HOW DARE those Christians Worship a Book that Approves of SLAVERY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Question

Except for murder, slavery has got to be one of the most immoral things a person can do. Yet slavery is rampant throughout the Bible in both the Old and New Testaments. The Bible clearly approves of slavery in many passages, and it goes so far as to tell how to obtain slaves, how hard you can beat them, and when you can have sex with the female slaves.

The following passage shows that slaves are clearly property to be bought and sold like livestock.


"However, you may purchase male or female slaves from among the foreigners who live among you. You may also purchase the children of such resident foreigners, including those who have been born in your land. You may treat them as your property, passing them on to your children as a permanent inheritance. You may treat your slaves like this, but the people of Israel, your relatives, must never be treated this way. (Leviticus 25:44-46 NLT)"

The following passage describes the sickening practice of sex slavery. How can anyone think it is moral to sell your own daughter as a sex slave?



When a man sells his daughter as a slave, she will not be freed at the end of six years as the men are. If she does not please the man who bought her, he may allow her to be bought back again. But he is not allowed to sell her to foreigners, since he is the one who broke the contract with her. And if the slave girl's owner arranges for her to marry his son, he may no longer treat her as a slave girl, but he must treat her as his daughter. If he himself marries her and then takes another wife, he may not reduce her food or clothing or fail to sleep with her as his wife. If he fails in any of these three ways, she may leave as a free woman without making any payment. (Exodus 21:7-11 NLT)

Answer 1

*They alwasys told me the bible does not uphold slavery, but merely recognized that during bible times slavery was an acceptable condition. I dissagree with that whole heartedly. I have read the bible through many times and sevreal of those times included the Old Testement as well as the new testement.

It most certainly does uphold s.avery and approves of it. It gives commands for the slave and slave owner ws well. It it did not approve it slavery, then why does it not just come out and say it is a sin? It does with homosexuality, murder, lieing, cheating, bearing false witness, gluttoney, and all other manner if so called sin. I say so called because I do not believe in sin.

The answer they gave me when I was still a christian is that God did not condemn slavery because he knew that if he did openly come out and condemn something that was as widely acceptable and practised as slavery that Christianity would have been destroyed and never would have gotten off the ground. (Which prove to me God is not all powerful)

I find that hard to beleive because the governments at the time held homosexuality and bisexuality high and most government officials were at least bisexual and the bible condemnes that, but still survived. Heck during the civil war both sides used bible passages to defend and fight slavery. The south had more scriptures to back it up than the North did to fight against it.

So the bible does defend and approve of slavery. so if God is just and the bible is true and correct, why do Christians deny it does in fact approve of slavery? Because they do not want to admit it does.*

Answer 2

1) Christians don't worship the bible, they worship God and follow the teachings of Christ, recorded most accurately in what we know as the new testament of the bible.
2) the old testament books you quoted are portions from the ONLY books of the bible the JEWISH faith uses. You are too easily misled by popular culture and media to blame all religious wrongs or misinterpretations on those dread Christians.
3) The bible is a huge book, full of many types of literary forms. When you read it you must ask is this a history portion, poetry/worship portion, prophetic, letter to certain people, etc, etc. This is why there is so much heresy in faiths, people don't study the bible they pick out something and misinterpret it. The bible is full of the stories of people who screwed up over and over to show us that we need to rely on God thru Christ, not our own wisdom. David, a man after God's own heart, was an adulterer and murderer. Yet he also humbled himself and asked God to forgive him. God sees the heart as most important.

I am ashamedly not an expert on the books you quote, but my understanding, as stated by the first answerer, is that Moses, most probably was addressing the culture of slavery in that era. In other words, like Christ said, it may be lawful to divorce a woman for no reason, but as people of God you need to be better than that. At least divorce only for adultery.

In the book of Leviticus, Moses was trying to prevent the Israelites from inter marrying or producing children outside the bloodline.

I know this is all so difficult to grasp, and so you can see why people go to college for years and years, and then they still get it wrong.

Read the bible with an open mind, like you would any ancient and important text book. Remember that if you are referring to Christianity, the new testament is a little more relevant to this faith, even though our heritage is the old testament.

Keep reading and ask the author Himself, God, to help you understand and find reference tools to help you.

Answer 3

Just because it happened in the Biblical times doesn't make it the thing to do. It's not a commandment--Thou Must Have Slaves. A large part of it is freeing the slaves.

It just records the way things were AT THE TIME. Is history barbaric? Yes, that's a fact. Were adulteresses put to death? Yes. Were virgins sold to their rapists? Yes. This stuff happened. But it doesn't make it right.

Jesus Christ was sold out by Judas for the price of a slave. This in no way advocates slavery. In fact, this is not a positive view of slavery, dear. Only shows how disgusting it is.

And people are still fighting for basic human rights to this day.

Answer 4

I really like the way you sparse out certain passages that make God look like a jerk. How about we see everything God said on the subject.

First of all, Leviticus makes it clear that no one was to be taken into slavery against their will. People fell on hard times, and they sold their children into slavery for money. Let's look at their choices. Sell my son to a pagan slaveholder, who will surely beat and starve him. Or sell him to a Jew, who is commanded by their God to treat him as a valued employee.
Many, many Jews even helped their slaves find freedom, or helped them find a good spouse.

Look at the second passage you cited. It says that if you bought a female slave, you had to treat her as good as your wife. If you read on down the passage, it clearly states that her food, clothing, and marriage rights will not be diminished no matter what. And if the man failed to treat her right, she was free to get up and leave. Go back and read the rest of it.

So I really don't see how God trying to bring some morality into the world was such a bad thing.


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Answer 5

These commandments were given bye Moses not by God but I pretty shore that he had a good reason to give these rules to them considering that Israel were slaves for 400 yrs they should be able to have their own slaves. I don't agree with slavery but it never says that slavery was a good thing in the Bible. Also its probably the same as David and his son Solomon who had lots of wives but not once does it say God approved it.

Answer 6

Again you go into the Old Testament and know nothing of the history and cultures of that time. The Israelites were slaves in Egypt. The Egyptians were Pagans. After years of living with the Egyptians the Israelites "picked up" some of the habits of the Pagan nation they lived in for many years. God allowed certain practises to exist because of man's free will. If you live in America How dare you say what a wonderful country you have, when slavery of the black man took place on that land.

Answer 7

Different times, and different cultures. In this day and age I would venture to say there is still an awful lot of slavery going on only we call it something different. Aren't we a slave to fashion and cell phones and our jobs and hairdressers or manicurists. Some women are slaves within their relationships for their housing and food. What's the difference?

Answer 8

I am happy that you despise slavery. so do I. It seems that once a race is enslaved they're descendants seem to flourish. Those individuals you quote in scripture were more like servants rather than slaves. America had slaves unlike themselves and the Egyptians had slaves unlike themselves. They enslaved them for labor and had a superiority complex over them. Not the case with what you quoted. I hate slavery too.

Answer 9

Whoa there. That's a whole lot of exclamation points when only one is needed. Slavery is a part of this world's history. No, it's not right but it's what happened. There is also murder in the bible. Why didn't you mention that at all? That's right in the beginning. Surely you didn't miss that.

And just a tidbit, Christians don't worship the bible. They worship God.

Answer 10

Dear these were the customs back then. I think that it was the norm for them at that time in history. Remember the story of Ruth. She was sold and later sacrificing to a pagan God. But God spared her and she was later married and blessed with a son. God was there and He did intervene when things gotten completely out of hand. Read it again and ask God to help you understand the points of the stories.