What is your occupation?’ 34you are to say, ‘Your servants have raised livestock ever since our youth— both we and our fathers.’ Then you will be allowed to settle in the land of Goshen..." (Gen. 46)

Now see how your word is punished in Exodus 21:16,
"Anyone who kidnaps someone is to be put to death, whether the victim has been sold or is still in the kidnapper's possession."

This includes pretty much all of the contemporary slaves in the world today. All the people that sell them should be put to death, according to Moses.

not only failing to point out the moral problems of slavery but actively normalising them in a way that directly resulted in the Christian nations of Europe going on to enslave vast swathes of the African population for hundreds of years.

They do so in the hope of a better life, and they don't get one.  One of the reasons they don't get one is that they are functionally property according the laws that actually affect their lives - those of their owners/captors, even if the nominal laws of the land they are in prohibit slavery.

O.

[jeremyp]

According to who? What's the origin of the word? I think it comes from the word for serve, according to etymology online.

This is the etymological fallacy. The origin of a word need not have anything to do with its current meaning. If you own a person, that person is a slave. Not having a word for "slave" doesn't stop slaves from existing.

[jeremyp]

Zero in the Hebrew, which comes from the root meaning 'to serve'.

I suggest you read the context of many of those quotes. They are obviously talking about slaves.

[jeremyp]

You've used that word again. Let's take the definition of a slave as "the act of recruiting, harboring, transporting, providing or obtaining a person for compelled labor or commercial sex acts through the use of force, fraud, or coercion" (Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons).

Why would we do that? That's a modern definition based on the fact that we now regard slavery as illegal.

Now compare it with this use of the Hebrew word, ebed:

Why not compare to what the Hebrews actually did? They bought and sold people. That means they did slavery. None of your attempted bullshit word tricks can alter that fact.

I've said it before, but you'd be better off just accepting that Leviticus etc were written in an different time when slavery was an accepted fact of life. That doesn't make it right.

[Outrider]

It isn't anything to do with the Hebrews, it's the part of the story where the Egyptians themselves sell themselves to Pharaoh during the famine.

Fair enough, my mistake there.

You've used that word again. Let's take the definition of a slave as "the act of recruiting, harboring, transporting, providing or obtaining a person for compelled labor or commercial sex acts through the use of force, fraud, or coercion" (Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons).

That's a definition of modern slavery, not 'classic' (for want of a better expression).  I posted three standard dictionary definitions of slavery, and all of them had the first element as essentially, people that are owned.  We've expanded the word in Western society because we've largely eliminated the 'classic' form of slavery, and now we're going after various forms of indentured servitude, people trafficking and oppressive behaviour.  People legally can't 'own' other people in this day and age, so we're now going after the people that are acting functionally as though they think they do.

Now compare it with this use of the Hebrew word, ebed:

Joseph to Jacob: "When Pharaoh summons you and asks, ‘What is your occupation?’ 34you are to say, ‘Your servants have raised livestock ever since our youth— both we and our fathers.’ Then you will be allowed to settle in the land of Goshen..." (Gen. 46)

Now see how your word is punished in Exodus 21:16,
"Anyone who kidnaps someone is to be put to death, whether the victim has been sold or is still in the kidnapper's possession."

This includes pretty much all of the contemporary slaves in the world today. All the people that sell them should be put to death, according to Moses.

Right.  And, again, what about those people that the 'Priests acquired by purchasing'?

O.

[Spud]

Right.  And, again, what about those people that the 'Priests acquired by purchasing'?

O.

The full paragraph:

No one outside a priest’s family may eat the sacred offering, nor may the guest of a priest or his hired worker eat it. 11But if a priest buys a slave with money, or if slaves are born in his household, they may eat his food. 12If a priest’s daughter marries anyone other than a priest, she may not eat any of the sacred contributions. 13But if a priest’s daughter becomes a widow or is divorced, yet has no children, and she returns to live in her father’s household as in her youth, she may eat her father’s food. No unauthorized person, however, may eat it.

Leviticus 22:10-13
IIRCC the priest's food came to him through the offerings brought to the temple. So the servants in his household, being allowed to eat the same food, were equal in that respect to the rest of the family.

But it also mentions the situation where his daughter might return home having been married and is now divorced. Obviously if God created marriage to be for life, here is a provision necessary because of mankind's fallen condition, for when things go wrong in marriage. Perhaps this is the case for bondservants. All the examples of slavery in the Bible result from sin: Canaan's descendants became slaves as a result of his father's (Ham's) sin after the flood. Joseph was sold as a slave as a result of his brothers' sin. Moses' approach was to give just punishments for sin, and mitigate its effects. Rather than not allow people to divorce/own servants, he was concerned to make sure the people involved were not oppressed.

[ProfessorDavey]

'But if a priest buys a slave with money'

Doesn't that de facto make it clear that slavery is justified. And the argument that slave and servant have the same word doesn't wash as you wouldn't buy a servant, you'd pay them.

[Spud]

Doesn't that de facto make it clear that slavery is justified.

No, because the word 'if' is ambiguous as regards rightness or wrongness.
If it did justify it, then Dt 21:15 which similarly says 'if a man has two wives...' indicates that having two wives is justified.