perhaps a good working definition for this discussion might be a condition in which an individual or rights to their labor is owned by another either temporarily or permanently the owner controls and benefits from the actions and activities of the owned individual having set our definitions we now turn to a very broad overview of what the legal sections of the pentateuch say about slavery exodus 21 2 through 6 contains laws concerning a male israel like that slave he is able to be kept for six years and released in the seventh stipulations are in place concerning his
wife and children which depend upon whether he came into slavery married or was given a wife by his master verses 7 through 11 which began if a man sells his daughter as a slave concern the female slave who was sold by her father into either concubinage or marriage verses 20 to 21 describe the punishment that is to follow if a master beats a slave to death male or female but the lack of punishment should the slave survive a dare to quote anyone who beats their male or female slave with a rod must be punished that
the slave dies as a direct result but they are not to be punished if the slave recovers after a day or two since the slave is their property unquote here we see the type of moderate corporal punishment sorry here we see that a type of corporal punishment was not only expected but encouraged in the proverbs along with the legal rationale that differs little from what we see in the antebellum south verses 26 to 27 established that a slave is not due to lex talionis should his eye or tooth be destroyed but is to be released
from slavery instead finally in verses 28 to 32 if a slave is gored by a known unruly ox the master is to pay 30 shackles of silver to the owner of the slave deuteronomy 15 develops at least some aspects of the laws of the covenant code most notably the requirement to provide the israelite slave with material provisions following his six-year term of service in order that he might not so easily fall back into debt slavery however we must remember that as in exodus 21 this refers only to israel like that slaves foreign slaves are dealt
with specifically in leviticus 25 the latest of the three legal sections which develops the laws concerning the israel's israelite slave even further the israelite who becomes so poor has to sell himself to another israelite must not be treated as a slave but as a hard worker where were the israelites to obtain their slaves from the nations that surround them and from tenant farmers residing in the land of israel verses 44 to 46 read your male and female slaves are to come from the nations around you from them you may buy slaves you may also buy
some of the temporary residents living among you and members of their clans born in your country and they will become your property you can bequeath them to your children as inherited property and can make them slaves for life but you must not rule over your fellow israelites ruthlessly these foreigners can be treated as slaves kept as property in perpetuity and passed on as inheritance to their children the topic of slavery is one that justifiably makes us uncomfortable yet it comes up time and again in discussions about morality in the god of the bible what we
have outlined above represents the consensus view among scholars in the field and accords well as we will see with what these texts say and what they are doing in their respective contexts jpm vanderpug wrote it has been said very often that slavery in israel or in the near east as a whole should not be put in line with classical greek or roman slavery slaves were not too numerous and their position was very often that of unfree house servants if they had good masters they were maintained by them and were in a position very often preferable
to free but poor people but in spite of this consideration he says slavery was an evil although we know that the slavery that is described in the legal text of the old testament differs little from what we see in the laws of other ancient near eastern societies let us assume for a moment that they were different let's assume that the slavery in the bible was only dead servitude that all people were to be released after a period of time that runaway slaves were not allowed to be returned and slaves were not allowed to be beaten
by their masters it would still be slavery people owning people even if only for a period of time how could this practice which has been openly condemned in modern society be justified as moral in any way it would seem that the only defense would be to argue that a perfectly moral god endorsed its practice thus it was moral because god declared it so but this amounts it seems to little more than a post-hoc rationalization that ostensibly must be taken simply by faith it appears to fall into the category of claims made without evidence that can
be dismissed without evidence it seems the only thing that uh remains is to suggest that well atheists don't have a moral foundation and therefore don't have any grounds to say it's immoral which is completely dishonest dodge it doesn't matter if i have a moral foundation or not i do by the way um it doesn't matter whether anybody else agrees with my foundation josh and i could just sit here and say you know what we sat around we thought about it today we're really opposed to this slavery thing no not just the antebellum we are really
opposed to the slavery as it's described in the bible that one person can own another person's property that they can beat them etc slavery is evil we're not here to defend slavery we are also convinced that the bible does not condone slavery yes it gives instructions regarding slavery yes it gives regulations regarding slavery but it does not condone slavery so why is slavery wrong because we're created the image of god we've all fallen in sin is real and unfortunately slavery has been a part of the history of civilization slavery's wrong because of the exodus out
of egypt slavery is wrong because christ died for the sins of the whole world slavery is wrong because in the church of jesus christ there is neither slave nor free slavery is wrong because in heaven they're going to be people from every nation god does not play favorites god does not show partiality and in seventh place slavery is wrong according to the scriptures because the main point of the book of philemon is philemon a slave owner is being told by paul paul's pleading with philemon please accept your runaway slave onesimus back no longer as a
slave but as a brother in christ in other words love on the guy love him he's your brother the question i asked is get given all the foundations that you provide how does that apply to someone who does not who is not a christian who does not believe that the bible is true so so basically your entire case for biblical slavery being moral is a particular interpretation on your part of the bible now we may or may not agree on the interpretation but all i was asking was if there's someone who does not agree with
the bible either your version or somebody else's version how is that in any way a demonstration that it's wrong you can disagree with whatever you want to i could disagree with whatever i want to the question is if you're going to put yourself in a position of judging the bible and the bible's morality then you better have a pretty good explanation of what's the basis of the morality that you're using to judge the bible's morality and i have not heard that from you so first of all that's still not an answer to my question and
second of all nobody has to have a better explanation than god said so in order to object to the things that you say god said because i have no evidence that god said anything all right fine man it's real simple you know i often hear people say god says it i believe it that settles it you know there's an alternative map to that line of thinking yes there's god i believe it that settles it oh that's not the point is that's the heart of sin the heart of sin is me playing god me saying god
my opinion is more correct more moral more right than your opinion i guess it doesn't go that path i go on that path at times myself but let's be real honest the game that we're playing i i i'm trying to be real honest the game we're playing i keep asking a question that you don't answer how is this binding on anybody who's not a biblic bible-believing christian obviously i would think you'd be able to answer that question yourself it's not i would like for you to answer why is it three times clear if you're an
atheist you're not going to accept that the bible speaks the truth and so you're going to live your own life great god has given you the gift of freedom but if there is a god if you're wrong that there is no god if indeed in reality there is a god who ultimately will judge us then you're in a real jam matt with regard to sleep but if there is no god matt when i die i become fertilizer and when you die you become fertilizer and that's it that's obviously the way it is matt and so
there is no god we all die in fertilizer so you're not gonna have to answer to god neither am i but if there is a god then you're gonna have to answer to god for the decisions you made in the way you treated people so am i and and and while i understand that i'm the subject of this debate was is biblical slavery moral now we're going to disagree on foundations of morality but if your argument is what the bible says is good and correct because it comes from god and that's just wrong that it's
not slavery i never said that once so you put those words into my mouth i'm hanging out with once did i say the bible speaks the truth because it comes from the mouth of god i know you did a great job attacking a strong man but i never will cliff can you calm down can you calm down and start being accurate with what i say i did not say that cliff i did not say that you said that i'm i'm sorry that this is that you're not following this if you make the case that what
you're gonna make the case you're referring to me are you gonna interrupt me every time no go ahead if you make the case as you did that what the bible sanctions is not slavery in the view that we hold are you are you agreeing with me that that was your case that what we call slavery you don't think is slavery i never made that case once you totally misunderstood it totally okay fine i started off by saying slavery is evil and then i continue to say and the bible never condones slavery okay how dare you
sir you just said the bible never condones slavery right it does in fact support slavery in the notion that slavery is permissive permissible under certain guidelines correct hold on okay since you're taking us directly back to the top you guys part of the issue here is like you mentioned the canaanites for example you know or the surrounding nations or the nations that were in israel proper if you're going to go with the narrative and say they're wicked and they're doing child sacrifice and brazen altars and burning you know children alive you're going with the narrative
right you're going with the old testament narrative the narrative of the hebrew bible that does so there's conquest there's an exodus right that's the narrative so if you're going to go with that then you have to go with to be consistent you have to go with sinai you have to go with what's going on there with the laws the problem is that we know that the canaanites weren't these wicked people we know that the exodus isn't what the biblical sex portrays like this is census consol consensus scholarship um so it's you either have to distinguish
them and talk about them in different realms and make sure that you're consistent within them um yeah yeah that's what you have to do either talking about the narrative or talking about what we know historically i don't want to take any youtube point of the bit well and that's interesting to talk about you know how did people different people look at this but i mean for me the question of the debate is really simple is biblical very immoral and so for anything if we're going to try to determine whether or not it's immoral first thing
is you know hey let's let's make a statement and say like for example do you think generally speaking is a general rule it's wrong to own people's property and pass them on to your kids because i do and yet the bible allows for that under some conditions and i don't think the conditions that the bible allows for it in any way eliminate whether or not it is a morally correct action like would either of you be my slave under the rules in exodus well i think that ends the debate right there thanks you've got to
think through what is going on here what is the standard what is the ideal and what is the evidence that sin has gotten into the mix and really mess things up like slavery it just sounds like you're saying that the bible condones things that god and the people knew to be immoral that are in fact immoral because god could just why why isn't there an 11th commandment that says thou shalt not own another human being as property and instead the bible says the exact opposite now do not steal what's actually appealing to nonsense exodus 21
16 deuteronomy 24 7 right this is about the unlawful taking of someone else's property right so don't steal somebody else's car does not mean don't own cars right so we have to make sure we have that distinction in mind um leviticus 25 i'd be interested to know because this is a problem for this sort of idea of god um progressively uh enduring the sinfulness of man the reason i asked you about matthew 19 and making a specific connection in the biblical text between matthew 19 and that principle in slavery is because of this in particular
so leviticus 25 is the last arguably i think this consensus scholarship um of the three legal sections in biblical text a holiness code right and what it does is it turns exodus 21 sort of on its head and one of the things that it does is exodus 21 deuteronomy 15 both say you can treat an israelite like an evid like a slave right leviticus 25 39-43 says no more you cannot treat an israelite as an evid right it shows the progression how they fall into poverty and if they get to the point where they sell
themselves says you're no longer allowed to treat a fellow israelite as an evident as a slave you have to treat him as a sahir or just a hired worker right so then verse 44 you know it fronts the the grammar fronts this and says so as for your male and female slaves whom you will have right you're going to get them from the nations around you you're going to get them from the tenant farmers living in your midst so my i think the problem for this sort of progressive idea aside from the fact that the
new testament authors don't condemn it and that the early church wrestled with it like crazy right uh you can read jennifer glantzy you can read ronald charles recent 2020 publication on this but aside from that god does seem fit in the narrative of the text in the legal section of leviticus 25 to say at some degre at some level it's not good to be a slave and you can't treat the israelites like slaves anymore and had it had it stopped there and moved on i would say you've got a decent case for it the problem
is that it says bad for israelites but not for foreigners you can you can do it with foreigners so that's a weird idea not not an ephesus but so even if you moral perception sure but even if you dissect the word hebrew you get so way more understanding of social classes rather than different there's a matter of difference of ethnicities it's it's it's israelites and i mean i can give you citations on it if you want okay so i'll leave you on that would you ever be someone slave no slavery is evil i wouldn't choose
to be a slave and i will never enslave anybody and racism is wrong regardless of whether it's communicated by republicans or democrats or independents why because there's a god in heaven who has given all human beings equal value and dignity that's why slavery is wrong everyone was a slave to somebody in the old testament and all the early christians were a slave to christ if all we're doing is talking about hey let's give poor people jobs i would think that the almighty all-wise governor of the universe would find a way to convey that message that
doesn't include statements like you shall buy your slaves from the heathens around you and if a man shows his daughter to be a maid servant she shall not go out as the men servants do you wouldn't set up different rules based on the gender of whoever you're giving a job to this is a very pollyannish anachronistic view by cliff in my opinion of looking at what this actually means without looking at it in the context of history or what the passage literally says well man i'm so glad to hear you say the context of history
bravo so go back and study how women were treated at that time yeah the sexism was off the charts right bible sanctioned all right the bible doesn't sanction that you bet it does it absolutely does it gives instructions to live in a messed up world so so i i think you also have to take at least some scholars i've read premeditation comes into play as well here absolutely so so that's my answer because if someone has not died for example then you have to take into consideration that this person was not it was not pre-meditated
one and that two any just judge would say okay we've got to trust this person's word we've got to let them off that's exactly the point that's exactly the point of the text that you what you just said is consensus scholarship but the problem is it's the same legal rationale that judges used in the antebellum itself right yeah in that particular situation in exodus leviticus deuteronomy yes god has not come out in those passages and flat out said all slavery is evil it's nowhere in the text there is it anywhere else in the same way
the same way he does not come out and say all divorce is wrong same way he does not come out and say oh polygamy is wrong same way he does not come out and say all child abuse is wrong so there's no place in the in in the pentagon where god says flat out all slavery is wrong it's not ever does god ever say you can abuse your children just as long as you don't kill them no god never says that he says that about slaves according to moses because a virgin girl was usually 12
years old or younger usually girls were not virgins 13 years of age and older and so those women who had led israel into sexual morality and into idolatry were judged but those younger girls were not judged and therefore the jewish people are accepting the younger girls in not to be raped not that they have to have sex with anybody but they're being accepted into the jewish community to be protected to be provided for and to conclude that because of their virgins therefore they're used to be raped is such a twisting such an addition to that
text it's scary gotcha thank you very much for your question they're plunder though i mean i think that's critical they're listed along as plunder amongst the other things and so what does that mean josh their property yeah i mean does that mean that that means that they are subject to be married off that it means that their consent is no longer required that they are not autonomous constructs running their own life that's carried off it was tremendously humanitarian though because after they slaughtered everybody young girls from themselves but they didn't actually rape them if you're
going to do that then you have to say something equivalent to well look if somebody came in here and murdered me and and and took my wife and kids and then burned my house down hey at least they took them out that was humane they didn't let them die here in the fire they didn't murder them they took them out look they took care of them for 25 years they kept in the house given place to eat nobody would do that right nobody would nobody would make that argument that that's humane and that's that's what
you're doing i mean that's that's how that's coming across to me meanwhile they killed her people who behaved that way and that's not fair to do that that's never been our point that that was the ideal that that was the humane thing to do but that's what he but that's right i think that's what you did stuart said that was the humane thing to do sorry i think part of the issue here is that i mentioned this earlier it does seem like sometimes you guys kind of have a foot in both both hermeneutical approaches and
on the one hand you'll say things like the canaanites are really really wicked when like we don't have evidence of that but the biblical narrative says that they were and so you kind of go with a biblical narrative but then it seems like you say well moses you know gives these commands well we don't know that these were legislative well that's that's sort of looking at it you know from a more historical critical statement i think that's where the confusion is so be it what's behind our overall point is that theologically speaking the god that
is so often described is the omni god right on the benevolent omniscient omnipotent um and in that sense this deity who makes very strong commands both in the old and the new testament um doesn't have what we would look back and say the consistency to say slavery is immoral and that seems um i don't know uh counter-intuitive stewart sat there and suggested and and we can rewind it and look at the words that it's almost like the atheists are like how much should god be involved in all this and what we're saying is not we
want we think that god should have been involved in micromanaging anything else i think at a minimum i'm expecting the bare minimum and that is for a god to not say hey it's okay to own people's property when a god should say it is not okay to own people's property i'm asking for the bare minimum of humanity which does not even exist at all in the bible and you're pretending as if i'm asking god to be involved in all these little things and make all these laws and all that no i'm just asking you not
to get it completely backward and all i was asking was just for a little bit of heavy lifting from you and so that was my only problem you don't have to do heavy lifting if i've raised an ethical objection and you come back with a straw man there's no heavy lifting to do slavery is immoral what the bible advocates is immoral who says i do i answered the last time you asked and that's what says and why i say why because it is against the things that we know and understand to be best for individual
humans and humanity we have learned that slavery is not good for the slaves slavery is not good for the slave owners slavery is not good for the society we know this from the evidence about what makes a better society and a worse society so read heath durell's book on child sacrifice published in 2016 he's up at princeton um but like this this idea that the canaanites you know in the in the like 15th century or the 16th century or something had these brazen altars that had arms sticking out they're melting you know it's it's highly
debated whether um mem lamikov this word that everybody's taking is molech is an actual deity if you read the punic evidence from like the seventh sixth and fifth centuries you see there's a malk sacrifice it's a type of sacrifice and what dural argues that i think most people would agree with is that these the israelites were doing this to yahweh this avoided the question if the jews had not killed the people that they thought god wanted them to kill would they have been punished i don't have the faintest idea just because i do something in
the bible every time they didn't give up every time they didn't do what god wanted they got punished it's over and over and over again it's ridiculous to say you don't know well then read the book of job the basic mistake that job's counselors made was to make a one-to-one correspondence between sin and suffering one of the main points of job is no there is not a one-to-one correspondence between sin and suffering job did not suffer because he'd done something sinful just read the joke right but i think his point is more deuteronomy 28 leviticus
26 you know this idea that do good i will bless you too bad i will curse you and this is what we see uh that they that these courses of curses come upon the nation of israel i think that's matt's point again from the standpoint of the narrative this is how it worked do good things and curses it's called but that's exactly what leviticus 26 deuteronomy 28 that's why you have to interpret it more fairly this guy thank you for saying that i don't interpret there early you said this thing to me josh come on
let's be honest but josh is right good that's your opinion matt he loves josh has communicated his opinion clearly and he's our right to do that i respect him for it and we can talk to [Music] so [Music] you
