Thank you for this wonderful material. A great deal to digest.
She takes issue with my statement that the Bible legitimizes slavery. To this she responds "the Old Testament forbids Jews from enslaving other Jews (Leviticus 25:39-42; see also Jeremiah 34:8-10)."
This was of course not due to some avant-garde humanistic notions of the ancient Jews, but because of the notion that Jews can be servants (slaves) only to their God.
In fact, only a verse hop further, the same Leviticus 25 says (my emphasis)
"44'As for your male and female slaves whom you may have--you may acquire male and female slaves from the pagan nations that are around you."
So pagans in the region are legitimate slave material according to God's own words.
Not so long ago, I was told by a very active Protestant Freeper on another thread that biblical slavery was not immoral because it was not a chattel-type of slavery as the American slavery was (!). This, of course, is yet another straw man.
This lady must not have done her Bible reading thoroughly, I suppose, since none other than the same Leviticus 25 says
"45'Then, too, it is out of the sons of the sojourners who live as aliens among you that you may gain acquisition, and out of their families who are with you, whom they will have produced in your land; they also may become your possession.
46'You may even bequeath them to your sons after you, to receive as a possession; you can use them as permanent slaves. But in respect to your countrymen, the sons of Israel, you shall not rule with severity over one another.
To be sure, the Bible approves of slavery of any kind, including the worst chattel-type (where the slave is actually a property owned and passed on as inheritance), as long as the slave is not a Jew!
In other words, since Leviticus is one of the Five Books of Moses (the Torah) and therefore dictated to him by God word-for-word, it is God (not Moses through inspiration) who is establishing not only chattel-type slavery in Leviticus 25, but one based on race/religion.
Because the Bible says it's okay to own slaves as property, it must be morally acceptable to any Jew or Christian (that is, if they believe Leviticus is God's very word, as they claim) as one's faith in God would oblige them to do so.
My beloved self-appointed censor-general further builds her straw man by citing 1 Corinthians 7:21, 23 which read, respectively:
"...if you can gain your freedom, avail yourself of it"
"You have all been redeemed at infinite cost: do not become slaves to men"
adding a comment "So it seems slavery is meant (at most) for those outside an active covenant with God."
Which in those days was most of the world. So, she seems to be suggesting that it's okay to be a slave if you are not "born again" which is no different than the OT saying you can own a slave a song as he is not a a Jew. I suppose racism and slavery go hand in hand, don't they, and all thanks to the Bible it seems.
So, it is really interesting where the Church got its ideas that a man is free as a matter of self-evident (I suppose biblical) truth! Thus, St. Gregory of Nyssa, one of the pillars of Patristic thinking (when he was not following Origen's universal salvation Gnostic beliefs) on which the catholic and orthodox Church rests, assails slavery on biblical grounds!:
"You condemn man who is free and autonomous to servitude, and you contradict God by perverting the natural law. Man, who was created as lord over the earth, you have put under the yoke of servitude as a transgressor and rebel against the divine precept." [Gregory of Nyssa, IV Homily, Commentary on Ecclesiastes]
It makes you wonder if this (4th century) bishop ever read Genesis 9:25-27, or the already mentioned verses in Leviticus 25. :)
Happy digestion.