Rajk ethics

@sonship said
@BigDoggProblem

Before I answer you I must ask you,
Did you watch either of the videos devoted slavery in the Bible?

I provided a short version and a more in depth version.
If you didn't watch either one of them I don't think I want to argue with you.

I would encourage you (if you are really bothered by this) to look at Mike Winger's longer talk on many issues about slavery in the second video of some 42 minutes.

I think you should answer a simple question rather than signpost to a 42 minute video.

@Ghost-of-a-Duke

The problem with a post length "simple answer" is its not thorough enough.

The question and related issues require some time.
I realize in this age most people just want a quick little chatty reply.

@BigDoggProblem

What do you think? Is it acceptable to own slaves? Is it acceptable to beat up a slave, as long as you don't kill them?

If I lived in ancient Israel and feared God I would not want to suffer capital punishment by kidnapping anyone. And if I was hiding such an escaped kidnapped person I also would not want to be punished for doing so according to the law God gave Moses.

Now I might be or receive an indentured servant who in seven years was mandated to be released, again according the law of Moses.

I might have to resort to making such a contract myself in fact should I come into poverty. I don't read the modern kind of racial slavery via kidnapping into the slavery mentioned in the bible.

The oldest book of the Bible Job indicates that the patriarch's attitude towards his servants was that they were not inferior but equal in dignity to their master. This was uttered during the time of Abraham before the law of Moses was given.

Job 31:13-15
"If I have denied justice to my menservants and maidservants when they had a grievance against me, what will I do when God confronts me? What will I answer when called to account? Did not He who made me in the womb make them? Did not the same One form us both within our mothers?"

If you can find me an ancient document dating that far back with a similar expression of equality of dignity between master and servant I would like to see it.

Now the reason that some say the servitude was immoral because the law said the slave was the master's property has to be considered carefully. If God meant he was his property such that he had every right to do whatever he wished to the servant, then why not kill him?

It didn't say "He is his property. So he can beat him to death if he so desires. Its his property to do whatever he wants with his property."

So I take it more in the sense that "He is his livelihood." Or "He is his way to make a living." The indentured servant was for the length of the contract his master's way to derive contractual benefit - "his property".

Lastly, this is God making provision FOR the fact that some slave may be struck. It is NOT a divine instruction - "Thou shalt go strike your slave."

Just like God hated divorce. But He made provision for the inevitable fact there would be divorces. Paul Copan says that some youths were placed into indentured servitude on behalf of their impoverished families. These youngsters were sometimes the ones who were the recipients of some physical hitting.

At any rate, God making provision for this when it might happen is not God endorsing it. Just like Him making provision for divorces was not His command that divorces should take place.

@sonship said
Now the reason that some say the servitude was immoral

No. The issue is that *slavery* is immoral. Don't rebrand slavery into something more palatable to excuse the Bible.

God making provision for this when it might happen is not God endorsing it.

This is the same God who made homosexuality punishable by death. If God wanted to prohibit slavery, what was stopping him? Nothing. This is a poor excuse.