Pelham: "Moderns assume that it contains a clear denunciation of the practice until they are challenged to produce one."
You really should read the posts here, and their links.
For example, in post #127 above, Sherman Logan provided a link to a long list of Biblical quotes on slavery, some of which are quite critical of it.
In posts 116, 128 & 132 I discussed the Bible's views on slavery.
Here are two highly revealing verses:
So clearly, God has a big problem with slavery for his chosen people.
He doesn't want it.
The new testament takes the word "slave" and turns it into a metaphor:
The New Testament also makes all followers of Christ in effect God's chosen people.
So there can be no doubt that both Old and New Testaments oppose involuntary slavery to anyone, and voluntary "slavery" to anyone other than God's laws, Christ's love and our own brothers and sisters in Christ.
2 “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. 3 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. 4 If his master gives him a wife and she bears him sons or daughters, the woman and her children shall belong to her master, and only the man shall go free.
So a Hebrew man could sell himself into slavery, or sell his children, or be enslaved because he couldn't pay a debt. The Law was opposed to illegal enslavement of Hebrews, not to enslavement as such.
The tone of the discussion about slavery throughout the OT, and for that matter the NT, is matter of fact and non-judgmental.
And of course the Law with regard to foreign slaves was essentially the same as that of the nations around them. Anything goes.
I really, really wish this was not the case, and I could say the Bible is as non-supportive of slavery as it is non-supportive of racism. But it says what it says, and that is that slavery was such a fact of life that none of the Bible writers considered abolishing it, anymore than they considered abolishing air. And for much the same reason.
That said, slavery in the ancient world was in some ways less harsh than in the American South. "All men were created equal" hadn't crossed anybody's mind yet, so the line between slavery and freedom wasn't as clear. Everybody existed on a scale, with people above and below them.
Most non-slaves weren't really free in the sense we use the term. There were intermittent conditions, and those who really were legally slaves were often wealthy, powerful and respected. See Abraham's slave Eleazar, who was his heir until his sons were born.
All women of the time existed in a condition we would consider very near that of slaves. A woman did not choose her husband, for instance, she was quite literally given, or possibly sold, to her husband.
There was no link between "race" and condition of servitude. Slaves came in all colors. So everybody knew they could be enslaved themselves. Often it was the price of losing a war or having your ship taken by pirates. To our minds it is thus totally illogical to believe men were naturally slaves, when their condition was often the result of bad luck. But the ancients just didn't see it this way.
But if you accept the proposition that all men are equal, then by definition non-equal slaves become in some sense less than men.
“You really should read the posts here, and their links.”
Do you mean like this one?:
Leviticus 25:44-46
‘As for your male and female slaves whom you may have: you may buy male and female slaves from among the nations that are around you. You may also buy from among the strangers who sojourn with you and their clans that are with you, who have been born in your land, and they may be your property. You may bequeath them to your sons after you to inherit as a possession forever. You may make slaves of them, but over your brothers the people of Israel you shall not rule, one over another ruthlessly.’
BroJoeK, I think that you noted that the OT makes a clear distinction between slavery for those “from among the nations” and for fellow Hebrews when you posted this:
“So clearly, God has a big problem with slavery for his chosen people. He doesn’t want it.”
However the same isn’t true for non-Hebrews as we see from the Leviticus text above. There we see that it permits the buying of non Hebrew slaves, bequeathing them to heirs, and their “possession forever”. That should ring a bell when looking at the practice of slavery in America.
“So there can be no doubt that both Old and New Testaments oppose involuntary slavery to anyone”
It looks to me like the Leviticus text doesn’t fit your claim.
“The New Testament also makes all followers of Christ in effect God’s chosen people.”
Critics of “replacement theology” don’t appear to share that view.