Agreed. And I didn’t realize it until I read Pastor Weld’s Bible Against Slavery. He made a case that slavery in the Old Testament was mainly like what we today call voluntary servitude. Certainly not chattel slavery as was going on in Weld’s day.
Pastor Theodore Weld who was often attacked when he preached that the Bible is against slavery.
Biblical indenture was nothing like what people think.
Sorry to burst your bubble, but Shemittah applies only to `Avdei Yisra'el (Jewish slaves), not `Avdei Kena`an (non-Jewish slaves). Jewish slaves were not property, non-Jewish slaves were, and were passed down as property in the family. Non-Jewish slaves also could not be freed (other than through a loophole, such as knocking out a tooth!). There were also laws protecting slaves from mis-treatment (Exodus 21 20-21).
A Jewish slave could be given a non-Jewish wife by the master, the children of which union would not be Halakhically Jewish. However, the Jewish slave had the option of deciding to remain with his non-Jewish wife, and with his master, "forever" (see Exodus 21).
"Slavery" is a loaded term. In Hebrew `eved means both "slave" and "servant." Moreover prior to the wage system, what other form of work was available? In fact when people hear the word "slavery" they automatically think of white people owning black people. Let's face it, if white people owned white people, black people owned black people, or black people owned white people, the Left wouldn't have a problem with it.
As I understand it, in Noahide Halakhah, even a non-Jew is allowed to own slaves.
Finally, before everyone jumps on me as some sort of "lost cause" obsessed neo-Confederate, let me state that my ancestors during the Civil War were Unionists and Republicans and I have always been proud of this fact. Neo-Confederate revisionism is disgusting to me. And unfortunately, many on the Right (mostly the so-called "Paleolibertarians") continue to regard the Confederacy as in the right and Abraham Lincoln some kind of Communist dictator. I bring all this up not to defend slavery per se (who in their right mind wants to be a slave?) but out of mere honesty and consistency in adhering to the Laws of G-d. They are what they are, and we cannot change them.
You cannot be more moral than G-d. That's what the Left thinks.