Slavery as an institution
Today slavery is admitted to be an immoral institution. The owning of another person, and the treatment of that person as mere property is fairly obviously wrong to us today. It is bad for society, as it results in a permanent underclass. It is a result of inconsistent application of reason to the moral realm.Christians will join in this chorus of voices in denouncing slavery. Many of them will also agree that slavery has always been immoral, and that the bible was simply mistaken to advocate it. Some Christians, however, will argue that biblical slavery was somehow different, was somehow moral, and therefore somehow a-ok. This is an ad-hoc claim made due to their ideological commitment to inerrancy rather than a rational review of the institution of slavery as ownership of another person, as well historical revisionism applied to the manner in which slavery has been practised in the past.
Christians who are obliged to make an apology for slavery based upon their commitment to biblical inerrancy also tend to make claims regarding the objective, absolute and unchanging nature of morality. This appears to be an incoherent position to hold, assuming they admit that slavery is immoral today.
I am not aware of anyone who argues that slavery should be legal and encouraged, though this appears to be the position which is consistent with an apologetic for biblical slavery. I suspect that these people would be unwilling to admit that slavery is a moral institution and should be practised.
Slavery in the Old Testament
To acurately assess the "specialness" of biblical slavery we should not be comparing it to New World slavery. We should be comparing it to other laws of the time and region. For example, biblical slavery's concept of release in a Jubilee year is often held up as being laudible. Let as look at this, and compare it with a similar law.First the bible:
Deut 15:12 "[And] if thy brother, an Hebrew man, or an Hebrew woman, be sold unto thee, and serve thee six years; then in the seventh year thou shalt let him go free from thee." KJVWe can see that the biblical code relating to debt slavery above only applies to those who were Hebrew prior to being sold, and only when the Hebrew is sold to another Hebrew.
Now, let's compare this with the Code of Hammurabi.
Code of Hammurabi passage 117 "117. If any one fail to meet a claim for debt, and sell himself, his wife, his son, and daughter for money or give them away to forced labor: they shall work for three years in the house of the man who bought them, or the proprietor, and in the fourth year they shall be set free."We can see that not only does this code halve the length of servitude, but it applies to any and all people who become slaves through paying a debt.
We can easily see here, that the bible is not particularly "special" in it's time and place.
When we look at biblical slavery in context we see that it is similar to, and often times worse than slavery in the surrounding nations.
Let us look at the claimed human treatment accorded to slaves in the bible.
Exodus 21:20-12,26-27 "And if a man smite his servant, or his maid, with a rod, and he die under his hand; he shall be surely punished. Notwithstanding, if he continue a day or two, he shall not be punished: for he [is] his money. ... And if a man smite the eye of his servant, or the eye of his maid, that it perish; he shall let him go free for his eye's sake. And if he smite out his manservant's tooth, or his maidservant's tooth; he shall let him go free for his tooth's sake. KJVWe can see from this that slaves are treated as property. Slave owners were allowed to beat their slaves with relative impunity. The only punishment which could occur is if the slave died staright away, or if they were rendered unfit (losing an eye or a tooth). We notice that there is no injunction against beating slaves here, as would be expected of a human code (in fact, a human code would simply make it clear that slavery was immoral/illegal).
Another passage also deserves comment:
Leviticus 25:48 "And if a sojourner or stranger wax rich by thee, and thy brother [that dwelleth] by him wax poor, and sell himself unto the stranger [or] sojourner by thee, or to the stock of the stranger's family: After that he is sold he may be redeemed again; one of his brethren may redeem him: Either his uncle, or his uncle's son, may redeem him, or [any] that is nigh of kin unto him of his family may redeem him; or if he be able, he may redeem himself. And he shall reckon with him that bought him from the year that he was sold to him unto the year of jubile: and the price of his sale shall be according unto the number of years, according to the time of an hired servant shall it be with him." KJVIn this passage we can see that this only applies to Hebrew's who are sell themselves to foreigners. This is quite a restricted condition, and certainly does not apply to Hebrews who sell themselves to other Hebrews, Hebrew slaves from birth, or foreigners.
It is often claimed that foreigners who were slaves to Hebrews could simply convert and enjoy the benefits of release in the Jubilee year. This is not as obviously easy as some would maintain however.
For example, most of the restrictions on slavery that apply to Hebrew's apply to those who were considered Hebrew's prior to becoming slaves. There does not seem to be any evidence that a convert would be treated as a life long Hebrew in these circumstances. There are also groups of people to whom conversion was unavailable. Eunuchs, Moabites, and others were not ever to be allowed into the convenant with Yahweh. There is also the immorality of requiring conversion in order to be treated humanely. The author of the blog who inspired this has often complained of the poor treatment of Christians in Muslim nations. This poor treatment could be alleviated by these Christians converting to Islam. I doubt the author would approve of this course of action, nor would he consider this a moral system, and yet he is endorsing exactly the same sort of behaviour as moral. This amounts to special pleading on behalf of biblical slavery.
Slavery in the New Testament
If we look in the New Testament for passages denouncing slavery, we will be very disappointed. We find many passages exhorting slaves to be obedient to their masters:Ephesians 6:5 Slaves, obey your earthly masters with respect and fear, and with sincerity of heart, just as you would obey Christ. NIV
Colossians 3:22 Slaves, obey your earthly masters in everything; and do it, not only when their eye is on you and to curry their favor, but with sincerity of heart and reverence for the Lord NIV
1 Timothy 6:1-2 All who are under the yoke of slavery should consider their masters worthy of full respect, so that God’s name and our teaching may not be slandered. 2 Those who have believing masters should not show them disrespect just because they are fellow believers. Instead, they should serve them even better because their masters are dear to them as fellow believers and are devoted to the welfare[a] of their slaves. These are the things you are to teach and insist on. NIV
Titus 2:9-10 Teach slaves to be subject to their masters in everything, to try to please them, not to talk back to them, and not to steal from them, but to show that they can be fully trusted, so that in every way they will make the teaching about God our Savior attractive. NIV
1 Peter 2:18 Slaves, in reverent fear of God submit yourselves to your masters, not only to those who are good and considerate, but also to those who are harsh. NIVWe can see from this selection of passages that slavery was to be accepted. There is no hint that slavery as an institution was immoral, and Christian slaves were to submit to masters regardless of how cruel or kind, whatever their beliefs. These are not the writings of those who believed slavery to be immoral, as we can see in the following verse, directed at slave owners:
Ephesians 6:9 And masters, treat your slaves in the same way. Do not threaten them, since you know that he who is both their Master and yours is in heaven, and there is no favoritism with him. NIVWe see here the master asked to treat his slaves well. Not to set them free, as we would expect were slavery considered immoral by the author. It also likens God/Jesus to a slave master, an interesting observation in it's own right, given the frequent image portraying God as a loving father. The following passage from 1 Timothy, has been presented as denouncing slavery:
1 Timothy 1:10 "for the sexually immoral, for those practicing homosexuality, for slave traders and liars and perjurers—and for whatever else is contrary to the sound doctrine" NIVWe are informed that the denunciation of slave-traders is a denunciation of slavery generally. However, the word translated as "slave-traders" - "andrapodistes", more correctly means one who unjustly reduces free men to slavery, or who steals the slaves of another. The NIV appears to be attempting to soften the message. The KJV renders this term as "manstealers" for good reason. It is obvious that this is not a condemnation of slavery, but rather of kidnapping and theft of property.
The letter to Philemon is another example of the NT condining slavery. Paul is sending the slave Onesimus, back to Philemon. While Paul implies that he would like Philemon to release Onesimus, or perhaps to buy his freedom through the debt Philemon owes to Paul, not once does Paul say that slavery is immoral, nor claim that Philemon should release a fellow brother.
Perhaps one might argue that it was dangerous to argue against slavery at this time, and that the NT authors were simply working within the strictures forced upon them.
This is not a satisfactory explanation for the endorsements of slavery by the New Testament authors for (at least) 2 reasons.
Firstly, there were those who did argue for the freedom of slaves. Tacitus, in his Annals (4.27) relates the story of one such person, Titus Curtisius.
Annals 4.27 The same summer, the germs of a slave war in Italy were crushed by a fortunate accident. The originator of the movement was Titus Curtisius, once a soldier of the praetorian guard. First, by secret meetings at Brundisium and the neighbouring towns, then by placards publicly exhibited, he incited the rural and savage slave-population of the remote forests to assert their freedom. By divine providence, three vessels came to land for the use of those who traversed that sea. In the same part of the country too was Curtius Lupus, the quaestor, who, according to ancient precedent, had had the charge of the "woodland pastures" assigned to him. Putting in motion a force of marines, he broke up the seditious combination in its very first beginnings. The emperor at once sent Staius, a tribune, with a strong detachment, by whom the ringleader himself, with his most daring followers, were brought prisoners to Rome where men already trembled at the vast scale of the slave-establishments, in which there was an immense growth, while the freeborn populace daily decreased."With the claims of Christians that the apostles were martyred for what they believed, indicating that principle was more important than the consequences to these people, their endorsement of slavery becomes all the more damning.
We can also compare the New Testament endorsements with another contemporary, Musonius Rufus, who while falling short of arguing for the freeing slaves, did go much closer to this than any of the New Testament authors did. Musonius Rufus, a Stoic Philosopher who lived between 30AD and 100AD, taught that "one should endure hardships, and suffer the pains of labor with his own body, rather than depend upon another for sustenance", indicating that we should not live from the labour of slaves. He also regarded forcing sex from slavegirl as immoral, comparing them to free women. Most amazingly, in a time when agitating against slavery would get you killed in short order, Musonius argued that it was right to disobey an unlawful/immoral command from any superior, whether they be a father, magistrate, or owner. This stands in stark contrast to the endorsement of slavery we find in the NT, and is an indictment against the moral standing of those authors and their writings.
We can see that not only does the New Testament not decry slavery as immoral, but actively endorses it. At best, the New Testament asks slave owners to treat their slaves with kindness.
We can also see that non-Christians were willing to argue more closely the immorality of slavery, and in cases were martryed for their beliefs in the immorality of slavery.
New World slavery
I'll only speak a little about New World slavery, as practiced in the America's. Though it is often used as the contrast against which biblical slavery is shown in a favourable light, such a comparison is not appropriate for a number of reasons.Firstly, New World slavery is far removed both culturally and temporally, from biblical slavery. As I've demonstrated above, biblical slavery, when compared with it's contemporaries no longer looks favourable.
I've also noted that the institution of slavery itself, of owning another person, is immoral on the face of it. If this is the case, then regardless of how favourable biblical slavery is when compared with some other form of slavery, it is still immoral, and so such comparisons do nothing to rescue biblical slavery.
And finally we can note that the culture which gave rise to New World slavery was thoroughly Christian. Christians instituted it, Christians practised it, Christians opposed it's abolition.
Since, as I've demonstrated above, the Christian bible is pro-slavery, the anti-abolitionists used strong scriptural arguments in support of slavery which were unavailable to the abolitionists. Although many prominent abolitionists were Christians, their opposition to slavery was in spite of, rather than because of, Christianity.
UPDATE: Just stumbled upon a quote from the Governor of South Carolina in 1844, concerning slavery:
It is impossible therefore to suppose that slavery is contrary to the Will of God. It is equally absurd to say that American slavery differs in form or principle from that of the chosen People. We accept the Bible terms as the definition of our slavery and its precepts as the guide of our conduct. We desire nothing more. Even the right to buffet which is esteemed so shocking finds its express license in the Gospel (1 Peter ii 20). Nay what is more, God directs the Hebrews to bore holes in the ears of their brothers to mark them when under certain circumstances they become perpetual slaves (Ex. Xxi: 6). I think then I may safely conclude and I firmly believe that American slavery is not only not a sin but especially commanded by God through Moses and approved by Christ through His Apostles.
Notice the support he draws from the Bible, not just for the institution of slavery, but for beating your slaves:
1 Peter 2:20 But how is it to your credit if you receive a beating for doing wrong and endure it? But if you suffer for doing good and you endure it, this is commendable before God.
Conclusion
As this brief foray into the relationship between Christianity and slavery shows, the bible, and bible based Christianity is actually pro-slavery. Modern Christians who are ant-slavery hold this position in spite of their holy book, not because of it. The "moral zeitgeist" has moved on and many Christians have rationalised their beliefs to accommodate this. As we can see, however, both the books of the Old Testament and the New Testament do not denounce slavery, and actively support the institution. This puts Christians who believe the bible is without error in the position of either holding contradictory beliefs - that slavery is both immoral and moral, or in the position of supporting slavery today, and there do not appear to be many in the latter camp. Those mounting an apologetic for biblical slavery ought to feel ashamed of themselves. Unfortunately they often come across as pleased with their work.A thorough refutation of biblical slavery, among other things, written by Thom Stark is available here. This is a response to Paul Copans apology for biblical genocide and slavery "Is God a Moral Monster?"
34 comments:
Although I disagree with your general thesis, I found some of your quotes illuminating, especially from Hammurabi's Code.
It would be helpful if you actually pointed out where and why you disagree, where and why you think I'm mistaken, rather than simply stating that you disagree :-)
The Code of Hammurabi is indeed interesting, demonstrating, as it does, that OT slavery is not more humane of "better" that those of Israel's neighbours.
Howdy, Havok...nice to see you're posting in your own blog again.
Good stuff about Hammurabi.
Hey, if you ever want to drop by the Skeptic Friends Network or the Atheist Viewpoint blog, feel free.
There's one thread at the SFN I'm sure you'd be familiar with already.
You'll find more like-minded people there and it'd be a refreshing change from constantly butting heads with people like Warden.
Reynold, I do get a perverse kind of enjoyment from interacting with people like Rick Warden and Daniel Mann, the guy who inspired this post.
I used to do it because I would have to educate myself just to follow along, but alas that is not often the case anymore. The same old justifications are given for the same old claims, and not a hint of learning appears to be displayed - like the first comment here from Daniel Mann - he disagree's, but offers no reason to disagree, and back at his own blog, his points are easily shown to be flawed.
*sigh* :-)
In response to this comment:
1 Cor 7:23, in context, doesn't relate to slavery.
1 Cor 7:20-24 Each person should remain in the situation they were in when God called them.
Were you a slave when you were called? Don’t let it trouble you—although if you can gain your freedom, do so. For the one who was a slave when called to faith in the Lord is the Lord’s freed person; similarly, the one who was free when called is Christ’s slave. You were bought at a price; do not become slaves of human beings. 24 Brothers and sisters, each person, as responsible to God, should remain in the situation they were in when God called them.
it seems rather obvious that this is not making the claim you want it to, and that in fact no concern towards the immorality of slavery is shown whatsoever.
1 Tim 10 is not talking about slavery generally, but about those who reduce free men to slaves unjustly, or those who steal slaves. As the post on my own blog demonstrated, the term translated as "slave traders" in your bible is translated as "manstealers" or "men stealers" in others.
John 13:34-35 Says nothing about slavery. It is a message directed towards the apostles before him to love one another.
Mann: The only alternative was to launch a bloody rebellion.
Obviously false, as Musonius Rufus demonstrates, speaking far more towards the immorality of slavery than anyone in the NT did. You're also saying that the apostles, who were apparently glad to be killed for their beleifs were too afraid to actually speak of their belief that slavery was immoral?
That's a terribly inconsistent position to hold.
Mann: Admittedly, slavery wasn’t God’s ideal, but neither was punishment of crime.
Absolute rubbish.
Slavery is condoned and encourages in the OT, and never does it seem to be decried in the NT. Punishment of crime is condoned and encouraged in the OT and the NT.
Remember Daniel you're talking about a being who with absolutely no effort can actualise whatever it wills. If this being had an ideal, it could actualise it with no more effort than doing absolutely nothing.
So, since God didn't actually do nothing, but actively encourages punishment and slavery, we can infer that punishment and slavery are indeed this being's ideal (assuming this being exists, for the sake of argument).
Mann: The ideal can only be found in heaven
Think about what you're claiming Daniel.
You are stating that your perfect God can and did create a place that is perfect and without flaw, but also chose to actualise the "imperfect" world with evil and suffering for all. You've just gone and demonstrated that you do not believe your God to be omnibenevolent.
You've just landed yourself smack dab in the firing line of the problem of evil, without an escape hatch.
Mann: I think your denial of the Christian role in the abolition movement is reflective of your consistent bias against Christianity.
I don't deny that Christians played a role. I just see that Christianity in fact supports their opponents, and that it seems they argued against slavery in spite of, not because of Christianity.
Mann: I pray that you might come to a love of the truth that will overshadow your biases.
Instead of that you could actually support the claim that the OT and NT do not actually support slavery, because as it stands all of your claims here have been shown to be without merit.
So, still no word from the guy eh?
Very informative post. I wish I had this info a few months ago.
He has a habit of not posting comments on his site which he is not able or willing to address.
And he has a habit of not actually doing anything off of his site (though he doesn't mind doing drive by comments, he doesn't seem to stick around). It does make discussion a little difficult.
Actually, Havok, you present a false alternative. Regardless of what some Christians may have said at any given time in history, the Bible's position is that slavery is not evil in and of itself.
What is evil according to the Bible is the slavery of initial force.
With that understanding in mind, we see that your charges of inconsistency and immorality are vaporized.
Michael: the Bible's position is that slavery is not evil in and of itself.
That is a problem in itself, is it not - the ownership of another sentient being seems to me to be a pretty good candidate for something that is just plain incorrect, regardless of your metaethical views.
Michael: What is evil according to the Bible is the slavery of initial force.
That seems only to have applied to other Israelites. There don't seem to be any prohibitions against making slaves (by force) from the surrounding nations.
Michael: With that understanding in mind, we see that your charges of inconsistency and immorality are vaporized.
I don't agree Michael.
The initial impetus for this post was claims that the bible is anti-slavery, and that the slavery in the OT was a necessary evil, and somehow far more humane than the slavery of other cultures are the time.
As my post points out, the bible is not anti-slavery, and is very much pro-slavery. I also showed that the OT slavery laws are no better than, and in fact worse than, the laws of other nations.
Havok writes: "That is a problem in itself, is it not - the ownership of another sentient being seems to me to be a pretty good candidate for something that is just plain incorrect. . . ."
Seems to be or is? According to whom or what? What’s your authority beyond the mere pretensions of cultural at any given time in history or the ever-shifting authority of consensus.
With regard to the slavery of initial force, Havok writes: "That seems only to have applied to other Israelites. There don't seem to be any prohibitions against making slaves (by force) from the surrounding nations."
Retaliatory force and initial force are not the same thing. God has sovereign authority over His creation, and He elected as was His right to give the Promised Land to the Israelites. The pagan nations, with the depravities of their ritualistic infanticide and pedophilia, by the way, had violated the terms of any claim they had on it. They disenfranchised themselves with their depraved violations against natural law and the moral authority of the God of nature.
There were no prisons back then. The Israelites didn’t have any such infrastructure. They were a band of nomads, surrounding by enemies, fighting for their very survival. All out war was the reality. You were lucky to be enslaved by the Israelites and not be outright dead. With the Israelites, after a term of service, you could actually elect to convert and be one of them, i.e., become a person who was no longer a threat.
Actually, God frowned on the taking of captives as it tended to do more harm to the Israelites than good. And God gave the Israelites over to defeat and captivity too when the stench of their violations against the commands of nature and divinity became widespread. That happened more than once. God held the Israelites to the very same standard.
i.e., ". . . pretensions of culture . . ."
Wow! Two typos: ". . . surrounded by enemies . . ."
Sorry. Rushed it.
Michael: Seems to be or is?
I can think of no good reason to think that owning other sentient beings isn't something we should avoid.
Michael: According to whom or what? What’s your authority beyond the mere pretensions of cultural at any given time in history or the ever-shifting authority of consensus.
Michael, there's a large body of moral philosophy which doesn't require recourse to a deity, which could be appealed to, and numerous problems with appealing to a deity for your morality.
We can get into a discussion of metaethics if you'd like, but it doesn't seem particularly relevant here (yet).
Michael: God has sovereign authority over His creation, and He elected as was His right to give the Promised Land to the Israelites.
God, if such a being existed, could also have found other ways to remove the current inhabitants, rather than the violent rampage the OT depicts.
Mochael: The pagan nations, with the depravities of their ritualistic infanticide and pedophilia, by the way, had violated the terms of any claim they had on it. They disenfranchised themselves with their depraved violations against natural law and the moral authority of the God of nature.
The surrounding nations were not particularly different to the Israelites in their culture and rituals. They didn't worship Yahweh, but they don't seem to have been more partial to infanticide or pedophilia. The hyperbolic statements in the OT look to be just that - when we look at the historical record in an objective manner, rather than accept what the OT says at face value, this becomes apparent (and is demonstrated above with regards to slavery).
Michael: There were no prisons back then.
God could have decreed the Israelites make them.
Michael: The Israelites didn’t have any such infrastructure.
God could have given it to them, made them more productive so as to have the capacity to do so, or provide any number of other solutions to this apparent problem.
Michael: They were a band of nomads, surrounding by enemies, fighting for their very survival.
Actually, the archaeological record indicates that the Israelites arose from Canaan, rather than nomadically migrating there (from Egypt).
Fighting for their survival is possibly correct, but many other groups were doing the same.
Michael: You were lucky to be enslaved by the Israelites and not be outright dead. With the Israelites, after a term of service, you could actually elect to convert and be one of them, i.e., become a person who was no longer a threat.
As I pointed out above, the terms of slavery in the OT are, in many cases, actually far worse than those of other nations.
The limited term slavery only applied to other Israelites, and the ability of a slave to convert to take advantage of the release in a jubilee year is at best unclear.
Michael: Actually, God frowned on the taking of captives as it tended to do more harm to the Israelites than good.
And God, who is apparently all loving and all powerful, preferred these people, who could have been captives, or could have simply moved on from the land, to be massacred?
That doesn't seem to be the best way a loving being could find to achieve it's aims.
Michael: And God gave the Israelites over to defeat and captivity too when the stench of their violations against the commands of nature and divinity became widespread. That happened more than once. God held the Israelites to the very same standard.
Actually, whether God gave the Israelites over is anything but clear. If I recall correctly, the books of the OT contradict each other when it comes to Yahweh favouring various rulers.
It's a good thing that much of the OT "history" is not historical in nature :-)
Havoc: "I can think of no good reason to think that owning other sentient beings isn't something we should avoid."
I agree. But then we live in a time and a place that has an infrastructure they didn't have, and the slavery of initial force was not practiced by devout, Old-Testament Israelites and remains an evil thing that one should never be a part of, for example, the slavery of colonial and pre-civil-war America.
Havok: "Michael, there's a large body of moral philosophy which doesn't require recourse to a deity, which could be appealed to, and numerous problems with appealing to a deity for your morality. We can get into a discussion of metaethics if you'd like, but it doesn't seem particularly relevant here (yet)."
Yes. I'm aware. And, no. No need to go there. I think your observation and my expansion on the matter in the above sums it up.
Havok: "God could have decreed the Israelites make them."
He could have, but then the Israelites would have been even more venerable to both the internal threat of violence and the cultural threat of paganism’s depravity.
Havok: "God could have given it to them, made them more productive so as to have the capacity to do so, or provide any number of other solutions to this apparent problem."
But God doesn't do things that way. He mostly works things out in history alongside man and leaves scientific discovery and technological advances to man. That's the whole point of Him giving man rule over the empirical realm of being. It’s our work, and He gave us the intellectual and moral skills required to carry these things out. God intercedes as necessary with regard to His ultimate plan. The rest is left to us.
And, once again, God brought down His wrath on the surrounding nations and tribes for their horrendous violations of natural law and the moral law of the God of nature via His Israeli warriors and the occasional supernatural intervention. The teaching of the Bible is that justice has primacy over human life, for without the former there can be no respectful or sustainable regard for the latter. I’m just telling you what the clear teaching is in all of this. You have to make up your own mind about whether or not this is right.
Ideally, God would that we live in a society like America that honors Him as the Source and Guarantor of human life and liberty, not the state, so that we the people may hold the government accountable. The collectivism of sentimental emotionalism is destroying this nation’s founding tenets of individual liberty as we speak, and under the current administration like never before. We’re in big trouble if we don’t turn this thing around.
Havok: “The surrounding nations were not particularly different to the Israelites in their culture and rituals. They didn't worship Yahweh, but they don't seem to have been more partial to infanticide or pedophilia. The hyperbolic statements in the OT look to be just that - when we look at the historical record in an objective manner, rather than accept what the OT says at face value, this becomes apparent (and is demonstrated above with regards to slavery).”
[Continued . . .]
This simply is not true. Your scholarship is dated. During the first half of the Twentieth Century there arose a body of liberal scholarship prefaced on bits of writings and speculation which assumed that the several pagan nations of Canaan worshiped a deity that only demanded “metaphoric” sacrificial infanticide, not actual. Since the 1970’s that nonsense has been put to rest by archeological digs uncovering mass graves throughout the Middle East of infants and small children that were unquestionably, ritualistically sacrificed to Muluk, the Canaanites’ god of the underworld. We have relief pictures and writings showing this as well. The Bible also speaks of widespread sexual immorality, including pedophilia and bestiality. There is no reason to question these thing either. The Israelites did not engage in this sort of behavior. It was verboten.
Havok: “Actually, the archaeological record indicates that the Israelites arose from Canaan, rather than nomadically migrating there (from Egypt).”
This is misleading. Yes. The Israelites originally arose in Canaan . . . before they migrated to Egypt and back again. As far as extra-biblical evidence goes, we don’t have much. We do know that the Hyksos were a Semitic people from Syria-Palestine who moved into the eastern Nile Delta, known as the land of Rameses, where they resided for a few hundred years. We know they were there as early as 1660 B.C. We think this was the Israelis. Not much else is known about them or the nature of their sojourn there during this period from archeology. There’s also archeological evidence that a smaller remnant of the Hyksos resided in Egypt in the 6th-, 5th- and 4th-Centuries B.C. But again, we don’t know much about them from archeology either. The arguments against the Israelis’ enslavement and their exodus ultimately come down to the notion that surely archeology would have more to “say” about such a people and such a momentous event.
?????????????????
Havok: “Actually, whether God gave the Israelites over is anything but clear. If I recall correctly, the books of the OT contradict each other when it comes to Yahweh favouring various rulers.”
I have no idea what you’re talking about here.
Michael: But God doesn't do things that way.
Why not?
Michael: And, once again, God brought down His wrath on the surrounding nations and tribes for their horrendous violations of natural law and the moral law of the God of nature via His Israeli warriors and the occasional supernatural intervention.
Why not simply have the people stop their violations?
Why not make those people find them distasteful?
Why not have those people have a desire to move north or east, out of Canaan and out of the Israelites path?
Why command genocide?
Michael: Ideally, God would that we live in a society like America that honors Him as the Source and Guarantor of human life and liberty, not the state, so that we the people may hold the government accountable.
Actually, it's my understanding (I'm in Australia) that in the US the Christian God is not claimed as the source and guarantor of life and liberty, and that the government gets it's powers from and is accountable to the people, not to any god.
Michael: The collectivism of sentimental emotionalism is destroying this nation’s founding tenets of individual liberty as we speak, and under the current administration like never before.
I agree that Obama has a bad track record on some things (the state secrets privilege for instance), but I don't think your statement here is really justified.
Michael: liberal scholarship prefaced on bits of writings and speculation which assumed that the several pagan nations of Canaan worshiped a deity that only demanded “metaphoric” sacrificial infanticide, not actual.
Oh, I'm sure there was ritual infanticide. I'm pretty sure the evidence supports the Israelites doing it as well. Just like with slavery, they were much the same as their neighbours.
Michael: The Bible also speaks of widespread sexual immorality, including pedophilia and bestiality. There is no reason to question these thing either.
There is plenty of reason to question these sorts of things. Given that the authors of the OT were generally stressing the purity of the Israelites, hyperbolic and false statements regarding the wickedness of the surrounding nations would be expected.
Michael: The Israelites did not engage in this sort of behavior. It was verboten.
Actually, there are remnants of this in the OT. Exodus 34:20 and Numbers 18:15, for example, hold an echo of child sacrifice:
Exodus 34:20 But the firstling of an ass thou shalt redeem with a lamb: and if thou redeem [him] not, then shalt thou break his neck. All the firstborn of thy sons thou shalt redeem. And none shall appear before me empty.
Numbers 18:15 Every thing that openeth the matrix in all flesh, which they bring unto the LORD, [whether it be] of men or beasts, shall be thine: nevertheless the firstborn of man shalt thou surely redeem, and the firstling of unclean beasts shalt thou redeem.
Michael: Yes. The Israelites originally arose in Canaan . . . before they migrated to Egypt and back again.
Here your cholarship is outdated - the Israelites didn't migrate back from Egypt. There is no evidence of a break in the material of cultural artifacts in the highlands of Canaan, which would become Israel and Judah.
Michael: We do know that the Hyksos were a Semitic people from Syria-Palestine who moved into the eastern Nile Delta, known as the land of Rameses, where they resided for a few hundred years.
We also know that they were not slaves, and in fact ruled the northern kingdom of Egypt before being forced out by the southern Egyptian ruler.
Michael: We think this was the Israelis.
The Hyksos expulsion in history does not resemble the Exodus of the Israelites as presented in the Bible. From memory, the timing is also wrong. The idea that the Hyksos were the Israelites is not, to my knowledge, widely held anymore (assuming it ever was).
Michael: Not much else is known about them or the nature of their sojourn there during this period from archeology
Which, coupled with the archeaological evidence from the highlands of Israel, is a good indication that this soujourn never occurred.
Michael: The arguments against the Israelis’ enslavement and their exodus ultimately come down to the notion that surely archeology would have more to “say” about such a people and such a momentous event.
No, they ultimately come down to the Exodus being unsupported by the evidence, and superfluous to explain the Israelites origins.
Michael: I have no idea what you’re talking about here.
I've been unable to verify it, but I remember one of the kings being described as rightous in one of the histories, and evil in another. I'll keep trying to find it, or retract my claim.
Havok: Why not?
I told you why. Moreover, by definition, a Creator has sovereignty over His creation, not the creature, not you. You’d being asking why regardless of how the proposed Creator allegedly did things ad infinitum. The only authority you respect, regardless of the rational, is your own. Right?
Havok: “Actually, it's my understanding (I'm in Australia) that in the US the Christian God is not claimed as the source and guarantor of life and liberty, and that the government gets it's powers from and is accountable to the people, not to any god.”
Well, in formal political terms, I’m talking about natural law and, therefore, the God of nature Who is the Source and Guarantor of human life and liberty. The Founders premised the U.S. Constitution on that paradigm as propounded by the classical liberalism of the Anglo-American tradition, namely, that of John Locke in his Two Treatises of Civil Government, and Locke extrapolated his theory from the socio-political ramifications of Judeo-Christianity’s ethics.
The God of nature is the Source and Guarantor of human life and liberty, not the state, and the people of their own accord form a social contract around a government that is ultimately held to that foundational imperative. Hence, limited government that is not permitted to violate the life, liberty or property of the people, for these things come from the Creator, not the state. That is the founding socio-political ethos of America.
Leftists in America, like everywhere else, are statists thugs bent on the destruction of that ethos. They are driving this nation toward ruin and civil war.
Articles on the matter:
http://michaeldavidrawlings1.blogspot.com/2011/01/some-random-thoughts-on-classical.html
http://michaeldavidrawlings1.blogspot.com/2012/10/the-new-math-of-american-history-and.html
I don’t know why my political observations aren’t justified, but knock yourself out.
Havok: “I'm pretty sure the evidence supports the Israelites doing it as well.”
How could we possibly distinguish between the early nomadic herdsmen of Abraham and those of other such groups in Canaan from archeology? Abraham was surrounded by pagans. He came out of a land of pagans. His ancestors were pagans. Certainly, the herdsmen of the Abrahamic covenant and the Israelis of the Mosaic Law didn’t engage in this behavior as a general rule.
[continued . . .]
Havok: “Actually, there are remnants of this in the OT. Exodus 34:20 and Numbers 18:15, for example, hold an echo of child sacrifice. . . .”
Actually, Havok, what you’re claiming here is hilarious. These passages refer to the Passover, the seven-day holiday of the Feast of Unleavened Bread, established centuries after the death of Abraham. The Hebrew term paduwy (translated redeemed) goes to the religious dedication of the first-born to God, not the sacrifice (’olah) of the first-born to God.
Havok: “Here your scholarship is outdated - the Israelites didn't migrate back from Egypt. There is no evidence of a break in the material of cultural artifacts in the highlands of Canaan, which would become Israel and Judah.”
You’re confounding the Hyksos of Jacob’s (or Israel’s) immediate family that did migrate to Egypt and then back again according to the biblical record. This segment of the Hyksos would have been a comparatively small band of people that grew into the twelve tribes of Israel in Egypt, and the period of time you’d have to be referring to would be much later. The Hyksos of Israel would have migrated during the 19th-Century B.C. My scholarship is not dated. It is still generally believed that the Hyksos of this period were the ancient Israelis of Jacob. We simply don’t know much about these people beyond their 400- to 450-year sojourn in Egypt from archeology.
Yes, indeed, initially they would have ruled that region of Egypt as the welcomed guests of the Pharaoh and his viceroy Joseph, the son of Jacob, before they were subjugated several decades later. We don’t know what happened to these people from archeology. All we know is that they were removed from power in that region and apparently relocated somewhere else. We have no evidence that they were expelled at that time from Egypt altogether from archeology.
And once again, their ultimate origins is not Egypt, but Canaan. You’re the only one who keeps asserting that the people of Abraham couldn’t have originally arose from Egypt. No one is saying they did. Abraham himself came to Canaan from ancient Mesopotamia (modern-day Iraq). It’s in Canaan that these people would have gathered their cultural beginnings. It would not be surprising that a peoples known as the Hyksos, who either worshiped the same God as Abraham or reverted back to paganism, never left Canaan . . . but they were not necessarily of the tribe of Jacob. We do know from scripture, for example, that Lot’s people split off from Abraham’s.
Finally, I’ve read Finkelstein’s nonsense, the principle source of this recent rash of silliness, say, in the last fifteen years or so. The man’s been discredited left and right, and is generally regarded with contempt. The famous Israel Stele of Pharaoh Merneptah, which mentions “Israel and his seed,” is enough to overthrow Finkelstein’s claims. But there is much more.
There is no credible reason to hold that the Old Testament is not reliable history for an avalanche of textual and archeological reasons. The criticisms of the 18th- and early 19th-Centuries have all but been discredited by subsequent archeological discoveries, particularly since the 1960s, and Finkelstein’s crap is coming apart at the seams. He argues from ignorance and never once even acknowledges the well-known fact that the Pharaohs of Egypt habitually revised history, omitting defeats and even depicting defeats as victories, as they destroyed any records contradicting their revisionism. We know this from archeology.
END
In response to your arguments posted here: http://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=6024546948128834442&postID=6503703145907359435
Havok: “That doesn't give any insight into the actual motivations and desires of this being which result in this particular course of action, nor why that being has said desires and motivations, nor does it try to extrapolate from there to see what predictions we could make based upon those desires and motivations, in order to test your claims.”
Yeah. Well. You didn’t ask me about any of that. Anyone can read the Bible. The answers to those questions are contained therein. I’d recommend starting with the New Testament as it entails the fruition of God’s plan.
Havok: “No. Since god supposely does things without mechanism, just through sheer will, I would be asking WHY, and as above, I'd be asking you to tease out the implications of the desires and motivations you have appealed to, in order to test your claims.”
I didn’t say that. I said He has sovereignty over His creation. It’s His nature that matters here. God is Love and Truth. A is A. He wouldn’t do anything contrary to His nature; otherwise, He would be or become something He’s not.
Havok: Michael, don't presume such things. If I've indicated as much, then show me where or how, otherwise avoid imputing things to me that I have not shown.
But I gave you a detailed answer. I told you the reason why the God of the Bible does things the way He does. I’m telling you what the Bible teaches. That’s in evidence. What is not in evidence in any objective sense is the underlying implication of your questions. So let us dispense with the nonsense: your questions clearly imply that you don’t approve of the logic and the morality asserted. It’s not my place to tell you what your morality should be. That’s up to you.
Havok: “Which would be most associated with the deity of enlightenment deism, rather than the god of any sect of Christianity.”
Uh . . . Havok, you’re talking to a very accomplish scholar in the history of ideas and events. The construct of natural law was not firstly asserted by any secular system of thought, let alone firstly asserted by any thinkers of the Enlightenment. It was firstly asserted by Augustine, Aquinas and Calvin, who are among Christianity’s greatest theologians. Locke’s rendition of it was also extrapolated from Judeo-Christianity’s ethical system of thought. His rendition is essentially the same thing. He merely expanded on the underlying theme of revolution in the face tyrannical monarchism.
You don’t know what you’re talking about here.
The socio-political extrapolation is derived from the same source for both the Christian and the Deist. This is the classical liberalism of the Anglo-American tradition.
[continued . . .]
Further, the sacred text for the Deist or the Unitarian of the Enlightenment Era was the Bible, albeit, sans its immanent divinity and, therefore, the miracles and mysticism thereof. Hence, the metaphysics and the epistemology of the Deist/Unitarian and that of the Christian were dramatically different, but the politics and the ethics were essentially the same, and for both the Deist/Unitarian and the Christian of the time, the socio-political ramifications of the Bible’s ethics pertain to the secular concerns of government, not to any sacred concerns of religion. The socio-political extrapolation of natural law is religiously neutral.
Havok: “The only problem I have here is that we do not actually have this god guaranteing anything. We rely upon people to guarantee our lives and liberty, and so appeal to god seem to be superfluous.”
That’s not the principle on which the Republic of the United States was founded. It was organized around the paradigm of separated and limited government, wherein the latter’s powers are emphatically enumerated alongside the emphatically enumerated, inalienable rights of the people. And the people retain the right to keep and bear arms as the ultimate check against government should it grossly stray from its constitutional restraints. That’s the practical expression of the fact that God, not the state, is the Source and Guarantor of human life and liberty. Obviously, it is the duty and responsibility of the people to defend their God-given liberty or go under.
Havok: “Actually, it seems to me that the government cannot/should not violate those rights because it is the people who give power to the government. It's not because of any god.”
Huh? Governments usurp illegitimate powers all the time precisely because the people surrender their liberty to them. It doesn’t look like you understand the themes of natural law at all.
Claims like this do not paint you in a good light Michael - you should probably avoid such sweeping generalisations, and present evidence for specific claims. Otherwise, you simply come off as just another right-wing crank.
Well, I think I’m more than qualified to recognize when my rights are being violated; more than qualified to discern the difference between collectivistic statism and the natural law of classical liberalism. I hold that anything less than the unfettered individual liberty of classical liberalism is tyranny. You’re not suggesting that folks like John Locke, Edmund Burke, George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Patrick Henry and so on . . . are right-wing cranks are you? Obviously, the only persons to whom I would come off as being “just another right-wing crank” would be historically illiterate, leftist loons who think their collectivistic claptrap is superior to the ethos on which America was founded. I don’t think they’re right. Perhaps you have a cogent argument that would justify the rule of collectivist mobocracy over the natural law of individual liberty, i.e., the rule of law under limited government.
[continued . . .]
Havok: “Mostly because democratic government is not to be found in any Christian documents (and, rather, stretches back to pre-christian Greece).”
Who said there was? Wisely, Judeo-Christianity doesn’t recommend the collectivistic majoritorianism of classic Grecian democratic theory, and neither do any of the natural-law theorists of classical liberalism who extrapolated their political theory from the Bible. I suppose if you think it’s wise to follow after the tradition of the democratic theory embraced by Continental Europe, for example, as opposed to that asserted by the Anglo-Americans of the Enlightenment, have it at. But we know what happened in France under the Jacobins, don’t we?
As for David Barton, I’ve never heard of him until now, but I’m familiar with the mindset. You, on the other hand, do not have the knowledge to discern the difference between the truths and the fictions of the allegations directed at him by his political adversaries on the left. I seriously doubt you know enough about American politics to accurately ascertain the nature of the biases that are obvious to me.
What I can tell you is this:
1.The phrase separation of church and state does not appear anywhere in the Constitution of the United States.
2.Nevertheless, the Constitution does indeed entail the doctrine of the separation of church and state in the First Amendment.
3.Barton’s assertion to the contrary is false.
4.Barton’s understanding of the Jeffersonian rendition of the doctrine is wrong.
5.And the doctrine of the separation of church and state per the Jeffersonian rendition (i.e., that of natural law) and the doctrine of separation of church and state imposed on America by the leftist Warren Court of the 1950’s are not the same thing.
6.Prior to the leftist Warren Court’s decisions of the 1950’s biblical instruction and prayer were commonplace activities in the public schools of America. Hence, quite obviously, the decisions. . . .
In short, the author of the hit piece on Barton at the end of the link you provided is no less ignorant than Barton. Both Barton’s and the author’s confusion is one of semantics due to their ignorance of the doctrine’s historical origins. The result of this is ironic, for the underlying substance of Barton’s criticism is correct, while that of the author is not. Notwithstanding, neither one have the correct political solution. LOL!
Bottom line: The leftist Warren Court merely traded one tyranny for another and did so quite consciously, intentionally. The elites of the left know their rendition of the doctrine is bogus. It’s the know-nothing nitwit leftists of the masses, sheeple-people, who don’t get it.
[continued . . .]
Havok: “They are not the Israelites, Michael.”
Put your source in evidence.
Havok: “You're also assuming the historical existence of Abraham - a claim that has very much been abandoned due to various reasons.”
Indeed. I’m assuming the historical record of Abraham’s life in the Bible as true up and against the trite scholarship of hostile secularists who have been more interested in debunking biblical history over the years than in the methodology of real textual and scientific research.
Your scholarship, such as it is, dates all the way back to the 19th-Century when antagonistic historians were claiming that Abraham could not have existed because archeologists had supposedly shown that the city of Ur in ancient Mesopotamia, Abraham’s birthplace according to the Bible, never existed. And then in 1922 the celebrated archeologist Sir Leonard Woolley of Great Britain discovered Ur and systematically excavated the cite from l922 to 1934. Indeed, he used the Bible itself as cross-referenced against other archeological discoveries of the 1850’s to find it in the hilly region that the regional denizens had firmly believed for centuries to be nothing but a hilly region. Woolley insisted that this hilly region in the Dhi Qar Provence of Southern Iraqi must be it. And indeed it was. Oopsy-daisy!
http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/647811/Sir-Leonard-Woolley
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leonard_Woolley
http://www.ancient-wisdom.co.uk/iraqur.htm
http://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Leonard_Woolley
http://www.equip.org/articles/biblical-history-the-faulty-criticism-of-biblical-historicity/
http://www.truthnet.org/Biblicalarcheology/2/Patriarchalperiod.htm
http://ancienthistory.about.com/od/amen/a/122710-CW-Archaeological-Evidence-About-The-Story-Of-Abraham-In-The-Bible.htm
http://www.setterfield.org/000docs/Abraham.htm
Abandoned! That’s an incredible claim. Indeed, a flat-out lie. There is absolutely no sensible reason whatsoever to doubt Abraham’s historicity, and certainly the majority of scholarship in Middle-Eastern antiquity does not challenge it. On the contrary, given the avalanche of archeological evidence derived from the various excavated cites of ancient Mesopotamia and Babylonia, which affirm detail after detail about these places and their peoples, details previously known from no other source but the Bible. . . .
Oopsy-daisy!
The evidence of personages, places, gods, customs that were once thought to be fanciful biblical lore. . . .
Oopsy-daisy!
[continued . . .]
Of course, we can’t know for sure weather or not the Ebla Tablet listing the apparently prominent personages of Abraham, Esau, Israel and Ishmael are the Abraham, Esau, Israel and Ishmael of the Bible, but how do you figure that the names of these supposedly non-existent persons surrounded by all the other biblical details previously thought to be non-existent hurt the case for the Bible’s historicity?
Oopsy-daisy!
Further, archeologists used the biblical text of Abraham’s life to track down and uncover the ancient trade routes between Mesopotamia and Canaan, and between Canaan and Egypt.
Oopsy-daisy!
I strongly recommend Woolley’s celebrated work: Abraham: Recent Discoveries and Hebrew Origins. And when you’re finished with that work, I’ll direct you toward many more.
Havok: “I'm glad I can provide amusement.”
You’re welcome. Does that mean you’re acknowledging the fallacy of your claims. Be careful, I’ve been reading the Bible against the Hebrew and Greek for years. There is not so much as a hint in the Bible that human sacrifice was ever tolerated under the Abrahamic covenant, let alone under Mosaic Law.
[continued . . .]
Havok: “And if a first-born is not redeemed, what would happen, Michael?
And what happens to the animal which takes the first-born's place?”
Hold on. You just shifted your position from one that claims these passages call for human sacrifice or are the remnants of passages that call for human sacrifice, to something else. And the answers to your questions: the animals would still be sacrificed in the dedication of the first-born children of Israel, not the children, and the parents of these children (the father, actually) would face a tribunal for failing to obey the law. That’s what would happen.
Havok: “You must be reading some fairly fringe ancient historians to think that.
Perhaps you're only reading the biblical maximalists, and don't accept anything else as legitimate?”
LOL! My reading in this area is vastly more expansive than yours. You unwittingly reveal that. You just read and believe that which confirms your biases. I read it all, and the criticisms of the likes of Finkelstein do not hold up against the general corpus of textual and scientific discovery and research in this area, and the logic thereof. It is the likes of Finkelstein who are in the minority. It’s not the other way around. Your attempt to marginalize the conclusions reached by other trained scientists and historians (your pretense of “fringe” and “maximalists,” as if these epithets changed the reality) looking at the very same textual and cultural artifacts is not scholarship.
Further, I do not assume everything is true, i.e, that every detail of Old Testament scripture is accurate. We know that the Fifth- and Sixth-Century B.C. scribes wrongfully assumed that certain things harkened all the way back to the Third- or Fourth-Millennium B.C.. In truth, these are extraneously irrelevant details going to things like the assumption that the lineage of the Chaldeans went all the way back to the ancient Babylonians or that camels were used on the ancient trade routes prior to the First-Millennium B.C.. In the meantime, the general body of the oral tradition, including much of its details, once again, previously known from no other source but the Bible, are emphatically affirmed by archeological evidence from the Third- and Fourth-Millennium B.C..
In truth, I seriously doubt that you even know what the underlying presupposition of Finkelstein’s historical approach is in this instance and, therefore, the only reason it might “appear” to make sense to someone like yourself, an atheist, inclined to go along without question. And clearly you are unaware of the fact that most archeologists and historians (both believers and non-believers, thank you very much) do not concur with his presupposition. LOL! That’s what you’re unwittingly exposing here. You don’t know there’s a theoretical dispute of existential proportions owing to a certain presupposition.
Havok: “Actually, we have evidence of the Egyptians in the other kingdom forcing them out militarily in a fashion that does not correspond to the biblical record.”
Oh? Put it in evidence and make sure you’re not confusing the First-Millennium Hyksos with the Second-Millennium Hyksos of Egypt. That should be interesting.
[continued . . .]
Havok: “I'm simply stating that the biblical exodus, like much else in the bible, is not an historical event. And so the Israelites didn't return from a soujourn in Egypt. They arose from Canaanite culture, with no break in the material artifacts they left behind.”
I got what you said the first time, and you utterly disregard what I told you, i.e., the fact that the Abrahamic and the Lotian factions of the Hyksos split, and that it was Jacob’s people that went to Egypt years later, not all of the Hyksos or even most of them. The rest of your argument is from archeological ignorance. You’re arguing, just like Finkelstein, that the lack of a certain kind of archeological evidence (Silence! The unknown! Or the revised!) overthrows other archeological evidence, mostly textual. Further, you recognize the fact that archeology does not always reveal actual history (something I already told you!) when it suits your argument and ignore that fact when it doesn’t.
Havok: “Finkelstein does make some claims which go beyond his evidence, but the claim that the Israelites arose in Canaan, without a soujourn in Egypt (which is contrary to the biblical account) is solidly attested.”
Bull. Put this “solidly attested” fact in evidence, and I’ll show you a thing or two about what others hold from the evidence.
____________________________
The following claims require special treatment. . . .
Havok: “Apart from the fact that NO ancient documents are taken to be reliable history”
None!? That’s an overstatement, isn’t it?
Havok: “. . . all such documents require further, external evidence, to justify their claims?”
No. Not to justify. You mean to affirm or collaborate. Justified knowledge is something else altogether. But allowing that you meant the former, you’re stating the obvious as if it were profundity and in contradiction to your previous assertion. Ancient documents are taken to be reliable artifacts or assertions of history, albeit, as assessed against the ramifications of other evidence and then, subsequently, as assessed as a whole.
[continued . . .]
Havok: “but then we'd be accepting numerous, mutually contradictory accounts as "reliable history" - I don't think you really want to go down that route, Michael.”
Yeah. Like the previously alleged contradictions of the biblical account that have since been shown to not be contradictions after all? Is that what you mean? No. In truth, Havok, it is you who doesn’t care what route you go down as long as it affirms your biases.
Havok: “Actually, it seems to be folk like yourself who cannot accept that the Israelites did the same with their histories - we also know this from archaeology J”
Oh? We do? In what sense? From my reading of the Old Testament as it has come down to us, the Hebrews relay a history that is fraught with the failures and contradictions and foibles of human nature, including those of its greatest kings, one riddled with defeat, characterized by the sort of frank self-criticism and -condemnation amazingly atypical as compared to the pagan histories from the same period of time. But then perhaps that goes to their monotheism, but wait a minute, that would only further underscore the distinction between these people’s theology and morality as compared to that of the pagan world, wouldn’t it?
END
But here's the thing, Havok, I'm not going to change you mind about any of this; hence, let us get back to the central issue at hand.
______________________
You seem to be asserting that slavering in and of itself is evil. I'm still trying to get a handle on precisely why you hold that to be true. It would appear that you’re appealing to some authority of a culturally relativistic or subjective nature.
Mich,
Thanks for exposing Havok's ignorance.
Michael, the ownership of another sentient being goes against a sense of equality that seems to me to be a fairly basic tenant of any reasonable moral system.
Now, I understand that a system of slavery may have been instituted in ancient times, when the people were less educated, when knowledge was not as abundant, and when the economic situation could perhaps not support the sort of wage and salary system that you and I enjoy.
But such things don't make slavery "good" - at best slavery becomes a necessary evil at that time.
Richard, perhaps instead of cheerleading, you could actually participate in the discussion - maybe by pointing out just what ignorance you believe Michael has pointed out (and, pointing out Michaels ignorance at the same time)?
Michael: The answers to those questions are contained therein.
Concerning the specific why question I asked, why God didn't give the Israelites some advantage so that slavery was not required, I can find no answers.
Your claim that you god is love and truth would seem to be undermines by the fact that your holy book commands people to keep slaves, something that is rather contrary to love, and is not necessary (nor would it ever have been for an omnipotent,omniscient being).
Michael: It’s His nature that matters here. God is Love and Truth. A is A. He wouldn’t do anything contrary to His nature; otherwise, He would be or become something He’s not.
Which is why the problem of evil is such a good argument against the existence of the sort of being you're claiming here.
Michael: So let us dispense with the nonsense: your questions clearly imply that you don’t approve of the logic and the morality asserted.
True - slavery goes against the notions of equality which I would think would be a core part of, or follow from, any reasonable moral philosophy.
Michael: It’s not my place to tell you what your morality should be. That’s up to you.
No, but you are in the akward position of defending slavery as being morally obligatory, as commanded by your putative deity.
Michael: Uh . . . Havok, you’re talking to a very accomplish scholar in the history of ideas and events.
American politics and history is not a strong point, which is not surprising since I'm not from the US. Not entirely convinced of your claims, but am happy to let it drop.
Michael: Put your source in evidence.
There is no mention of any Israelite kings in Egypt in the bible - they're uniformly presented as slaves. Also the dates of the Hyksos expulsion and the biblical Exodus don't appear to be reconcilable.
Michael: I’m assuming the historical record of Abraham’s life in the Bible as true
Why assume such a thing at all, regardless of whether you find scholarship "trite"?
Michael: There is absolutely no sensible reason whatsoever to doubt Abraham’s historicity, and certainly the majority of scholarship in Middle-Eastern antiquity does not challenge it.
Is that so? No reason to doubt it whatsoever? Even though we know that oral traditions are rather unreliable, and can feature many fictional characters (much like written history, except far harder to trace) and was not written about for something like 1000 years?
Michael: Of course, we can’t know for sure weather or not the Ebla Tablet listing the apparently prominent personages of Abraham, Esau, Israel and Ishmael are the Abraham, Esau, Israel and Ishmael of the Bible
A bit of research seems to indicate that your scholarship regarding the Ebla tablets is out of date:
"The present consensus is that Ebla has not bearing on the Minor Prophets, the historical accuracy of the biblical Patriarchs, Yahweh worship, or Sodom and Gamorrah" - page 41, "Mesopotamia and the bible: Comparative explorations" Mark w. Chavalas (2002)
Michael: I strongly recommend Woolley’s celebrated work: Abraham: Recent Discoveries and Hebrew Origins. And when you’re finished with that work, I’ll direct you toward many more.
Perhaps you could suggest something a little more recent that that work, since it is some 80 years old, and a great many things have been discovered since then.
Michael: There is not so much as a hint in the Bible that human sacrifice was ever tolerated under the Abrahamic covenant, let alone under Mosaic Law.
Yet Yahweh commands the sacrifice of Isaac, and Abraham doesn't make a fuss - that's more than toleration.
Also, there's Jephthah's daughter which, while not commanded by Yahweh, is accepted.
We could go on.
Michael: You just read and believe that which confirms your biases.
I asked you nicely earlier not to impute things to me that are not in evidence. While my reading my not be as expansive as yours, you have no idea what I have read, nor how I approach what I read.
Michael: Your attempt to marginalize the conclusions reached by other trained scientists and historians ... looking at the very same textual and cultural artifacts is not scholarship.
Of course you can back up these claims that your position is the reasonable and justified consensus of experts in the field?
Michael: . In the meantime, the general body of the oral tradition, including much of its details, once again, previously known from no other source but the Bible, are emphatically affirmed by archeological evidence from the Third- and Fourth-Millennium B.C..
And yet still no evidence for the biblical exodus when and where we ought to find it, and archeaological evidence of a material cultuer continuous with the surrounding Canaanite cultures, which is then continuous with identifiable Israelites later.
Michael: ...inclined to go along without question
There you go, making all sorts of accusations against me without a shred of evidence or argument to back it up.
Michael: You don’t know there’s a theoretical dispute of existential proportions owing to a certain presupposition.
Instead of congratulating yourself on how clever you are for knowing this stuff, perhaps you'd like to present the evidence to support these claims?
Michael: I got what you said the first time, and you utterly disregard what I told you...
That's because, contrary to your mistaken assertions, I don't believe everything I read.
Michael: The rest of your argument is from archeological ignorance. You’re arguing, just like Finkelstein, that the lack of a certain kind of archeological evidence (Silence! The unknown! Or the revised!) overthrows other archeological evidence, mostly textual.
Michael, arguments from silence can be valid, contrary to what you seem to be asserting above. if we should expect something to exist if something happened, and the thing does not exist, it is indeed evidence that the claimed happening didn't occur.
Michael: Further, you recognize the fact that archeology does not always reveal actual history (something I already told you!) when it suits your argument and ignore that fact when it doesn’t.
Show me where I'm doing this Michael, instead of asserting it. Contrary to what you seem to think about atheists like myself, we don't accept anything and everything that conforms to our beliefs, nor summarily reject everything that does not. At least, I don't.
I'm also operating under the assumption that you're much the same.
Michael: Put this “solidly attested” fact in evidence, and I’ll show you a thing or two about what others hold from the evidence.
Lets start with the continuous nature of the material culture of the hill country, undermining claims of a sudden influx of a culturally seperate group, as in the bible.
Michael: None!? That’s an overstatement, isn’t it?
Not on face value no. Even ancient historians who told us their methods, of their sources, and of themselves, are not accepted without question. Even the best of them require some external corroboration.
Michael: No. Not to justify. You mean to affirm or collaborate.
I mean to give us reason to accept their claims as more probably historical than not - as historical knowledge. Corroboration (which I think you meant to write) helps with this.
Michael: Justified knowledge is something else altogether.
Knowledge is usually taken to be "justified true belief" or something similar, so saying "justified knowledge" is redundant.
Michael: Ancient documents are taken to be reliable artifacts or assertions of history, albeit, as assessed against the ramifications of other evidence and then, subsequently, as assessed as a whole.
Ancient documents are not, to my knowledge given the benefit of the doubt. As I said, if this were so, then we'd be accepting mutually contradictory accounts as probably true (the biblical accounts, the accounts validating Greek mythology from the likes of Herodotus, and so on).
So yes, we need to asses the evidence as a whole, but we don't accept texts as reliable by default.
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