Does God approve of mistreating slaves?

[rogue06]

Not really. If he was tolerating he would not be laying out how to go about getting your slaves to keep for life and treat as property. He literally approved of it and laid down guidelines of how to go about it and that you are allowed to brutally beat them as long as they survive (a few days, in some interpretations that MM doesn't like)

If you tolerate something it isn't unheard of to try to establish ground rules to minimize it.

Sort of like how parents might tolerate certain behavior they don't necessarily approve of from their kids, and therefore seek to reign it in and minimize it until they "grow out of it."

[Mountain Man]

You're welcome to continue to defend your deity's support for chattel slavery...

As I have explained clearly and with Biblical references, Old Testament law is incompatible with the concept of chattel slavery in that kidnapping or purchasing someone who had been forced into involuntary servitude was punishable by death, viciously beating one's servants or inflicting injuries from they could not quickly recover was strictly prohibited, and the law required that sanctuary be granted to any servant who felt compelled to flee his master. You have no response to this other than to simply repeat your refuted claims over and over again.

[Christianbookworm]

Wasn't there a law in the pre Civil War USA that required runaway slaves be returned to their master? Ancient Israel has the complete opposite! Job security for seven years(life long if the servant wants that) and if the master is a horrible boss, the worker can just leave!

[Gondwanaland]

Let's please take this slavery derail somewhere else, OK? Next, we'll be refighting the War of Northern Aggression.

Fair enough. Honestly didn't think it was going to derail that much over my simple factual comment (or that there were Christians here so eager to throw their support behind slavery )

[Gondwanaland]

If you tolerate something it isn't unheard of to try to establish ground rules to minimize it.

Sort of like how parents might tolerate certain behavior they don't necessarily approve of from their kids, and therefore seek to reign it in and minimize it until they "grow out of it."

Ah, I see, so this all-powerful deity, who flooded the world over sin, who sicced she-bears on a bunch of youths for mocking his prophet, who literally made laws to allow people to execute gays and witches, he just couldn't manage to, what, bring himself to do the same for anyone that takes slaves? He decided "you know what, gays is over the line, but slaves? Nah, slavery is bad, but let's 'tolerate' it and 'set some ground rules' that involve enslaving people for the entirety of their lives, and be treated and passed down as property"......?

[Gondwanaland]

As I have explained clearly and with Biblical references, Old Testament law is incompatible with the concept of chattel slavery in that kidnapping or purchasing someone who had been forced into involuntary servitude was punishable by death, viciously beating one's servants or inflicting injuries from they could not quickly recover was strictly prohibited, and the law required that sanctuary be granted to any servant who felt compelled to flee his master. You have no response to this other than to simply repeat your refuted claims over and over again.

Old Testament law LITERALLY PUTS INTO LAW THE CONCEPT OF CHATTEL SLAVERY. Their slavery of foreigners bought from other foreigners is the VERY DEFINITION of Chattel Slavery.

But nevermind, you did bait me to respond with that utter nonsense, but that's all I'll be responding, given how you've been quotemining.

[Mountain Man]

Old Testament law LITERALLY PUTS INTO LAW THE CONCEPT OF CHATTEL SLAVERY. Their slavery of foreigners bought from other foreigners is the VERY DEFINITION of Chattel Slavery.

Again, where is it said or implied that that those were people forced into servitude against their will, especially since forced enslavement was punishable by death?

[Gondwanaland]

Again, where is it said or implied that that those were people forced into servitude against their will, especially since forced enslavement was punishable by death?

It's only punishable by death if it is a Hebrew doing the kidnapping. Your deity gave them a way out by letting them buy pre-kidnapped slaves from people who aren't punished by death for doing the kidnapping. Any other slow questions to go with your quotemining?

[Gondwanaland]

Wasn't there a law in the pre Civil War USA that required runaway slaves be returned to their master? Ancient Israel has the complete opposite! Job security for seven years(life long if the servant wants that) and if the master is a horrible boss, the worker can just leave!

Unless they bought you from a foreign slave-trader, in which case, it's not 7 years of 'job security', it's being treated as property for life and passed down to the children of your owner.

[Christianbookworm]

If ssomeone was desperate enough to go to Ancient Israel and become a servant, they did not have any other option. Life in the Ancient world was brutal. If God wants to pull a prime directive and not interfere too much with human development, He literally does know best.

[Gondwanaland]

If ssomeone was desperate enough to go to Ancient Israel and become a servant, they did not have any other option. Life in the Ancient world was brutal. If God wants to pull a prime directive and not interfere too much with human development, He literally does know best.

But we're not talking about someone going to ancient israel and becoming a servant. We're talking about Hebrews purchasing foreign slaves from foreigners who had come to live within the land (And IIRC from foreigners outside their land). Slaves that didn't go there by choice. Slaves that were taken by those foreigners/slave traders.

[Christianbookworm]

Worst case scenario, they just rescued the person from a fate worse than death as a slave in a different nation. Nothing is stopping the slave from running away other than the shame of doing so. And everyone got corporal punishment back then! Assault wasn't assault unless it made someone miss out on at least a day or two of work or caused permanent damage. Guess they assumed some people really deserve to get punched. Remember, we're talking about a completely alien to us culture. They had different values. Stop acting like a European colonist that thinks their culture is the right culture.

In the ANE (and especially the OT), the opposite was the case. This should be obvious from the MOTIVE aspect--these were choices by the impoverished to enter this dependency state, in return for economic security and protection. Some slavery contracts actually emphasized this voluntary aspect!:
"A person would either enter into slavery or be sold by a parent or relative. Persons sold their wives, grandchildren, brother (with his wife and child), sister, sister-in-law, daughter-in-law, nephews and niece…Many of the documents emphasize that the transaction is voluntary. This applies not only to self-sale but also to those who are the object of sale, although their consent must sometimes have been fictional, as in the case of a nursing infant." [HI:HANEL:1.665]
This might also be seen from the fact that war/violence was NOT a major source of 'real' slaves in the ANE (nor OT). For example, even though there were large numbers of war-captives in the ANE, they were generally NOT turned into slaves, but rather into tenant-farming, serfs:
"Within all the periods of antiquity, Egyptian, Mesopotamian, Hittite, Persian, and other Oriental rulers carried away great masses of captives from their victorious battles. But only an insignificant part of them was turned into slaves; all the others were settled on the land as palace and temple serfs….The question arises, why the masses of war prisoners were not enslaved. Slavery was the optimal form of dependence, and very often there was no shortage of prisoners captured in war. Besides, there were no legal or ethical norms preventing these prisoners from being turned into slaves. But this happened in a negligible percentage of cases, while the overwhelming majority were settled in places specially set aside for them, paid royal taxes, and carried out obligations, including military service." [ABD: s.v. "Slavery, ANE"]
"War is only mentioned as a source of slavery for public institutions. The most frequently mentioned method of enslavement was sale of children by their parents. Most are women, evidently widows, selling a daughter; in one instance a mother and grandmother sell a boy…There are also examples of self sale." [HI:HANEL:1.199]
The same, of course, can be said of Israel. For example, even in wars on foreign soil (e.g., Deut 20.10,10), if a city surrendered, it became a vassal state to Israel, with the population becoming serfs (mas), not slaves (ebed, amah). They would have performed what is called 'corvee' (draft-type, special labor projects, and often on a rotation basis--as Israelites later did as masim under Solomon, 1 Kings 5.27). This was analogous to ANE praxis, in which war captives were not enslaved, but converted into vassal groups:
"The nations subjected by the Israelites were considered slaves. They were, however, not slaves in the proper meaning of the term, although they were obliged to pay royal taxes and perform public works." [ABD, s.v. "Slavery, Old Testament"]
And since most slavery was done through self-sale or family-sale, it was likewise voluntary (at least as voluntary as poverty allows), cf. Lev 25.44 in which the verbs are of 'acquisition' and not 'take' or 'conquer' etc.

http://christianthinktank.com/qnoslave.html

[Starlight]

Job security for seven years(life long if the servant wants that) and if the master is a horrible boss, the worker can just leave!

What others call the abominable practice of slavery, you praise for great job security. Wow.

[Christianbookworm]

What others call the abominable practice of slavery, you praise for great job security. Wow.

That's how they would hhave seen it. They might see working to make money to pay off a debt a convoluted equivalent to what they did. Servants were a part of the family. The garbage of the Atlantic slave trade and modern human trafficking is not the same. The above source I linked to stated that adoption was recorded as if it were a slave transaction. Aren't we both glad we didn't live back then? I like indoor plumbing and electricity.

[Mountain Man]

It's only punishable by death if it is a Hebrew doing the kidnapping.

Where does it say that?

Scripture Verse: Exodus 21:16

Whoever steals a man and sells him, and anyone found in possession of him, shall be put to death.

© Copyright Original Source

Even the act of merely possessing someone who had been kidnapped was a capital crime.