If the slaves are a permanent inheritance (remember: literal, natural reading), then does that mean that they're still slaves in Hell or Heaven?
Climate change stupidity.
- Thread starter classical_hero
- Start date
History_Buff
Deity
- Joined
- Aug 12, 2001
- Messages
- 6,529
So at least until the coming of Jesus and the New Covenant, it was totally acceptable to enslave people based on them believing in a different God than you?
GhostWriter16
Deity
There are cases when the New Testament writers make it clear, such as the Council of Jerusalem regarding circumcision (This is just one example.) There are cases where it is strongly implied, such as animal sacrifices (While not explicitly mentioned, the whole point was foreshadowing Christ's eternal sacrifice and so we don't have to do it now that Christ has really been sacrificed for us.) And then keep in mind the Levitical Law was a legal system, so not everything in it should be taken as "Well, they were allowed to do this so its OK."
Well, it isn't.
No. They were a permanent inheritance meaning not released upon the master's death. I just don't see any reason to apply it after the slaves death, except in the context that their children were also passed down.
Apparently it was allowed. I tend to think only "Because of hard hearts" and that the emphasis was that it not be done to a fellow Israelite. Same thing with the whole thing about marrying a captive woman or about polygamy. Not accepted, but tolerated due to hard hearts. As to the why... only God knows.
You've got to realize the differences in culture. These were things that every nation did. God's rules were to regulate them, not to actually sanction them.
LucyDuke
staring at the clock
God gets to say what to do and what not to do and doesn't even have to tell you why. If he's regulating something, he's paying attention to it and not saying "don't do it". How is that not an implicit sanction?
Lots of historians who've done good history are utterly crazy about stuff that's not in their purview. I get similar yuks when certain climatologists or anthropologists try to extend their work into recorded history.
It was more of a "you haven't actually demonstrated this historical aptitude anywhere that I'm aware of" comment on my part.
History_Buff
Deity
- Joined
- Aug 12, 2001
- Messages
- 6,529
Has God's culture evolved along with us then? It seems odd, since he knows all, so I don't see how his worldview could change.
And why should God be bound by what people do? Does God have a constitution he must follow? Because this is the same guy who (allegedly) burned whole cities to ash, doomed an entire people to suffering for having free will*, and drowned everyone except for 1 dude and his family because he didn't like what men were up to.
*Ever think it was odd to punish Adam and Eve for eating the fruit of the forbidden tree, which supposedly imbued them with free will or some such? Which is to say, prior than that, they didn't really have free will, they just did what a magic talking snake (the devil presumably?) told them to do. And then he also punished snakes for some reason...
GhostWriter16
Deity
God didn't change.
I'm honestly not sure WHY the Old Testament Jews were allowed to enslave foreigners. I will simply remind you that Moses allowed divorce as well and Jesus said he allowed it "Because of hard hearts."
As for Adam having free will, he actually did, in fact, Adam and Eve were the two people that even the most predestination focused Calvinists will not deny had free will. They weren't even inhibited by original sin. They CHOSE to disobey God.
History_Buff
Deity
- Joined
- Aug 12, 2001
- Messages
- 6,529
But what the hell is a hard heart? It sounds to me that God is allowing men to evil things because they are evil. Which seems awful contradictory.
Why we he punish some people so harshly, while allowing other people to commit wonton acts of cruelty?
I'd love to see a citation for evil the Calvinists believing that. It's just so silly.
We're talking about people (the only two people really), without knowledge of what evil is. The sky man tells them not to eat from only one specific tree. A magic snake tells them they in fact can, and should. Since Eve is an innocent being, can she really have comprehended what the snake was telling her to do?
They chose to obey the magic ground man, rather than the magic sky man. Without any idea of what evil was. And then apparently Eve doesn't even gain the knowledge of God, since if she did, she probably would have forseen what would happen to Adam, and then wouldn't have told him to eat it too.
But then God expels them from the garden anyway, fearing that they will eat either from another tree that they weren't supposed to eat from but were not warned about, or if it's the same to tree, to stop them from eating the fruit they already eat but didn't do anything...
And this doesn't seem strange to you? I mean, it's a great allegory, but when you think about it, it doesn't really make any sense. And that without touching the whole part about Eden never having existed, mankind not having descended from two people, all that other stuff that's in the Bible that never happened, and so on.
squadbroken
King
- Joined
- Apr 20, 2009
- Messages
- 716
So close yet so far away.
So fix the loophole and move on.
useless
Social Justice Rogue
He has a history of defending slavery; he defends the CSA at every oppertunity, argues that it wasn't "that bad" for black slaves prior to them gaining freedom, created a thread in which he espoused the idea of those who're in debt should be forced to literally work for the debtor or something like that.
Seriously, it's pretty disturbing.
strijder20
Wallowing in irony
Ghostwriter16 said:
And what if God wanted to the Bible to be a metaphor? Him writing it (technically letting someone else write down his words) doesn't mean we have to take it literally.
To come back on Methuselah's age: can we be sure that the author used 969 literally and not just as a proverb? In English, saying someone is 'as strong as a bear' doesn't actually mean that person is as strong as a bear. But someone reading an English text 2500 years later might very well take it literally.
There are more numbers used to signify particular things in the Bible (40 and 7 coming to mind), so why can't this number be one like the others too?
Unless God uses Hebrew as his native language, he probably didn't inspire the Bible's writers with Hebrew words. Surely, as you believe he is omnipotent, there is a simpler way for him to get the message through. But the Bible's writers, being human and fallible, might have made a 'translation' error when writing it down, using 969 in the figurative sense while it would later be interpreted literally or the other way round.
There are many examples of contradictions in the bible that can only be resolved by abandoning a literal interpretation. People that claim to interpret the bible literally are in reality picking and choosing that which they believe verbatim and that which they take with a large grain of salt.
Ah, so not really permanent, then. It just says permanent, but probably doesn't mean permanent.
Aptitude grows with time. Someone can have a hobby, but still be just at the beginning stages.It was more of a "you haven't actually demonstrated this historical aptitude anywhere that I'm aware of" comment on my part.
HannibalBarka
We are Free
So if I understand correctly, God sent us a Bible tolerating (to say the least) a full of things seeming to be atrocious to us (slavery), and full of "truth" that contradicts our science based perception and understanding of the World as we see it and He is expecting us to Believe in Him? WHY? As a non born Christian, I really don't see why I'd even start to want to know much more about him.
That's not really an answer to my question. The majority of biblical commandments offer no indication whether they should be applied universally or only within the social context of biblical Israel. And as soon as you are using words like "strongly implied", you have already departed from a literal interpretation of the bible. Literalism doesn't know implications. Only the explicit text.
What allows you to presume what "the whole point" was?
That doesn't answer my question either. Maybe the "definition" was insufficient?
(I don't think it's a "definition" anyway because nowhere does the text explicitly say that what follows is a concrete, comprehensive definition of the word marriage that is supposed to apply to all people at all times.)
This thread proves that the Bible simply cannot be taken 100% literally, however many times II Timothy is invoked, without a certain amount of interpretation applied as well. The inability for critical thought at a young age is one of the reasons why I believe that children should not be raised in a religion. I was and I favour instinctively the religious education I received, yet I have no problems with taking issue with what GW believes.
Jesus told parables to teach. It seems obvious to me that Jesus did this because that is how God teaches. Therefore, very few of the stories in the Bible are to be taken literally. Since parables put a lesson into a context familiar to the reader or listener, many of these stories don't work for a modern audience, because our lives are very different from those of Old Testament peoples.
Archbob
Ancient CFC Guardian
Doubt it, Elves always seemed a bit Gay-ish to me.
