Is religion good for a country?

[sock puppet]

The Mosaic Law - protection of slaves from abuse by their masters is found nowhere else in the entire exiting main body of ancient Near Eastern legislation.

Lastly: Genesis 1 made a huge contribution to human equality through the doctrine of the imago Dei - Image of God. The understanding that everyone is created in the image of God had significant impact of how slaves/servants were treated in the ancient past (Under Biblical teaching), and it also played a very significant role (many centuries later) with abolishing slavery in the West.

Hi, Ceeboo. I think there are good sentiments in the Bible, no matter its origin being devinely inspired or just concoctions in the craniums of men. The Bible describes many things that to me are indefensible, and cannot even be explained away if we understood the full context and times. If we are all children of God, then slavery--whereby one 'owns' another human--is inherently wrong, in every context, at all times. Even when I was a believer, I did not accept everything the Bible as containing as being "good", though there are commendable things in the Bible. The Bible is more palatable if one picks and chooses among what it contains.

[Marcus]

That's odd. I was under the impression that Christianity played a very significant role in abolishing slavery in America. Huh?

Here is an interesting video from Dan McClellan that makes the argument that nothing in the Bible is against slavery. In fact, quite the opposite.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5bdlgTh6H4k

Thanks for posting that, Everybody Wang Chung.

d the reality
0:10
is that there's not a single syllable of
0:12
the Bible that in any way shape or form
0:15
whatsoever questions problematizes
0:18
condemns or even criticizes the practice
0:21
itself of buying selling and owning
0:24
other human beings the best we have is
0:27
some authors who suggest enslaved people
0:30
should be treated better but there is
0:33
never any part of the Bible that
0:35
actually criticizes or condemns the
0:37
practice of slavery itself it is always
0:40
presupposed to be normative and to be
0:43
perfectly fine

[Res Ipsa]

Two thoughts. First, the New Testament’s treatment of slavery is unsurprising given the core message ascribed to Jesus: persecution and hardship in this life is unimportant; your reward is in the next life. Slavery is of this life and, therefore, unimportant. “Slaves, obey your masters” fits right in with “turn the other cheek”, “go the extra mile”, “love your enemies” etc.

Second, when Christians complain that other Christians pick and choose from the Bible, it’s rarely a matter of flat-out ignoring the text. It’s actually about rationalizing away perceived problems in the text. That’s the picking and choosing.

[ceeboo]

Lastly: Genesis 1 made a huge contribution to human equality through the doctrine of the imago Dei - Image of God. The understanding that everyone is created in the image of God had significant impact of how slaves/servants were treated in the ancient past (Under Biblical teaching), and it also played a very significant role (many centuries later) with abolishing slavery in the West.

Hi, Ceeboo.

Hey SP - Hope all is well with you and yours.

I think there are good sentiments in the Bible, no matter its origin being devinely inspired or just concoctions in the craniums of men. The Bible describes many things that to me are indefensible, and cannot even be explained away if we understood the full context and times.

I understand.

If we are all children of God,

My view: We are not all children of God - We are all created in God's image.

Even when I was a believer, I did not accept everything the Bible as containing as being "good", though there are commendable things in the Bible.

No worries. Can we agree that what you're determining to be good and commendable is subjective?

The Bible is more palatable if one picks and chooses among what it contains.

You are not alone with this view. As I am fairly certain that you know, there are many Christians that agree with you as well.

Thanks for engaging and really nice to see you on the board .

[sock puppet]

Even when I was a believer, I did not accept everything the Bible as containing as being "good", though there are commendable things in the Bible.

No worries. Can we agree that what you're determining to be good and commendable is subjective?

Certainly we can so agree.

ceeboo, how do you view the books that were once in the Bible, but were removed centuries ago? Such as

• The Maccabees: The first, second, and fourth books of the Maccabees are not considered canonical scriptures in the Protestant Church or the Jewish Torah, but are part of the Catholic canon.
• The Didache: Also known as Teaching of the Twelve Apostles, this book was omitted from the canon.
• The Shepherd of Hermas: This book was omitted from the canon.
• The Apocalypse of Peter: This book was omitted from the canon.
• The Epistle of Barnabas: This book was omitted from the canon.
• The Epistle of Clement: This book was omitted from the canon.
• The First Book of Adam and Eve: Considered by many scholars to be part of the "Pseudepigrapha", a collection of historical biblical works that are considered to be fiction.
• The Books of Enoch: Also known as The Angels, The Watchers, and The Nephilim.

Books that were considered but never included are referred to as the apocrypha. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lost_ ... ks_of_Eden

It seems the Christian world has settled on what ought to be and what ought not be included, but why do you defer to those men that were involved in that process, the last step of which I understand to be about 300 A.D.

Then there is the question of which translation to adhere to. King James Version? An overview of the process that led to it can be found here: https://www.britannica.com/topic/King-James-Version

I am just curious why so many revere the KJV of the Bible so highly, as complete and as infallible, when it was the product of so many men at different times in deciding what would and would not be included and in translating it. These two factors alone lead me to think it ought to be something one evaluates for himself what really might be from God and what might not be.

[canpakes]

Agreed. One of the most strange events in the Bible is when God immediately implements slavery among the Israelites, after freeing them from generations of Egyptian slavery. You would think God and the Israelites would have been disgusted by the practice of slavery, but no, it turns out God is totally pro-slavery.

Like many difficult topics surrounding the Bible. slavery is surely one of them. To discuss such a topic would require time, humility, understanding of time/place/circumstance, as well as context.

Picking out a single verse from a library of scripture spanning thousands of years, is problematic. In addition, trotting out a single verse in an attempt to be critical (while fair in my opinion) can't be replied to in a similar way - trotting out a single verse as a reply. To reply to such troubling, challenging and jarring topics (like slavery in the Bible) requires a much longer reply that must consist of lengthy explanations around historical context, norms, existing realities, etc,

Having said that, I wanted to offer a few words from my personal perspective. These are just my views, and, given the topic, they will not be as comprehensive as they ought to be. You need to agree with any of them.

Bond - While I am fairly certain that there are modern Christians who are good at ignoring Exodus 21 (as well as other passages), I would suggest that there are also many Christians (past and modern) that have deeply wrestled with some of the these more troubling and quite jarring passages.

Everybody Wang Chung - Your suggestion about God being totally pro-slavery (one which seems to be repeated quite a bit - especially recently among some of folks dwelling in the secular/atheist camp - Sam Harris, Cosmic Skeptic, Dawkins, etc) is indeed something I don't think Christians should run away from an/or hand-wave off. I think Christians ought to be able to discuss everything in the Bible and do so honestly, humbly, and accurately.

Slavery was a part of life everywhere during Old Testament time. It was common and accepted everywhere.

Old Testament laws were given for Israel at a particular time in history to a specific people and place. These laws had a built-in obsolescence (Forn example" Jeremiah 31 talks about a new convent coming - there is an awareness that this isn't the end of the story) - Many of the Old Testament laws are addressing specific situations that arise within the historical context of the time.

Some of the laws use words like "if or "when" - Meaning, obviously these laws are not approving these things, they were to address a specific situation that already existed and that the people were dealing with.

Throughout the Bible, God gives instructions on how people ought to live under a fallen structure, like slavery. Such instruction does not suggest approval of the existing structure. Telling people what to do in a circumstance does not mean that there is approval for the circumstance itself.

The Old Testament made significant improvements on slavery/servanthood in the ancient Near-East. Ancient slavery/servanthood was not the same as the Trans-Atlantic slavery that occurred between the 15th and 19th centuries (perhaps the most despicable forms of slavery to ever exist) - This was race based chattel slavery - meaning that the slave was the legal property of the master - Race based, arguing that one race was superior to another. Yes, all slavery is bad but I would suggest that this flavor is the worst flavor. This is not the same slavery (despite what people may say) as what is found in the Old Testament.

Old Testament slavery: The general foundation for slavery/servanthood was economic. Very few safety nets existed. If you couldn't pay off your debts, this was one way you could survive. Jay Sklar - Old Testament Scholar on Leviticus puts it this way - "In the ancient Near East in general and in the Bible in particular, debt was commonly the reason for entering into servitude".

The Mosaic Law - protection of slaves from abuse by their masters is found nowhere else in the entire exiting main body of ancient Near Eastern legislation.

Lastly: Genesis 1 made a huge contribution to human equality through the doctrine of the imago Dei - Image of God. The understanding that everyone is created in the image of God had significant impact of how slaves/servants were treated in the ancient past (Under Biblical teaching), and it also played a very significant role (many centuries later) with abolishing slavery in the West.

All good stuff, Ceebs.

I would ask what other scripture, in your opinion, would lead to the conflict that I’ve highlighted in bolded blue, such that the scripture passages regarding slavery are considered troubling or jarring.

[Gadianton]

Second, when Christians complain that other Christians pick and choose from the Bible, it’s rarely a matter of flat-out ignoring the text. It’s actually about rationalizing away perceived problems in the text. That’s the picking and choosing.

Yep, it's picking and choosing what modern idea completely disconnected to the reality of those who lived thousands of years ago does the Christian want to pretend originates with these people, and what ideas were just accidental to the times. The handful of passages 'bout slavery are difficult and conflicted, but the Bible is a long discursive text and we can ignore them for now while we figure it out. But the handful of passages on same-sex relations -- those are blazing condemnations we can make laws in 'merika about right away without further ado.

[Physics Guy]

Another verse often taken by conservative Christians as straightforwardly applicable today:

Wives, in the same way, be subject to your husbands, ...

It helps if they don't ask to what the "in the same way" is referring.

Slaves, be subject to your masters with all respect, not only those who are good and gentle but also those who are dishonest.

Each of these verses is the start of a few-verse-long micro-sermon about submissiveness, first for slaves, then for wives. The admonition to slaves to obey even abusive masters immediately precedes the admonition to wives; these are not unrelated verses from separate contexts. The two discussions are closely parallel, and the author explicitly emphasises the similarity of their reasoning: "in the same way." They form a single train of thought in the text.

The train does turn a bit as it moves. There is no explicit mention to wives of tolerating outright abuse from husbands, as there was for slaves and masters, and by 3:7 another "in the same way" urges husbands to show consideration for wives. The command to husbands is only one verse, however, and from 3:8 on the theme of submitting to abuse is resumed at length, albeit in general terms addressed to all Christians.

The passage as a whole is at most an equivocal endorsement of slavery. It urges submission by slaves, but the entire passage is consistent in urging submission to things like persecution that are not approved at all. It calls for meekly accepting bad things, but it doesn't pretend that the bad things are good. On the other hand it doesn't take the opportunity to suggest that slavery might still be bad even when masters are decent.

My point is that whatever 1 Peter says about slavery, its text itself explicitly presents submission in marriage as similar to slavery. Relativising away the acceptance of ancient-world slavery, but insisting that the Epistle is preaching God's eternal principle of marriage, can only be sustained by overlooking that "in the same way"—or just never reading the two chapters together.

ETA, after, um, clicking "Submit":
I agree that the Bible is a looser document than its conservative readers would have us believe, and that a lot of different conclusions can be drawn from it by weighting different parts differently. Yet on the other hand I think the Bible is often less flexible than some of those same conservative readers make it out to be in practice. Quite a lot of its famous verses include little words like "therefore," referring to adjacent verses in ways that do limit how you can read them.

The Bible's coherence can do as much to undermine its oracular authority as its ambiguity does. The Bible doesn't really speak unambiguously on many topics, but it also resists attempts patch up the ambiguity by interpret it into harmony. It can disagree stubbornly with itself, and it can disagree with you just as stubbornly. If you don't want to make it an infallible oracle, though, chunks of it can make more sense than one might expect. Quite a few Biblical passages are coherent trains of thought that run longer than the short excerpts that people like quote.

[Moksha]

I am just curious why so many revere the KJV of the Bible so highly, as complete and as infallible, when it was the product of so many men at different times in deciding what would and would not be included and in translating it.

Perhaps because it was commissioned by a King and thus had the English conservative vote of confidence.

[huckelberry]

I am just curious why so many revere the KJV of the Bible so highly, as complete and as infallible, when it was the product of so many men at different times in deciding what would and would not be included and in translating it.

Perhaps because it was commissioned by a King and thus had the English conservative vote of confidence.

I thought though I do not have statistic that KJ only folks are a few small groups of fundamentalists. They are not happy with later translations which do not include some favorite turn of phrases. An example would be, the translation I use has for Isaiah 7:14 "therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign. Behold a young woman shall conceive and bear a son and shall call his name Immanuel." It is a Revised Standard version which is pretty common.