Again, we need to be careful when we accuse God of condoning slavery.
Not really. He apparently went out of his way to explain exactly how objectionable he found practices such as getting the corners of the beard shaved off, eating pork, planting mixed crops, wearing multiple cloths, coveting asses, stealing, murdering (sometimes)... and yet not once is there a clear condemnation of the institution of slavery which was rife. There are no verses I'm aware of which say 'If you're going to eat pork, despite it being bad, here's how you should cook it...', so the we can't even presume that the bits where he brushes over the purchasing of people is just a pragmatic caveat to the economic realities.
Slavery, surely, if you're going to be talking about moral and immoral practices, should come higher on the list of priorities than whether or not a woman is a virgin when she gets married?
If you read Genesis carefully, you'll see that during the famine, Jacob and sons, along with the Egyptian population, gave and sold (respectively) themselves to Pharaoh as his lifelong servants. When Jacob's descendants later became prosperous, the Egyptians became jealous and the Pharaoh made them slaves by forcing them to work themselves to death. Thus later in the OT, Egypt is remembered as the 'house of bondage', where they were oppressed servants, or slaves as we call them.
But in the tale the problematic element is where they were worked to death - the fact that they were in a situation where it was possible for them to be 'bought' wasn't flagged as at all an issue.
Note that (1) it was this slavery that God rescued Israel from, and (2) that there is a difference between lifelong service caused in that instance by famine, and slavery.
Note (1) - allegedly!
Note (2) - there are differences of degree, but not of quality. They are still 'owned' people, and that's wrong.
The NT speaks out against divorce,yes. What about the old testament?
I'm aware that there are some interpretations of the Biblical institution of marriage that suggest that a woman was effectively being sold to her husband by her father, but that seems to be a separate argument and a (barely) more nuanced discussion.
There seem to be two ways of looking at lifelong servants: one is that it's a bit like polygamy: it was practiced and not prohibited, but context shows it not to be the ideal. The other is that it is permitted as a good thing, a way of mitigating the effect of sin which led to these situations, which is what the two passages Lev 25:44-46 and Deut 20:10-11 do seem to suggest. Only those two, mind: all other passages are either ambiguous or promote the wellbeing of the lifelong servant.
So, as I said, nothing that actually points out that this is a fundamentally evil practice - yet so much weight is given to, say, homosexuality.
And I want to emphasize that I do not believe slavery is condoned a single time in the Bible, and I totally agree that the practice is immoral.
The two situations you cited in the previous paragraph are condoning the practice, and not just by the lack of any explicit statement that slavery isn't acceptable, but the idea that it's permissible as a way of mitigating other sins. What sin is worse than taking slaves?
The KJV is the most accurate paper version of the Bible I have and it doesn't use the word slave in the OT, but 'bondservant'.
A rose by any other name...
But I think even this is inaccurate, because bondage is what happened to Israel in Egypt, where they were oppressed. Oppression is banned for Israel.
But it's fine for everyone else? To continue the Shakespearian bent 'If you prick us do we not bleed?'
The word 'slave' originated from the practice of kidnapping and selling people, which is a capital offence in the Bible.
Except if they're taken during a victorious military conquest, because then it's fine.
Like polygamy, where laws were in place to make sure that an unloved wife was not oppressed (Deut 21:10-17), a lifelong servant was treated equally, as your passage with the Levite priest's servant being allowed to share his food shows. Similarly, a city that surrenders being made to pay tribute to their conqueror but allowed to continue living where they were, as the KJV of Dt 20:10-11 implies, is not slavery (oppression) but the natural outcome of war.
You keep making this parallel with polygamy, and I think - do correct me if I'm wrong, this is somewhat an inference - you seem to put them on a par. Slavery is intrinsically problematic; polygamy isn't. There are practical issues with polygamy in many (possibly even most) societies with a noticable difference in social status between the sexes, but that's a practical and situational issue, it's not intrinsic to polygamy.
The only reason the buying of servants was permitted for Israel was that they had the correct laws in place to make sure the servant was not oppressed and turned into a slave.
If you buy people, they're slaves. If you buy them and call them servants, that's slavery with spin. The 'correct law' is 'You're not allowed to buy people, people aren't commodities'.
Thus it follows that for the rest of the world, buying servants cannot be allowed.
So why so expressly point out that eating shellfish was an abomination, but skirt around slavery?
Since, though, those two verses do permit the exchange of silver for servants, it is clear that at that time and place only, it was justifiable to do so.
Which, presumably, has to constitute at least a situational condoning of slavery?
O.
