it's a very recent argument 200 years ago or so in Western thought whereby scholars claim slavery (and the degrees of it you adroitly mentioned) is a sin or is condemned by the Bible.
not sure what your quarrel is on my supposition that polygamy is not really condemned either though one man/one woman is the oft mentioned ideal
I'm just curious, what makes you and others like you who take liberty with implications now 2000-3300 years since they were written and feel that your relatively new interpretations are for whatever reason more accurate than the many centuries before you?
Does it have anything at all to do with the truth of the word and history or more to do with believing what you'd like to fit your world view in 2008?
It's like everyone today is obsessed with slavery, particularly whites enslaving blacks and would like to now in defiance of nearly 3 millennium of Biblical interpretation simply loudly trumpet that the Bible really did condemn slavery and that slavery is/was a sin and yet no one else much thought that until quite recently.
Any special reason you're right and they weren't other than this is today and they were “before”.
Does the truth really change?
I stand by my words, were slavery as important to the Prophets, Christ and the Apostles, it would have been singled out and condemned like murder, blasphemy, theft, etc. but it never was.....
"Recent," eh? (Maybe as "recent" as what the basis was for the content of the movie, "The 10 Commandments?" With Charlton Heston recently dying, surely you've seen this movie? No? What? You haven't gotten out much to see a DeMille movie in the past half-century?)
Again, dust off your Bible. May I suggest you go back & (re?)-read the book of Exodus from end to end? Perhaps you could go thru the book of Exodus & count up how many times you see the phrase, "Let my people go." (Here, let me give you just brief highlights, and please especially note the highlighted verses):
Exodus 1:11-14: So they put slave masters over them to oppress them with forced labor...But the more they were oppressed, the more they multiplied and spread; so the Egyptians came to dread the Israelites and worked them ruthlessly. They made their lives bitter with hard labor in brick and mortar and with all kinds of work in the fields; in all their hard labor the Egyptians used them ruthlessly.
Exodus 2:23-24: The Israelites groaned in their SLAVERY and cried out, and their cry for help because of their slavery went up to God. God heard their groaning and he remembered his covenant with Abraham, with Isaac and with Jacob.
Exodus 3:7-10, 16-17 : The LORD said, "I have indeed seen the misery of my people in Egypt. I have heard them crying out because of their slave drivers, and I am concerned about their suffering. So I have come down to rescue them from the hand of the Egyptians...And now the cry of the Israelites has reached me, and I have seen the way the Egyptians are oppressing them. So now, go. I am sending you to Pharaoh to bring my people the Israelites out of Egypt...I have watched over you and have seen what has been done to you in Egypt. And I have promised to bring you up out of your misery in Egypt...
Exodus 6:5-6, 34: Moreover, I have heard the groaning of the Israelites, whom the Egyptians are enslaving, and I have remembered my covenant. "Therefore, say to the Israelites: 'I am the LORD, and I will bring you out from under the yoke of the Egyptians. I will free you from being slaves to them, and I will redeem you with an outstretched arm and with mighty acts of judgment...When Pharaoh saw that the rain and hail and thunder had stopped, he SINNED AGAIN: He and his officials hardened their hearts. (Ex. 9:34)
Exodus 10:16: Pharaoh quickly summoned Moses and Aaron and said, "I have SINNED against the LORD your God and against you.
What you fail to understand is that people already tend to exploit others. We see this in the sex trafficking industry. We see this in prostitution. We see this with the porn industry. (And prostitution & the porn industry is simply evidence of others "renting" or "leasing" somebody else's body for short periods of time instead of "owning" them outright). Pimps often serve as contemporary slavemasters. (You're not advocating that pimping is "righteous" blue-collar work, are you?)
Slavery simply invites intensified oppression & suppression by sinful people already prone to exploit others.
1 Timothy 1:9-11 We also know that law[a] is made not for the righteous but for lawbreakers and rebels, the ungodly and SINFUL, the unholy and irreligious; for those who kill their fathers or mothers, for murderers, for adulterers and perverts, for slave traders and liars and perjurers—and for whatever else is contrary to the sound doctrine 11that conforms to the glorious gospel of the blessed God, which he entrusted to me. (1 Timothy 1:9-11)
I suppose next you're going to tell us that "lawbreakers and rebels...ungodly...sinful...unholy...irreligious" are all "compliments" courtesy of the apostle Paul.
So, let's also go back to your previous statement: "Slavery...barely mentioned and never condemned..." "NEVER" condemned, eh?
I'm just curious, what makes you and others like you who take liberty with implications now 2000-3300 years since they were written and feel that your relatively new interpretations are for whatever reason more accurate than the many centuries before you?
I'm just curious as to why you've flunked Old Testament history or have missed out on seeing cultural epics--movies like the 10 Commandments? ABC putting it on around Easter isn't enough to put it right into your lap?
Does it have anything at all to do with the truth of the word and history or more to do with believing what you'd like to fit your world view in 2008?
Allow me to put 2 & 2 for you together: If God didn't allow slavery, would we have any comprehension at all of the enslaved effects of sin? (Please read Romans 6 & view the multiple "slavery" descriptions of sin...or Jesus' words in John 8..."He who commits sin is a slave to sin.") If God didn't allow warfare, would we have any idea of spiritual warfare?
Therefore, God also allowed the Israelites to be 400 years in bondage. A deliverer came and freed them from their foe (Psalm 106:10). Those who didn't have the blood of the Lamb on their household saw their firstborn die. There's many more minute parallels to Jesus the Deliverer in the New Testament, but suffice it to say for now...our bondage to sin & to Satan was embodied and typified in the Israelites bondage to Pharaoh.
It's like everyone today is obsessed with slavery, particularly whites enslaving blacks and would like to now in defiance of nearly 3 millennium of Biblical interpretation simply loudly trumpet that the Bible really did condemn slavery and that slavery is/was a sin and yet no one else much thought that until quite recently.
First of all, most folks ARE NOT "obsessed" enough with contemporary slavery like sex trafficking. (And that which is the subject of this thread is simply a different manner of "sex trafficking"). Secondly as I stated earlier there are degrees of slavery in the Bible according to the economic & warfare of the times.
If a people group won a battle, and killed all or most of the men, for the remaining women to survive, slavery was actually a means of survival for them. If their menfolk were "stupid" enough to try to, say, attack another tribe & wound up losing, then slavery might be the lone "means of redemption" for these women. If a man owned a debt, there was no modern court system to garner their wages, etc. Such a man would become a bondservant for, say, 6 years, and be freed on the 7th upon full payment of his debt. Ya wanna tell us how that's much different than a man who works a second job to pay off debt, & rarely sees his family because of it? Ya wanna tell us how a man who does DUI/narcotic jail time & pays his "debt to society" & doesn't see his family due to being enslaved to substance abuse is much different?
These are people who "voluntarily" (or some might say, by extension to their bondage to sin) decided that the credit card company or some substance would become their "master."
Now if a credit card company or a judge holds these folks accountable, are they guilty of sin? (NO!) Therefore, like I said, there are "degrees" of bondservice/slavery. And if you think what Muslims & British & Portuguese & American slavetraders did off the coasts of Africa is comparable to economic indebtedness, you really did flunk history, didn't you?
I stand by my words, were slavery as important to the Prophets, Christ and the Apostles, it would have been singled out and condemned like murder, blasphemy, theft, etc. but it never was...
The Prophets? In the chapter after the 10 Commandments: Anyone who kidnaps another and either sells him or still has him when he is caught must be put to death. (Exodus 21:16)
In the context of being delivered from a chasing Pharaoh thru the Red Sea... He saved them from the hand of the foe; from the hand of the enemy he redeemed them. (Ps. 106:10)
We have been freed from the bondage of sin. Christ hated bondage to sin so much He became mere mortal & became sin (2 Cor. 5:21) & became a curse (Gal. 3:13)--the curse of the fall--on our behalf.