Comment on Anon does some genealogy
m0darn@lemmy.ca 6 days agoSociety was okay with slavery at the time.
Yes and the bible reflects that.
the mention of the Law of Moses being written due to the hardness of hearts is enough
Enough for what? Enough for it to take 1500 years for Christians to realize that beating people to death for insolence is wrong
It was the Christians who abolished slavery and started questioning it
Sure, but didn’t the advocates of perpetuating slavery use the bible to justify themselves, because the bible doesn’t take a clear position against slavery?
It’s interesting that you point to the reformation as key because Las Casas (responsible for the first law banning enslavement in colonies) was reading the Book of Sirach when he realised slavery was wrong. I mention it because it is excluded from the protestant canon.
You seem to be in denial about how okay with slavery Christianity was. Do you prefer the work of impartial scholars to that from people that think it’s important to protect the reputation of Christianity?
Flax_vert@feddit.uk 6 days ago
That’s my point.
No. I’m only referring to enslavement here.
Ephesians 6:9
Colossians 4:1 (NRSVUE)
Exodus 20:13
You can misuse anything in the Bible to advocate for anything. I’ve seen people try and use to to advocate in favour of homosexuality, to execute homosexuals, to advocate transphobia, to advocate abortion, a devil’s advocate argument was used regarding murdering infants as well, against the trinity, universalism, etc.
All of which fall apart if it’s read in it’s proper context and Catholic* interpretation.
The books referred to by Protestants as the “Apocrypha” are still valuable documents, just not viewed as infallible.
Although, reading Sirach… You can go either way with it.
Sirach 33:25-33
It was society, the way the Bible was written was just addressing slavery as an established fact. The abolitionists were driven by their Christian faith.
“Impartial scholars” there is no such thing.
*Please note, I am not using the word “Catholic” to refer to the Roman Catholic Church, but to refer to the universal and historically grounded Christian church and denominations as opposed to spin-offs. So think more Anglican, Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, Methodist and Presbyterianism as opposed to non-denominationals and most Baptists
m0darn@lemmy.ca 6 days ago
Yeah I thought it was obvious I was referring to a subset of the behaviours of enslavers.
The bible is pretty clear that it isn’t murder to kill your own slave
Doesn’t that strike you as an argument against the utility of the bible as a moral guide? Don’t you think it would be better if it was harder to use the bible to defend slave ownership? Like if it took a clearer stance against slavery. If instead of saying “treat your slaves justly and fairly” if it said “the truly righteous free their slaves and trust in the lord to provide, those that hold slaves will not inherit the kingdom of heaven” wouldn’t that have hastened the end of slavery within Christendom?
Sure, but there are ways that scholars can try to diminish their bias, and it isn’t through legally binding faith commitments.
Flax_vert@feddit.uk 6 days ago
No, it’s not. It doesn’t say that. It clearly states man is made in God’s image, being a slave doesn’t lessen or change that.
No, because any moral guide can be misused if you randomly take verses out of context.
Diminish, possibly, but if you had a scholar say “Christianity help ended slavery and here’s why”, wouldn’t you just accuse them of trying to defend the reputation of Christianity?
m0darn@lemmy.ca 5 days ago
When the bible said it’s okay to beat your slaves so severely that they die, as long as you they survive a few days before they die, it was wrong for me to characterise that as murder, I was hasty. But the bible clearly says that slavery is legitimate when the enslaved weren’t treated the same as the free by the law. The fact that they’re both made in God’s image was clearly not relevant.
I don’t think I’m taking these verses out of context, the context was that slavery was common and Christianity didn’t really have a problem with that, you’re the one applying a modern morality and reading into the text things that the author didn’t mean. Your position is “it wouldn’t matter if the bible was more clearly opposed to slavery” and I think that’s delusional.
No I wouldn’t, I would consider their argument. I’m not dogmatically committed to believing Christianity is bad. Are you dogmatically committed to believing Christianity is good?
Christianity did help end slavery, but it also defended it. Christianity saw slavery for 1500 years and said “meh”, and then for almost 400 years Christians argued with each other about whether it was okay or not, and now you say Christianity was against slavery the whole time, and you’re wrong.