[Vision2020] Wrong About the Bible: Slavery

[Ralph Nielsen]

Tony, just what is it that Andreas said about me that you so  
"wholeheartedly and enthusiastically" agree with? I showed that  
slavery is approved of throughout the entire Bible and he accuses me  
of "trashing the Bible." I didn't call him names but simply  
challenged him to prove me wrong. And I throw the same challenge at  
you, Tony. I would like to keep this thread as a scholarly  
discussion, not a barroom fight.

If you know of any book, chapter or verse in anybody's Bible that
condemns slavery, I would like to hear about it.
Ralph

Tony tonytime at clearwire.net

Sat Feb 3 08:45:15 PST 2007

Having argued with Andreas on so many occasions, it gives me an odd  
pause to
find myself in wholehearted and enthusiastic agreement with him.  But  
after
reading his retort to Ralph regarding the Bible, all I could think was,
YEAH!  What he said!

OK Ralph, your turn.

-T

Andreas --

I don't think you're being fair here. I know perfectly well that the
Bible is not a unitary text--whichever Bible you wish to discuss:
Jewish (both Torah and Tanakh), Catholic, or Protestant. It is people
like Wilson who make that claim.

If you know of any book, chapter or verse in anybody's Bible that
condemns slavery, I would like to hear about it.

Ralph


Ralph --
 >
 > You're making the same counterfactual assumption to trash the Bible
 > that Doug does to support it: that the Bible is itself a unitary  
text.
 > The argument that dozens of authors, recorders of stories, and
 > redactors had the same intentions when writing over thousands of  
years
 > is a non-starter; the argument that the Bible is complete and
 > infallable is extrabiblical. Saying that the Bible 'supports' or  
'does
 > not support' something is nonsense: no book that contians both the
 > axioms 'eye for an eye' and 'turn the other cheek' can be considered
 > to have any internal textual unity.
 >
 > There are threads within the Bible that condone slavery (though not
 > the form of intergenerational racial slavery we had in the United
 > States), threads that are suspicious of it, and threads that condemn
 > it. Contra Doug Wilson, the abolitionist movement was, at its core, a
 > Christian movement -- and it found its textual support, as all
 > Christian movements do, in the Bible.
 >
 > -- ACS
 >