Misunderstanding Slavery in the Bible

Posted by -

Atheists and other unbelievers often attempt to find ways of negating the importance of the Bible. It is extremely common for them to say that the creation account is wrong because it is out of keeping with secular origins stories.

Another attempt to negate the Bible by stating, "Your holy book condones slavery!" Restrain your equines, Erika. There is a great deal happening here, not the least of which is conflating slavery in the culture of the ancient Near East with the very different slave trade of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.

Woman in chains, PxHere
Yes, slavery is discussed in the Bible, but manstealing was forbidden. Ancient Israel wanted to be like neighboring nations, so God gave strict guidelines for the treatment of slaves. Those slaves were given better treatment in Israel than elsewhere. Also, conquered people were often taken as slaves by Israel. If you study on it a spell, this is actually merciful because the men were killed in battle — women and children were easy pickings for neighboring marauders.

It is interesting that some atheists are so consumed with hatred of God and his people that even when they are clearly shown the differences between biblical and more recent forms of slavery, they ignore it. Those atheists know full well that they are using emotive language with strong negative connotations when they say that the Bible condones or encourages slavery.  They don't do their homework, "arguing" from their opinions and from what other uninformed people say. Very dishonest.
People will often object to the Bible as the moral authority by bringing up passages from Scripture that they don’t like or (more often) a misconception about a biblical passage they often have never even read.

. . . Most of these laws were actually proscriptive (imposing restraints or restrictions). But before we look at what the Bible says on this issue, please note these four things:

To learn more, read the entire article at "Feedback: Does the Bible Encourage Masters to Beat Their Slaves?"