I tried to give as much context as I could without creating an absolute wall of text, which is why I didn’t quote the entire chapter. If you’re not earnest about continually trying to learn more and identify your own biases, that makes me really sad, but I’m not dumb enough to think I can change your mind. I’ll try to provide some context anyway, for anyone else reading your comment.
Nowhere does the Bible condone rape. Period. Such behavior is always very clearly defined to be sin that must be atoned for, including by stoning when called for. (See the latter half of Deuteronomy 22 for a good overview.) Arranged marriage was a thing in the Old Testament, but the framework was very strict to avoid abuse.
Yes, rules for non-Hebrew slaves were different from Hebrew slaves, but the standards for how they were to be treated were still higher than elsewhere.
Any competant philosopher, historian, or sociologist will tell you that you can’t judge past cultures by the morals of today. Yeah, picking up slaves from conquered lands today would be considered barbaric, but that’s not the culture they lived in. Lots more I want to say about how that changed in the New Testament (Galatians 3:28, etc). But again, I don’t like walls of text in comments. I’m happy to answer DMs all day long.
Where did I call you uneducated? If that’s what you got, I can assure you it didn’t come from me. You are free to believe what you wish, I can’t nor would I ever wish to force you.
The old testament is brutal, maybe ease off the apologetics trying to sell some ‘the bible is nice’ if you squint meme, we even get into genocidal rape territory and having sex with your slaves is just how they roll in texts trying to sound old and brutal.
There is nothing to indicate ‘the bible’ had any impact at all on life prior to 300BCE or so afaiu, it really kicks in around the Hasmonean period as novel sacred history which was high fashion. You’d be as well reading the Qur’an or Geoffrey of Monmouth for history.
The concern here is more you seem to be running with a OT like a history book: Torah, prophets, Ezra, Nehemiah etc isn’t history and the oldest sources we have are Hasmonean era when Torah observance pops up in the archaeological record.
Early Christians often don’t seem overly concerned about the flesh, outwith liturgy, and reports indicate slaves, kids and women were a big part of the movement…Gregory of Nyssa in the 4th century one of the first to really break down the insanity of the practice but his mariology wouldn’t go viral in the west like the horrors of Augustine, Aquinas, Calvin etc.
In the western tradition it’s not really properly deconstructed until Jefferey Bentham or so when Aquinas’s homophobia was getting a kicking too.
I tried to give as much context as I could without creating an absolute wall of text, which is why I didn’t quote the entire chapter. If you’re not earnest about continually trying to learn more and identify your own biases, that makes me really sad, but I’m not dumb enough to think I can change your mind. I’ll try to provide some context anyway, for anyone else reading your comment.
Nowhere does the Bible condone rape. Period. Such behavior is always very clearly defined to be sin that must be atoned for, including by stoning when called for. (See the latter half of Deuteronomy 22 for a good overview.) Arranged marriage was a thing in the Old Testament, but the framework was very strict to avoid abuse.
Yes, rules for non-Hebrew slaves were different from Hebrew slaves, but the standards for how they were to be treated were still higher than elsewhere.
Any competant philosopher, historian, or sociologist will tell you that you can’t judge past cultures by the morals of today. Yeah, picking up slaves from conquered lands today would be considered barbaric, but that’s not the culture they lived in. Lots more I want to say about how that changed in the New Testament (Galatians 3:28, etc). But again, I don’t like walls of text in comments. I’m happy to answer DMs all day long.
Where did I call you uneducated? If that’s what you got, I can assure you it didn’t come from me. You are free to believe what you wish, I can’t nor would I ever wish to force you.
The old testament is brutal, maybe ease off the apologetics trying to sell some ‘the bible is nice’ if you squint meme, we even get into genocidal rape territory and having sex with your slaves is just how they roll in texts trying to sound old and brutal.
There is nothing to indicate ‘the bible’ had any impact at all on life prior to 300BCE or so afaiu, it really kicks in around the Hasmonean period as novel sacred history which was high fashion. You’d be as well reading the Qur’an or Geoffrey of Monmouth for history.
The concern here is more you seem to be running with a OT like a history book: Torah, prophets, Ezra, Nehemiah etc isn’t history and the oldest sources we have are Hasmonean era when Torah observance pops up in the archaeological record.
Early Christians often don’t seem overly concerned about the flesh, outwith liturgy, and reports indicate slaves, kids and women were a big part of the movement…Gregory of Nyssa in the 4th century one of the first to really break down the insanity of the practice but his mariology wouldn’t go viral in the west like the horrors of Augustine, Aquinas, Calvin etc.
In the western tradition it’s not really properly deconstructed until Jefferey Bentham or so when Aquinas’s homophobia was getting a kicking too.