Slavery in the Bible

[qayak]

Here's a key principle: In Judaism, unlike, say, Christianity and Islam, God is not the boss and we his slaves. We are partners. That's what "covenant" means, and it's not just a figure of speech. God is the senior Partner, of course--but the people have the controlling interest and make all the decisions now. All the decisions. That's why we argue so much. Judaism is like one long, never-ending stockholders' meeting.

This doesn't make any sense at all. You are making all the decisions but you are held to the words in a many thousand year old texts. In fact, you are not making any decisions, you are controlled by your god as surely as any christian or muslim.

Spending thousands of years interpreting the same text isn't any different than spending a couple years interpreting it. Well, except that the definition of insanity is to repeat an action over and over and expect a different result.

And what happens to all the decisions that were bad? I mean, one would assume that one decision would only be replaced by a better one. What happens to all the people condemned by the first decision? It is like all the catholics sitting in hell for eating meat on Fridays. I bet they are a little pissed off!

judaism's interpretation of the bible is pretty much the same as christians reading what they want into it or muslims reading what they want into the koran. The only difference is that judaism has had a longer history of doing it. Their interpretations are no more valid, no better, and no more based on free human thinking than any other religion.

 

[Gord_in_Toronto]

Stolen from a Usenet poster:

Which word in the following list does not belong:
quality
morality
moral
educate
education
fryingpan
democracy
culture
research
explore
logic
idea
history?

If you selected "fryingpan", you are right. The only word in the list that appears in the Bible (KJV) is "fryingpan".

 

[H3LL]

Stolen from a Usenet poster:

Which word in the following list does not belong:
quality
morality
moral
educate
education
fryingpan
democracy
culture
research
explore
logic
idea
history?

If you selected "fryingpan", you are right. The only word in the list that appears in the Bible (KJV) is "fryingpan".

Fun game.

I like the fact that the bible has no morality.

You can add these to the list too:

Discovery
Experiment
Ideals
Theory
Civilize
Edify
Foster (verb)
Improve
Tutor
Ethics
Scruples
Ideology
​

No morality, scruples, ethics, ideals or logic.

Perfect description.



It even has a quote to help:

Job 32:11
I waited while you spoke, I listened to your reasoning; while you were searching for words
​

 

[FireGarden]

When you sign up for a math class, why do you blindly accept the textbook as the starting point for your studies? Why don't you just toss it and start from scratch?

Many maths texts have stood the test of time. Euclid's elements, for instance. It still has an enormous amount of worth today. People don't have to go through it looking for "clues" as to what is right and what is wrong.

It has an easier job, of course. Dealing with clear matters in a clear way -- perhaps edited since the first edition. By now, it is an error free book.

The amazing thing is,
People did try to throw it away and start from scratch. What other kinds of geometry could they find? Would those they found be as robust and free from contradiction as Euclid's "Gospel"?

They managed to find some.
Starting from scratch was not pointless.

As for the Golden Rule (Jewish edition) being contrary to slavery--well, of course it is. That was one of the clues that slavery is wrong, just like the prohibition on returning escaped slaves.

I appreciate that you can see something in the Torah that allows you to trust the text. You find ways in which it backs up your morality and your sense of justice. Especially your sense that rules should change.

All I see in it are fallible people who probably had very good intentions.

You probably see some things that are very close to your own thoughts and marvel at the idea somebody could have written it down so long ago. I know the feeling.

And then you find other things and have to start debating and conjuring explanations as to why you disagree and yet both of you are right.

Hey, maybe you'll unify everything like Gauss did with geometry. But I don't think so.

 

[FireGarden]

What you shun enduring yourself, attempt not to impose on others. You shun slavery -- beware of enslaving others! If you can endure to do that, one would think you had been once upon a time a slave yourself. For Vice has nothing in common with virtue, nor Freedom with slavery.
- The Golden Sayings - XLI

Nice quote.

 

[Magyar]

FYI

"To this day, Jews are forbidden to have anyone do work for them on the Sabbath. A Jewish school where I formerly worked added a new wing, but no construction was permitted on Saturday, even though none of the workers was Jewish."

This statement is totally wrong.
There is even a yiddish word for gentiles who do "dirty" work for Jews on the Sabbath.

You can find it here http://www.hobonickels.org/yiddish.htm

 

[Lonewulf]

Speaking of Beowulf, does that explain the spelling of your screenname?

(Mine is dull--it's just my name.)

Pretty much, yeah.

 

[Senex]

I have seen the Bible criticized, and frequently, on this board because it does not denounce or outlaw slavery. Seems a fair criticism on the surface; but let's take a closer look.

I agree. Many people hold up the Bible as a work of great literature, but come on -- would you rather read the Bible or the "Story of O?" That's a no brainer. The Bible can't even compete with a cheesy little book about slavery.

Great literature indeed

 

[Ladewig]

Okay. How about the Code of Hammurabi? It's the most widely noted precursor to the Mosaic Code:

http://www.wsu.edu/~dee/MESO/CODE.HTM

16. If any one receive into his house a runaway male or female slave of the court, or of a freedman, and does not bring it out at the public proclamation of the major domus, the master of the house shall be put to death.

17. If any one find runaway male or female slaves in the open country and bring them to their masters, the master of the slaves shall pay him two shekels of silver.

18.*If the slave will not give the name of the master, the finder shall bring him to the palace; a further investigation must follow, and the slave shall be returned to his master.

19.*If he hold the slaves in his house, and they are caught there, he shall be put to death.

199.*If he put out the eye of a man's slave, or break the bone of a man's slave, he shall pay one-half of its value.

205.*If the slave of a freed man strike the body of a freed man, his ear shall be cut off.

As you can see, returning a slave to his master was punishable by death, and injury to a slave resulted only in compensation being given to his master.

I'm lost here. You claim that "returning a slave to his master was punishable by death," but the lines you quote indicate that returning a runaway slave to his master earns a reward.

 

[Ladewig]

And if there are still boards like this one, there will be people asking, "Why didn't God just outlaw [x] in the first place?"

Maybe He wants us to figure out that it's wrong, and why.

Which is most important in your own life? The lessons you were just taught and accepted blindly--or the ones you figured out for yourself?

No. There is no parent in the world who would say, "I could teach my childeren that murder is wrong, or I could give them a gun and let them learn the lesson for themselves because 'lessons they learn for themselves are more important than lesson they are just taught.' " No one would say that because lives would be at stake. Your analogy is absurd. I cannot imagine a more ass-backward God than the one who would make encouraging comments about slavery while trying (over the course of millenia) to teach us that slavery is wrong.

 

[cnorman18]

--

This doesn't make any sense at all. You are making all the decisions but you are held to the words in a many thousand year old texts. In fact, you are not making any decisions, you are controlled by your god as surely as any christian or muslim.

Spending thousands of years interpreting the same text isn't any different than spending a couple years interpreting it. Well, except that the definition of insanity is to repeat an action over and over and expect a different result.

Have you actually read anything I have written here?

I'll decline to go over the Jewish approach to Biblical interpretation again and again--how human intellect is the highest authority, and so on. It seems clear that involving an ancient book that mentions God, at all, is unacceptable to you. Fine. We disagree, and I'll be willing to leave it at that.

And what happens to all the decisions that were bad? I mean, one would assume that one decision would only be replaced by a better one. What happens to all the people condemned by the first decision? It is like all the catholics sitting in hell for eating meat on Fridays. I bet they are a little pissed off!

Who has been condemned? Jews have no position on the afterlife and do not claim to know how God will judge, remember?

judaism's interpretation of the bible is pretty much the same as christians reading what they want into it or muslims reading what they want into the koran. The only difference is that judaism has had a longer history of doing it. Their interpretations are no more valid, no better, and no more based on free human thinking than any other religion.

Have you ever actually participated in a Jewish
Torah study? If not, how could you possibly claim to know how "free thinking" it is? Are you not just making blanket pronouncements based on your own stereotypes and prejudices? The paradigm in Torah study is argument, often intense and vehement argument, and never blind acceptance of what one is taught--and there are absolutely no limits on those arguments, up to and including the nonexistence of God. Further, any consensus reached by the group is nonbinding on the individual.

I'm beginning to get used to the unrelenting hostility, but the overwhelming evidence of prejudice and unsupported assumptions about Judaism is really getting tiresome. Most of your thinking seems to be based on the pattern, "You believe in God, therefore you must..." (full in stereotype here).

I'm not seeing a lot of "free thinking" here, to be honest. The chief value does not seem to be actually listening to and considering other points of view, but maintaining the (rather irrational) belief that there is absolutely nothing positive whatever about any form of religious belief, anywhere or at any time or in any way; any hint to the contrary is dismissed out of hand with appeals to stereotypes and caricatures.

Whatever. If you can't show at least a little indication that you have understood what I've written, instead of ignoring it and continuing to lambaste the practices I'm speaking against, (e.g., the blind acceptance of the Bible as authoritative), we have nothing to talk about.

 

[cnorman18]

--

Many maths texts have stood the test of time. Euclid's elements, for instance. It still has an enormous amount of worth today. People don't have to go through it looking for "clues" as to what is right and what is wrong.

It has an easier job, of course. Dealing with clear matters in a clear way -- perhaps edited since the first edition. By now, it is an error free book.

The amazing thing is,
People did try to throw it away and start from scratch. What other kinds of geometry could they find? Would those they found be as robust and free from contradiction as Euclid's "Gospel"?

They managed to find some.
Starting from scratch was not pointless.

Like I said: analogies can only take us so far.

I appreciate that you can see something in the Torah that allows you to trust the text. You find ways in which it backs up your morality and your sense of justice. Especially your sense that rules should change.

All I see in it are fallible people who probably had very good intentions.

You probably see some things that are very close to your own thoughts and marvel at the idea somebody could have written it down so long ago. I know the feeling.

And then you find other things and have to start debating and conjuring explanations as to why you disagree and yet both of you are right.

Hey, maybe you'll unify everything like Gauss did with geometry. But I don't think so.

The tacit suggestion that I am either an idiot or a fool is rather hard to miss. Thanks for your response, anyway.

 

[cnorman18]

--

FYI

"To this day, Jews are forbidden to have anyone do work for them on the Sabbath. A Jewish school where I formerly worked added a new wing, but no construction was permitted on Saturday, even though none of the workers was Jewish."

This statement is totally wrong.
There is even a yiddish word for gentiles who do "dirty" work for Jews on the Sabbath.

You can find it here http://www.hobonickels.org/yiddish.htm

The term in English was "Sabbath goy." You neglect to mention that, though the practice was common in various times and places, it was expressly forbidden by Jewish law and remains so today. An analogous situation applies to the practice of contraception among Catholics; that the prohibition is widely ignored does not mean that it does not exist.

 

[cnorman18]

--

I'm lost here. You claim that "returning a slave to his master was punishable by death," but the lines you quote indicate that returning a runaway slave to his master earns a reward.

I would think it rather clear that the intended meaning was, "NOT returning an escaped slave to his master was punishable by death." I regret the error.

 

[FireGarden]

Like I said: analogies can only take us so far.

So what was the point you were trying to make?
Sure it's important to be aware of what has been considered before. It is also important to be able to start again. Even if it is just to find an independent way to check the work.

The tacit suggestion that I am either an idiot or a fool is rather hard to miss. Thanks for your response, anyway.

I didn't mean to offend. And I wouldn't apply either of those words to you.

Maybe I've misunderstood you,
On the one hand, I can accept that we shouldn't judge the moral fibre of a people by what they did or what they accepted as legal. Anymore than we should judge their intelligence by the level of their science.

I said in my previous post that the people had good intentions. They were looking for what worked. They had good moral fibre.

But then you go one step further and suggest that, in fact, they found a good solution -- for the time, anyway.

I don't agree. Better solutions were found in environments not too different. The injustice of slavery was clear to more than a few.

I don't think you're going to bridge that gap. Not for a lack of wisdom or intelligence. It's just a big gap.

 

[Myriad]

I don't agree. Better solutions were found in environments not too different.

I'm curious. Where and when were better solutions first found and first stably maintained?

Respectfully,
Myriad

 

[cnorman18]

--

So what was the point you were trying to make?
Sure it's important to be aware of what has been considered before.

That WAS the point I was trying to make.

It is also important to be able to start again. Even if it is just to find an independent way to check the work.

Well, okay; but we're not really talking about mathematics here. One wonders how one might "start from scratch" when devising a moral code--and how one might "check the work" without doing precisely what I have been talking about--subjecting earlier conclusions to a continuous process of review and revision.

I didn't mean to offend. And I wouldn't apply either of those words to you.

Thanks; no offense taken, in spite of my remark. I really think it's something of a baseline assumption here, or else a matter of habitual expression that's so much a part of the intellectual climate that it's no longer noticed how it might come across.

Maybe I've misunderstood you,
On the one hand, I can accept that we shouldn't judge the moral fibre of a people by what they did or what they accepted as legal. Anymore than we should judge their intelligence by the level of their science.

I said in my previous post that the people had good intentions. They were looking for what worked. They had good moral fibre.

But then you go one step further and suggest that, in fact, they found a good solution -- for the time, anyway.

I don't agree. Better solutions were found in environments not too different. The injustice of slavery was clear to more than a few.

I don't think you're going to bridge that gap. Not for a lack of wisdom or intelligence. It's just a big gap.

I have no argument with any of that now, though that was not my perception when I started this thread. I came here to learn, and it's working.

Thanks for participating in my education.

And I mean that.

 

[cnorman18]

--

I'm curious. Where and when were better solutions first found and first stably maintained?

Respectfully,
Myriad

I can answer that one. As has been pointed out here, Cyrus the Great outlawed slavery entirely in his empire circa 500 BCE. The Jews really ought to have followed his example when their kingdom was restored, especially since they benefited from it rather directly by being allowed to go home.

It's true that no one else did so until at least 15 centuries later, but that single counterexample still disproves my original thesis.

 

[FireGarden]

One wonders how one might "start from scratch" when devising a moral code--and how one might "check the work" without doing precisely what I have been talking about--subjecting earlier conclusions to a continuous process of review and revision.

Your first attempt needn't be from scratch. Volumes have been written on Ethics. It's not something I've studied in any detail, so I won't pretend I have an answer.

If other people have found fresh starts, then maybe that can inspire you to find other ways to start.

Thanks; no offense taken, in spite of my remark. I really think it's something of a baseline assumption here, or else a matter of habitual expression that's so much a part of the intellectual climate that it's no longer noticed how it might come across.

I regard JREF as one of the more relaxed forums on the net. It can get personal, of course. Not like it used to, though. Back then you needed two pet names: one neutral/friendly and another to be used by your mortal enemy.

I respect that you're here seeking out oppossing opinions. And JREF is certainly the place for them. So here's a somewhat late "Welcome. Post long and prosper."

 

[qayak]

Have you actually read anything I have written here?

I'll decline to go over the Jewish approach to Biblical interpretation again and again--how human intellect is the highest authority, and so on. It seems clear that involving an ancient book that mentions God, at all, is unacceptable to you. Fine. We disagree, and I'll be willing to leave it at that.

Yes, it is the ancient book I am having trouble with. If you are convinced that human intellect is the highest authority in the jewish faith, okay, I will accept that for now. However, now you have to convince me that the bible is the highest written accomplishment of human intellect. Good luck with that. It is so poor, that people have been interpreting it for thousands of years and still can't figure it out.

Who has been condemned? Jews have no position on the afterlife and do not claim to know how God will judge, remember?

How about the people subject to jewish laws? How about the people condemned to death because of ignorant jewish laws? I just said it is LIKE the catholic reversal on the meat rule for jews to be reinterpreting the rules all the time.

The paradigm in Torah study is argument, often intense and vehement argument, and never blind acceptance of what one is taught--and there are absolutely no limits on those arguments, up to and including the nonexistence of God. Further, any consensus reached by the group is nonbinding on the individual.

I dream of the day that the basis of a religion is to find the truth. Oh, wait a minute! Then it wouldn't be religion, it would be science.

Argument is not a good basis for torah study or any study for that matter. And if the existence of god is up for argument and jews truly are searching for the truth, what evidence was put forth to support the argument that god exists?

I am thinking that you have confused this arguing with actual understanding and the seeking of truth.

I'm not seeing a lot of "free thinking" here, to be honest. The chief value does not seem to be actually listening to and considering other points of view, but maintaining the (rather irrational) belief that there is absolutely nothing positive whatever about any form of religious belief, anywhere or at any time or in any way; any hint to the contrary is dismissed out of hand with appeals to stereotypes and caricatures.

I completely disagree with your assessment. You make a statement and I point out how that statement is obviously false and then you think I am not listeneing. The issue is not with my understanding of your words, it is the fact that you failed to apply critical thinking to your statements before making them.

Whatever. If you can't show at least a little indication that you have understood what I've written, instead of ignoring it and continuing to lambaste the practices I'm speaking against, (e.g., the blind acceptance of the Bible as authoritative), we have nothing to talk about.

Obviously, you feel that being allowed to argue about the meaning of bible passages is the same as not blindly accepting jewish beliefs. It isn't. I think an interesting question you could ask in one of your torah studies is about how free a jew really is to decide for themself. The question is this: Is an atheist really a jew with his own argument about the bible?

Inquiring minds want to know.