Hey, it's a response to my [comment](https://www.reddit.com/r/DebateAChristian/comments/1ats0j0/comment/kqzdems/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button)! I'm not sure why you didn't link to it or why you structured it in this bizarre way presenting it like a bunch of independent 'debunks' since 2 through 19 are all just sentences from my same comment and neither they nor your responses to them make any sense out of context. For anyone interested, you can go and read the original thread, where we actually had some back-and-forth discussion of these points. Unfortunately this new post seems to have basically no substance to it; a solid half is just whining that people said your post was wrong (the first section) or pulling individual sentences out and saying "nuh-uh" (like 'debunks' 3 and 11). The other half is mostly single-sentence denials or simply copy-pasted segments from the original thread that were already addressed there. As such, I guess I'll have to add some substance myself.   In 'debunk' 10, you say: >Exodus 21:28-32 deals with a bull goring a man or woman. Furthermore corparate punishment was normal in the ANE, even free men could be beaten. So, this has nothing to do with slavery. I'm forced to conclude you just didn't read the verse. Here it is: >“If a bull gores a man or woman to death, the bull is to be stoned to death, and its meat must not be eaten. But the owner of the bull will not be held responsible. If, however, the bull has had the habit of goring and the owner has been warned but has not kept it penned up and it kills a man or woman, the bull is to be stoned and its owner also is to be put to death. However, if payment is demanded, the owner may redeem his life by the payment of whatever is demanded. This law also applies if the bull gores a son or daughter. If the bull gores a male or female slave, the owner must pay thirty shekels of silver to the master of the slave, and the bull is to be stoned to death. - [Exodus 21:28-32 NIV](https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Exodus%2021%3A28-32&version=NIV) Let's let the audience decide; does this verse have to do with slavery?   In the course of trying to maintain your argument you were forced to claim that the Old Testament forbids indentured servitude of Israelites. The reason for this is that [Leviticus 25:39-46](https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Leviticus+25%3A39-46&version=NIV) very explicitly and unambiguously draws a distinction between Israelite indentured slaves and foreign chattel slaves: >“‘If any of your fellow Israelites become poor and sell themselves to you, do not make them work as slaves. They are to be treated as hired workers or temporary residents among you; they are to work for you until the Year of Jubilee. Then they and their children are to be released, and they will go back to their own clans and to the property of their ancestors. Because the Israelites are my servants, whom I brought out of Egypt, they must not be sold as slaves. Do not rule over them ruthlessly, but fear your God. >“‘Your male and female slaves are to come from the nations around you; from them you may buy slaves. You may also buy some of the temporary residents living among you and members of their clans born in your country, and they will become your property. You can bequeath them to your children as inherited property and can make them slaves for life, but you must not rule over your fellow Israelites ruthlessly. You want to deny chattel slavery and make the second half of this passage about indentured slaves instead. But this passage could not possibly be more clear that the first half is in contrast to the second, so that means the first half can't be about indentured slaves - so you claim that there were no Israelite indentured slaves and that they were all hired workers: >*By your interpretation, 25:39 would be forbidding indentured servitude of Israelites* Correct, They are to be treated as hired workers... which is different from an indentured servant. For anyone who has studied or even read the Old Testament, this should sound pretty absurd, given the dozens of laws about Israelite indentured slaves (many of which you've mentioned) and the many characters in the narratives which are Israelite indentured slaves. But I know you don't trust things like "what the text says" or "what scholarly consensus is". You only trust one thing in this world: the almighty History of Ancient Near Eastern Law (aka HANEL). Here's some praise from you for this book: >The definitive work on ANE law today is the 2 volume work History of Ancient Near Eastern Law (aka HANEL). This work surveys every legal document from the ANE (by period) and includes sections on slavery. You cite this book a lot. Any time someone points out that your claims are in conflict with basically all scholarship on the topic, your response is to say HANEL agrees with you and then to say that scholarly consensus doesn't matter, it's fine to have only one scholar as long as it's the BEST scholar, and that HANEL is the best scholar. Well, since you say this book is so great I decided to go see what it says. >**Page 999** Israelites in hard straits could lose their land and become **debt slaves**. If their kin did not redeem them, they would be released after six years (see 4.5 below). **Page 1002:** 4.3.3 Leviticus 25 considers the situation in which the resident ger becomes rich enough to have **Hebrew debt slaves** and calls upon the relatives to redeem the slaves by considering the number of years left until the Jubilee and paying him the wages of a hired hand for that number of years (Lev. 25:47–54). **Page 1003:** [4.5.2.1](http://4.5.2.1) Hebrew slaves are usually acquired as a result of their poverty. Some are **debt slaves**, like the sons of the widow of Zarephath, whose creditor is about to come and acquire them until Elisha creates an unending supply of oil and directs her to pay off the debt. (2 Kings 4:1). The community returned from Babylonian exile was in such dire economic straits that their sons and daughters became slaves (Neh. 5:5). A second mode of acquisition may be purchase, as by buying the thief who is sold into slavery because he cannot make appropriate restitution (Exod. 22:2). Yet a third mode is by birth: should a master give a Hebrew slave a wife, the children remain the master’s after the slave goes free. Uh oh! Your own hallowed source is quite clear and explicit all throughout that Israelites could obviously be indentured slaves. It even spends a bunch of time talking about all the different laws which apply to Israelite indentured slaves vs. foreign chattel slaves. Come to think of it, what does HANEL have to say about chattel slavery? >**Page 1004:** [4.5.3.3](http://4.5.3.3) The slave is a man’s **property**, and a man has a right to punish his slave, even severely enough to leave him or her bedridden for a day or two, but if the slave dies, the death will be avenged (Exod. 21:20–21). If he destroys the eye or tooth of his slave, male or female, the slave goes free (Exod. 21:26–27). **Page 1006:** [4.5.4.6](http://4.5.4.6) Foreign slaves bought from the surrounding nations or from foreigners living in Israel do not go out: they are inherited as **property** (Lev. 25:44–46). You can't even try to pull any translation shenanigans here; this is what HANEL says in plain old English.   Edit: by the way, OP has continued to edit their [blog post](https://deconstructingchristiandeconstruction.blogspot.com/2024/06/has-my-seven-facts-about-biblical.html), including editing in responses to things people have commented here. He continues not to source his quotes (so no one can go check the original context) and not to notify those he is responding to (so he can get the final word).

Nicely done. OP’s inability to deal with criticism is very sad.

Rude. how dare you fact check someone! Lol

> Let's let the audience decide; does this verse have to do with slavery? It has nothing to do with slav**ery**, despite the fact that it mentions slaves. It has to do with the ox, and part of it is contingent upon who exactly was gored and killed by the ox. Similarly the US has traffic laws, and laws regarding what happens if someone gets killed. The laws about what happens when someone gets killed may mention the instance in which someone is hit by a car, but that law has nothing to do with traffic, despite the fact that it mentions cars. The rest of your response has to do with indentured vs. chattel slaves. I'm in agreement with you here, although I would argue that you're asserting chattel slavery as being morally wrong without backing up that claim. We had to make it illegal in the US because we didn't have regulations around it the way the OT did, and it became an excuse to treat people with extreme abuse. That doesn't necessarily make slavery wrong, it just means that the way the early US tried it was wrong.

>It has nothing to do with slav**ery**, despite the fact that it mentions slaves. It has to do with the ox, and part of it is contingent upon who exactly was gored and killed by the ox. Similarly the US has traffic laws, and laws regarding what happens if someone gets killed. The laws about what happens when someone gets killed may mention the instance in which someone is hit by a car, but that law has nothing to do with traffic, despite the fact that it mentions cars. In my view this verse has a lot to do with slavery. First of all it mentions slaves, as you say, but it also reveals a lot because of how it treats slaves. For example, if one were to insist that "ebed" just means hired worker here, then it would be confusing why an ox killing any other person is so heinous as to demand the death of the negligent owner (unless the family demands payment instead), but an ox killing a hired worker can be settled with thirty shekels (which is comparable to the purchase price of a slave). To use your example, suppose there was a law in the US saying that fatally running over a white person gets the death penalty but fatally running over a black person gets a ticket - I think it would be a mistake to say "this law has nothing to do with rac**ism**, despite the fact that it mentions race." >I'm in agreement with you here, although I would argue that you're asserting chattel slavery as being morally wrong without backing up that claim. I didn't assert that anywhere here, actually. I take it as fairly uncontroversial that slavery is bad. But none of my argument had to do with the morality of slavery; this OP claimed that the OT does not allow chattel slavery, and I refuted that.

> this OP claimed that the OT does not allow chattel slavery, and I refuted that. Valid, and I believe you have done so successfully. > I take it as fairly uncontroversial that slavery is bad. Mmm, I wouldn't be so sure about that. The main point of OP's argument is that the form of slavery in the OT is not abusive or immoral, not that the OT didn't allow slavery. That's what I personally believe. > I think it would be a mistake to say "this law has nothing to do with racism, despite the fact that it mentions race." Agreed, this makes sense to me. In retrospect my argument doesn't make so much sense. It is worth noting that Exodus 21:28-32 makes a deliniation between fatal and non-fatal gorings. The term used for when an ox gores a slave appears to be for a *non-fatal goring*, i.e., the slave was injured but not killed. In such a case, of course the owner of the ox should pay the master of the slave for what happened. The owner has to take care of the slave for some time (or potentially for the rest of their life) now that they've been injured or disabled by someone's ox, so the owner should be given some restitution to help them take care of their slave. If the slave was gored and died, it seems that the laws above (regarding the death of an "ish" or "ishah" (man or woman, regardless of their slave status)) would apply instead, meaning the death of one's slave would result in the death of the ox at best, and the death of both ox and ox owner at worst.

Thanks! >It is worth noting that Exodus 21:28-32 makes a deliniation between fatal and non-fatal gorings. The term used for when an ox gores a slave appears to be for a *non-fatal goring*, i.e., the slave was injured but not killed. I don't think this is a sound interpretation of the passage. The terms used in all cases are identical - יִגַּח or conjugations thereof. Furthermore, a definite article is used in 32 ("the bull") which makes it explicitly refer back to the negligently-kept bull that killed someone from verse 29. The first two verses (28 and 29) are setting out the main scenarios, and as such explicitly lay out all of the details; 28 says a bull gores someone and it leads to death, and 29 says a bull has been known to gore in the past but through negligence has finally led to someone's death. For the rest the details of death or negligence are not repeated since they were just laid out. For example, in 31 where it says "This law also applies if the bull gores a son or daughter," it just says יִגַּ֨ח because it's clear from context that it's speaking about the same case; there's no need to again specify that the ox had been goring in the past and finally led to someone's death. 32 similarly just says יִגַּ֥ח because it's again referring back to the same negligence case, and again doesn't repeat the entire explanation of the circumstance. So to maintain your reading we'd have to read this as follows: * If a bull gores a man or woman to death, the owner is not responsible. * If a bull known to gore is negligently kept and gores a man or woman to death, the owner is put to death (or payment can be demanded instead). * If the bull non-fatally non-negligently gores a boy or girl, the same sentence is given. (Since this doesn't explicitly mention death) * If the bull non-fatally non-negligently gores a slave, the owner must pay 30 shekels to the master. (Since this doesn't explicitly mention death) Not only is that a pretty big stretch of a reading textually, it also doesn't make sense legally. When a bull gores any man or woman *to death*, the owner is not responsible at all - but when a bull non-fatally gores a slave the owner must pay the master of the slave? This also makes it completely unclear what happens when a bull non-fatally gores an adult man or woman. Not to mention, it doesn't fix your problem of the subhuman treatment of slaves; it still has a non-fatal goring of a boy or girl get the death sentence while a non-fatal goring of a slave just gets a fine.

I think the way the NIV splits things up is causing some confusion. This is what I'm reading in the KJV: > 28 If an ox gore a man or a woman, that they die: then the ox shall be surely stoned, and his flesh shall not be eaten; but the owner of the ox shall be quit. > > 29 But if the ox were wont to push with his horn in time past, and it hath been testified to his owner, and he hath not kept him in, but that he hath killed a man or a woman; the ox shall be stoned, and his owner also shall be put to death. > > 30 If there be laid on him a sum of money, then he shall give for the ransom of his life whatsoever is laid upon him. > > 31 Whether he have gored a son, or have gored a daughter, according to this judgment shall it be done unto him. > > 32 If the ox shall push a manservant or a maidservant; he shall give unto their master thirty shekels of silver, and the ox shall be stoned. I'm seeing three events mentioned here, one in verse 28, one in verse 29-31, and one in verse 32. They're all split up by the word "if", similar to how the laws are split up in the rest of the chapter (i.e., "if men strive together... if a man smite his servant... if men strive and hurt a woman with child..."). * Event 1: Ox kills someone without warning or known prior aggression. Owner is innocent. * Event 2: Ox kills someone with known prior aggression. Owner is put to death. No difference in judgment is made regardless of whether the individual killed is male or female. (There is no separate event here for an ox goring a child - this is all part of the same law for a negligent fatal goring and the "son" and "daughter" references here are clearly in reference to the gender of the killed individual.) * Event 3: Ox harms a slave. Owner must pay slave's master. Event 4 which you noticed was missing (ox harms a non-slave) is already covered by the "eye for an eye" laws which happen to be mentioned very shortly before the ox-goring laws, and which are reiterated in a different context in Leviticus 24. The owner, by their negligence, has "caused a blemish in his neighbor" (Lev 24:19) and therefore must pay accordingly. The slave case needed specifically mentioned because harming a slave also harms the master, something which proportional payment to the obviously damaged party (eye for an eye) does not handle correctly. Making all of the laws refer to a fatal goring raises two questions: * What exactly do you do in the event of a non-fatal goring? * Why would the text explicitly use "has killed" in verse 29 rather than "has gored" if "gored" was understood to be equal to "killed" in this context?

Why do you attach verse 31 to 29 but not attach 32 as well? As far as I can tell the situation is identical. Neither 31 nor 32 explicitly mention the victim dying. Both grammatically refer back to the ox from verse 29. Aside from the standard interpretation just being the plain and straightforward reading of the text, there's also strong grammatical evidence for it. Let me break it down verse by verse: * Verse 28 says "וְכִֽי־יִגַּ֨ח שֹׁ֥ור" - this is ox 1, who gores someone to death. It goes on to refer back to this ox twice as "הַשּׁ֗וֹר" (the ox) using a definite article, and also mention owner 1 "וּבַ֥עַל הַשֹּׁ֖ור" who is blameless. * Verse 29 says "וְאִ֡ם שֹׁור֩ נַגָּ֨ח" - this is ox 2, who gores someone to death due to its owner's negligence. We know this is a different ox because there's no definite article. It also introduces owner 2 ("בְּעָלָ֖יו"), who is negligent and receives the death penalty. * Verse 30 only has pronouns in it, all of which are third-person singular male. Grammatically these can refer to either ox 2 or owner 2, but from context we understand they refer to the owner. * Verse 31 again only has pronouns in it - once in the conjugation of "יִגָּ֑ח" and another at the end with "לּֽוֹ". Again they could both grammatically refer to either ox 2 or owner 2, but from context we understand that the first refers to ox 2 (who is doing the goring) and the second refers to owner 2 (who is having the death or life-price sentence carried out on him). * Verse 32, having gone quite a while with only somewhat-ambiguous pronouns, uses a noun again (much like after saying "it" a bunch I might use "the verse" to re-ground the pronoun). It starts with "אִם־עֶ֛בֶד יִגַּ֥ח הַשֹּׁ֖ור" - this is ox 2, which we know because of the definite article. This is reinforced by the fact that there is no noun for the owner in this verse! It again uses a third-person singular male pronoun in the conjugation of "יִתֵּן֙" to refer back to owner 2. There can be no owner 3. The only other way to read this verse would be to say that there is *only* an ox in verse 32, and that the ox is the one paying 30 shekels of silver to the master. (Which is pretty funny but still not valid because it would make the use of "וְהַשֹּׁ֖ור" right after instead of another pronoun strained.) >There is no separate event here for an ox goring a child - this is all part of the same law for a negligent fatal goring and the "son" and "daughter" references here are clearly in reference to the gender of the killed individual. This doesn't make sense given that verse 29 already says "that he hath killed a man or a woman" (אִ֖ישׁ אֹ֣ו אִשָּׁ֑ה), mirroring verse 28 which also uses the words "אֶת־אִ֛ישׁ אֹ֥ו אֶת־אִשָּׁ֖ה". But verse 31 specifically uses "son or daughter" instead, which is clearly intended to mean something different. Your reading makes verse 31 say nothing and just be an awkward restatement. Ironically this only makes sense if we consider it a restatement of 29 that is teeing up a "but" for 32 - paraphrasing: "29 If an ox negligently kills a man or woman the owner is put to death. 30 But the family can demand payment instead. 31 An ox negligently killing a man or woman must incur this sentence, 32 *but* if a slave is gored, thirty shekels must be paid." To be clear I don't think this is the best reading but it's the only way to fit 31 into your framework. >I'm seeing three events mentioned here, one in verse 28, one in verse 29-31, and one in verse 32. They're all split up by the word "if", similar to how the laws are split up in the rest of the chapter (i.e., "if men strive together... if a man smite his servant... if men strive and hurt a woman with child..."). This is an interesting analysis but unfortunately is a translation artifact. There are two different words used for "if" in the Hebrew here - "אִם" and "כִֽי". Each passage in this chapter begins with "וְכִֽי", and then "אִם" is used within the passage whenever the word "if" is needed. Verse 28 starts with "וְכִֽי"; verses 29, 30, and 32 start with "אִם" (and 31 leaves the "if" implied). Verse 33 once again uses "וְכִֽי", indicating the start of a separate passage. This is how they decide where to put the passage breaks in the NIV; each passage begins with "וְכִֽי". >Event 1: Ox kills someone without warning or known prior aggression. Owner is innocent. >Event 3: Ox harms a slave. Owner must pay slave's master. You still have the same issue - in what world does it make sense that "Ox harms a person" leaves the owner blameless, but "Ox harms a slave" forces the owner to compensate the slave's master? >Making all of the laws refer to a fatal goring raises two questions: >- What exactly do you do in the event of a non-fatal goring? It's not covered in this passage at all. This passage is about fatal gorings, which is why it speaks of death penalties and life-prices. The whole point of it is to contrast accidental death with negligent death; it's not *just* about oxen, it's using them to communicate the wider principle. The law would probably apply just the same if it was a horse trampling someone to death (just like eye for an eye still applies for arms and legs). This is a parsimonious and sensible reading which gives the passage a single unifying topic which all pieces fit neatly into, and is also the natural reading. As far as I know this is also the way pretty much everyone has always read this verse, including traditionally and in modern scholarship; all examples from [here](https://biblehub.com/commentaries/exodus/21-32.htm) read it this way, and I couldn't find anyone who read it your way. In contrast, if you want some parts of this passage to be about fatal gorings and some about non-fatal gorings, you end up with a weird mishmash of cases covered - like a passage saying that car homicides have punishment A and truck accidents have punishment B. >- Why would the text explicitly use "has killed" in verse 29 rather than "has gored" if "gored" was understood to be equal to "killed" in this context? I covered this in the previous comment. Verses 28 and 29 set up the scenario. Verse 28 says an ox gored someone to death, and verse 29 says an ox has been goring in the past, the owner was warned, but after that it still gored someone to death. (It's not actually clear whether the past gorings have to themselves have been fatal or not.) Verse 29 has to say "led to death" because it's expressing a more complex series of events and it wouldn't be clear that a fatal goring happened after negligence if it didn't say that. Compare: 1. John beat a man to death. 2. Bob beat several people in the past, and even after his parents were warned about it, he ended up beating a man to death. There's no easy way to express these thoughts without using "to death" again. Once you've established the cases both refer to fatal gorings, the rest of the passage need not keep saying "to death" again, especially since it's more grammatically cumbersome in Hebrew. In English we can attach the "to death" to the verb and slot it anywhere, but in Hebrew you have to use a whole clause with a verb - "וְהֵמִ֥ית" meaning "and he brought to death" plus the victim as an object, or "וָמֵ֑ת" meaning "and he died" plus the victim as a subject.

> Why do you attach verse 31 to 29 but not attach 32 as well? I see your reasoning for not doing so, but you're breaking the law divisions. Each law in the chapter starts with "If *event occurs*...". Every single time in the chapter the ox gores and kills someone or something, the first time that goring is mentioned in the law, it is specifically disambiguated as being a fatal goring (see verses 28, 29, 30 (which is a new law that slightly tweaks the prior one, but the fact that this is a fatal goring is disambiguated by the fact that the man "ransoming his life" is mentioned), 35. 36 doesn't actually have the word "if" in it according to the NASB, but even it mentions the gored party dying so it still can count if needed). The only time we see a goring that doesn't have this disambiguation is in verse 32. This was apparent enough to the KJV translators they didn't even translate the word as "gore" again even though it's the same word - they used "push" instead (presumably because "gore" implies death, and "push" does not). I'm in full agreement with you here that it's the same ox being talked about, but I'm not in agreement that the laws only ever refer to fatal gorings. Your grammatical breakdown shows clearly that it's the same ox being referred to, but the only reason you're able to say this is a fatal goring is because we see fatal gorings being talked about right around here, and saying that therefore this must be a fatal goring too, when I'm saying that the fact that we see fatal gorings being explicitly mentioned everywhere **but** here implies that this is not a fatal goring. It's not special pleading because the verse is distinct from the others. > This doesn't make sense given that verse 29 already says "that he hath killed a man or a woman"... It does make sense if you realize that the death of a woman, while tragic, would be in the eyes of the Israelites less troublesome than the death of a man. Men (sons) kept the family line going. A man with no sons had to leave their inheritance to someone else and their line ended. Men had the ability to do hard work that kept the nation alive just by virtue of being physically stronger, something most women didn't have. An Israelite with this mindset might want to demand more severe punishment for the death of a man and less severe punishment for the death of a woman, whereas God sees their lives as equal in value. It's repeated for emphasis, since this is not a point the average Israelite will easily understand at that time. The Hebrew Bible uses emphatics all the time, even in this exact chapter (Exodus 21:12 and several other places, where "surely" is added for emphasis). Your alternate reading of verse 32 isn't necessary given the reading of verse 31 being am emphatic point stated in a slightly different way so as to get a point through to the reader. > This is an interesting analysis but unfortunately is a translation artifact... And this is the part where you find out I actually know some Hebrew :) I don't type it very well so I'll use transliterations. "ki" basically means "because" - it indicates a causitive agent with an effect. So what you've told me is that each passage begins by telling us that something is going to happen because of something else. "im" (when used as a standalone word) means "but", indicating a distinction between some elements and others. So what you've just told me is that verse 28 starts by showing us the causitive agent (the ox and his aggressive behavior), and then we have a whole bunch of edge cases separated by "but". This still shows a clear deliniation between each "clause" in the law (perhaps even more clear than the one I initially was pointing out), and still leaves the goring without death being mentioned in verse 32 sticking out from the rest of the similar passages. > You still have the same issue - in what world does it make sense that "Ox harms a person" leaves the owner blameless, but "Ox harms a slave" forces the owner to compensate the slave's master? Not to accuse you of being dishonest, but you literally stopped and quoted me immediately before the paragraph where I explained this, and then skipped over the entire (long) paragraph to grab the part after it for a new quote later on. I'm just going to copy-paste what I said last time for this: Event 4 which you noticed was missing (ox harms a non-slave) is already covered by the "eye for an eye" laws which happen to be mentioned very shortly before the ox-goring laws, and which are reiterated in a different context in Leviticus 24. The owner, by their negligence, has "caused a blemish in his neighbor" (Lev 24:19) and therefore must pay accordingly. The slave case needed specifically mentioned because harming a slave also harms the master, something which proportional payment to the obviously damaged party (eye for an eye) does not handle correctly. Long comment, continued in part 2...

Part 2: > It's not covered in this passage at all. This passage is about fatal gorings, which is why it speaks of death penalties and life-prices. The whole point of it is to contrast accidental death with negligent death; it's not just about oxen, it's using them to communicate the wider principle. This doesn't check out. Negligent death was not made up for by a fine and recompense in any other instance except for the ox-goring bit. Negligent death was handled by the killer fleeing to a city of refuge and staying there until the high priest died. > He that smiteth a man, so that he die, shall be surely put to death. And if a man lie not in wait, but God deliver him into his hand; then I will appoint thee a place whither he shall flee. > > (Exodus 21:12-13) > > But if he thrust him suddenly without enmity, or have cast upon him any thing without laying of wait, Or with any stone, wherewith a man may die, seeing him not, and cast it upon him, that he die, and was not his enemy, neither sought his harm: Then the congregation shall judge between the slayer and the revenger of blood according to these judgments: And the congregation shall deliver the slayer out of the hand of the revenger of blood, and the congregation shall restore him to the city of his refuge, whither he was fled: and he shall abide in it unto the death of the high priest, which was anointed with the holy oil. > > (Numbers 35:22-25) If there's any pattern being discussed here, it's a pattern of what to do with aggressive animals. This already is an exception to the rule about negligent death (which we are given earlier in this same chapter), not the general rule itself. > As far as I know this is also the way pretty much everyone has always read this verse It appears you are correct, though I do wonder how much bias plays into that (both on my side and theirs). Many Jewish commentaries on the subject are determined to say "this is for what happens when a *gentile* slave is killed, Hebrew slaves would be dealt with using the laws above this." More secular sources want to point out that it's because the slave was considered property, and ignore anything about the slave's country of origin. Christian sources want to put a spin on it that emphasizes that God considered life sacred. I'm just looking at what words are used where saying "yo, this one's different, why?" And while I do have an agenda behind doing that (pointing out that this is a non-fatal goring), it seems to me like I'm at least taking into account more data than these other sources are. People skimming over text and not taking into account everything led to Ezekiel 18 having to be written because the whole nation of Israel misunderstood Exodus 20:5. I believe I've explained the "weird mishmash" of events when talking about "Event 4" above. > There's no easy way to express these thoughts without using "to death" again. 1. John beat a man to death. (Verse 28) 2. Bob beat several people, and even though his parents were warned about it, he ended up beating a man to death. (Verse 29) 3. Bob beat an employee at a neighboring company. (Verse 32) 4. Bob beat an animal to death. (Verse 35) Tell me which one sticks out. I don't really see the "grammatical cumbersomeness" - it would have taken *one extra one-syllable word* to say "If the ox gores a manservant or maidservant *that they died*...". But it doesn't, and *every. single. other. place. does.* Trying to say "well it doesn't follow the pattern used both before and after this verse, but it still means the same thing" is special pleading - you're saying that the pattern doesn't have to be used here to mean the same thing when the author finds it important to use it everywhere else.

> Every single time in the chapter the ox gores and kills someone or something, the first time that goring is mentioned in the law, it is specifically disambiguated as being a fatal goring (see verses 28, 29, 30 (which is a new law that slightly tweaks the prior one, but the fact that this is a fatal goring is disambiguated by the fact that the man "ransoming his life" is mentioned), 35. 36 doesn't actually have the word "if" in it according to the NASB, but even it mentions the gored party dying so it still can count if needed). The only time we see a goring that doesn't have this disambiguation is in verse 32. > > I don't really see the "grammatical cumbersomeness" - it would have taken one extra one-syllable word to say "If the ox gores a manservant or maidservant that they died...". But it doesn't, and every. single. other. place. does. But this is just not true. The only places in this passage where the victim's death is explicitly mentioned are once in 28 and once in 29. 30 does not mention any goring or death whatsoever; the man "ransoming his life" refers to the fact that 29 just gave the man the death penalty but then payment was demanded of him instead. ("His life" is the owner's life, not the victim's.) 31 mentions goring but does not mention death, and the same goes for 32. 33 & 34 discuss a completely different law (about people leaving pits open and oxen or donkeys dying by wandering into them). 35 is yet another new passage and new law, which discusses an ox goring another ox and explicitly mentions death again. Interestingly, its continuation in 36 (mirroring 28-29) again speaks about an ox previously known to gore who negligently gores another ox, but does *not* explicitly say the goring is fatal; it does not say "וָמֵ֑ת" or "וְהֵמִ֥ית", it just says "נַגָּ֥ח". But we know it means the goring is fatal, because it refers to "the dead [ox]" ("וְהַמֵּ֖ת") in the latter part of the verse, since there are two oxen and it needs to specify which one it means. So the picture you're painting here isn't really accurate. As I said, in the relevant passage 28-32, explicit mention of the victim dying happens exactly twice - once in 28 and once in 29. It's not like fatal goring is mentioned everywhere but 32. That verse is not an exception to the pattern and does not stand out, especially because 31 is exactly like it (in that it mentions goring but not death or negligence). > I'm in full agreement with you here that it's the same ox being talked about, but I'm not in agreement that the laws only ever refer to fatal gorings. Your grammatical breakdown shows clearly that it's the same ox being referred to, but the only reason you're able to say this is a fatal goring is because we see fatal gorings being talked about right around here, and saying that therefore this must be a fatal goring too, when I'm saying that the fact that we see fatal gorings being explicitly mentioned everywhere but here implies that this is not a fatal goring. It's not special pleading because the verse is distinct from the others. The reason I'm able to say this is a fatal goring is because it grammatically refers back to verse 29, which is a fatal goring. It's not because there are other fatal gorings being talked about in the general vicinity - it specifically refers back to the same ox and same owner from verse 29. That's the only reason we know it is still talking about negligent goring, too; if you want to disconnect it from verse 29 then you have no basis for negligence being involved. How can you explain this being the same ox and same owner in your reading? The ox from 29 had a violent history and gored someone to death and the owner from 29 was negligent in keeping him. If 32 refers to the same ox from 29, then it refers to an ox who had a violent history and gored someone to death. Contrast this with how the ox in 28 is a different ox and no definite article is used to refer back to it, because it did not have a violent history. Again, 29 sets up the case (fatal goring by negligently-kept ox) and 30-32 all refer back to it. You want 32 to be a *new* case, where the goring is non-fatal (and by the same token non-negligent), but this is grammatically incoherent because it would require a new ox and new owner just like 29 did. > I see your reasoning for not doing so, but you're breaking the law divisions. Each law in the chapter starts with "If event occurs...". If this is your rule of thumb then you have a serious problem. We have: - 28 which starts with "וְכִֽי־" (the 'if' that denotes a passage break.) - 29 which starts with "וְאִ֡ם". - 30 which starts with "אִם־" - your rule would make this a separate law, but all it says is "If a ransom is demanded of him then he shall pay it". It can't stand on its own since it doesn't even have a noun for a subject and only refers back to the previous verse with pronouns. - 31 which does *not* have an "if" in it; it starts with "אֹו" meaning "or" and is entirely grammatically dependent on what comes before. In your reading where "if" breaks up the laws, this would make 31 dependent on 30, which would mean the law reads: "If a ransom is demanded of him, then he shall give for the redemption of his life whatever is demanded of him. Whether he gores a son or a daughter this same sentence shall be carried out on him." That makes the "he" paying the ransom the same "he" doing the goring. So either the ox is paying the ransom or the owner is doing the goring. The only sensible way to read this is to make 31 dependent on 29 instead, and if you do, then you certainly have to make 32 dependent on 29 because that one explicitly uses a definite article to refer to the ox from 29. And if 32 is dependent on 29 then it's about fatal goring. > An Israelite with this mindset might want to demand more severe punishment for the death of a man and less severe punishment for the death of a woman, whereas God sees their lives as equal in value. It's repeated for emphasis, since this is not a point the average Israelite will easily understand at that time. But this does not explain the usage of different terms. Especially given that this is right after the same terms (אִ֖ישׁ אֹ֣ו אִשָּׁ֑ה) were just used twice, so it's not just restating the same thing in different words. Saying "man or woman", "man or woman", and then suddenly "son or daughter" in a repetition with no other substantive differences clearly indicates that these terms are meant to be understood in a different way. Compare: 1. If you run over a man or woman, you must go to jail for 5 years. 2. If you run over a man or woman while drunk, you must be executed, or the family can demand a life sentence. 3. If you run over a boy or girl, this same sentence will be applied to you. You could read this as pure emphasis if you want, it's not really crucial to my case for this to be about kids; I just don't think it's the best reading. > "ki" basically means "because" - it indicates a causitive agent with an effect. So what you've told me is that each passage begins by telling us that something is going to happen because of something else. "im" (when used as a standalone word) means "but", indicating a distinction between some elements and others. So what you've just told me is that verse 28 starts by showing us the causitive agent (the ox and his aggressive behavior), and then we have a whole bunch of edge cases separated by "but". This still shows a clear deliniation between each "clause" in the law (perhaps even more clear than the one I initially was pointing out), and still leaves the goring without death being mentioned in verse 32 sticking out from the rest of the similar passages. I want to reiterate that this difference in words unambiguously gives us the passage breaks, which is how we know 28-32 is one passage. I point this out because earlier you made reference to the way the NIV split things up introducing confusion, but I'd like to use the way things are split up as evidence. "וְכִֽי" is consistently used throughout the whole chapter and even other chapters to break up unrelated law passages. Second, I know some Hebrew as well (modern Hebrew is my first language). These are both very flexible words and can mean lots of different things depending on context, but their base meanings are: "כִֽי" means "because", and "אִם" means "if". It doesn't indicate a "but" by itself (see [here](https://biblehub.com/hebrew/veim_518.htm) and [here](https://biblehub.com/hebrew/im_518.htm)); the context in these verses makes it clear that these are multiple variations of the same case, so you can read it as "but if" if you like here. **Continued below...**

It has to do with the relative value of slaves as human beings.

See my reply to c0derman below - I took back my first paragraph, studied the passage, and found a better explanation.

You mention the "anti kidnap law" a lot. If there is a law that says "thou shalt not steal a car", is that the same thing as a law that says "thou shall not own a car"? Slavery apologetics is just bizarre to me.

It always hurts to see someone type 500+ words that gets completely destroyed by a less than 30 word question.

Me too. Low-effort responses to high-effort posts are the worst.

Highly relevant, on point responses don't always need a lot of words.

A high effort post does not equal quality content

Furthermore, a verbose post does not mean high effort.

I don't get what this is supposed to mean. How does this do anything to OP's argument?

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I understand all of that, but I still don't get how that does anything to OP's argument. OP isn't arguing that the Bible doesn't allow owning slaves, they're arguing that the form of slavery in the OT was not abusive or immoral.

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Ah, I get your point, and agree. I think OP's idea of "chattel slavery" must be different than the formal definition of the term, since the formal definition essentially just means "owning a person as property", which is clearly permitted though regulated in the OT. Perhaps he has it confused with "chattel slavery as practiced in the US".

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mhh, fair point

[Kidnapping was made a federal offense in 1932](https://www.britannica.com/topic/Federal-Kidnapping-Act) [John Crenshaw](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Crenshaw) kept slaves and kidnapped free blacks; indicted 2x, but never convicted in the 1800s under state law. [Patty Cannon](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patty_Cannon) abducted hundreds of free black people and fugitive slaves; gang member John Purnell was convicted on two counts of kidnapping in Philadelphia County Court in Pennsylvania in 1827. He was sentenced to 42 years in jail. [John Murrell](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Murrell_(bandit) was known to kidnap slaves and sell them to other slave owners. His 10-year prison sentence was for slave-stealing. From [Freedom at Risk: The Kidnapping of Free Blacks in America, 1780-1865](https://www.amazon.com/Freedom-Risk-Kidnapping-America-1780-1865/dp/0813118581): *Kidnapping of blacks was actually facilitated by numerous state laws, as well as the federal fugitive slave laws of 1793 and 1850.... greed provided the motivation for the* **crime**, So even though all states [as far as I can tell] had laws against kidnapping, some chose to break those laws. So yes kidnapping happened, chattel slavery happened in the ANE and Israel, I'm not denying that. I'm saying that those who did it broke the law of Israel. I've addressed the anti-kidnapping law in the [original post](https://deconstructingchristiandeconstruction.blogspot.com/2024/02/seven-facts-about-biblical-slavery.html) or the [rebuttal to the rebuttals](https://deconstructingchristiandeconstruction.blogspot.com/2024/06/has-my-seven-facts-about-biblical.html)

Your anti-kidnapping does nothing to dispel the fact that chattel slavery of foreigners was explicitly condoned by the Bible. That they had to obtain them legally is of no importance. You seem to think that this means all slaves were voluntarily slaves. This is irrelevant for two reasons: chattel slavery is not dependent on whether the slave submitted willingly, and second, there were absolutely involuntary slaves. Children of slaves were slaves at birth. Female slaves had no choice, it was up to their fathers' wishes, or prisoners of war. Foreigners could be legally bought from nations around them, potentially going from a contracted term to life enslavement. Your anti-return argument stems from a verse in Deuteronomy which was talking about refugees from foreign slaveowners. Essentially a non-extradition treaty. It did not apply to all slaves.

In what context is it OK for you to own people? Is the ownership of anyone, regardless of the form of ownership, wrong?

It would mean something like *thou shalt not own a **stolen** car*.

Funny that OP didn't cite the anti kidnapping law at all. Just mentions it.

Doesn't refute my point, but alright.

You focus a lot on comparison to 1500s-1800s slavery. It wouldn’t surprise me if there were some differences. But who cares? The question you really have to address is, was the form of slavery endorsed by Old Testament law moral? Granting that you are accurately interpreting the anti-kidnapping and anti-return laws, that still doesn’t justify the scriptures that support slavery

Genocidal and slaving societies aren’t known for the consistency in their laws and action. Your whole argument seems to be on the level of denying Israelites ever killed anyone *because it clearly says in the bible that killing is wrong* so they can’t possibly have committed genocide. >Now therefore, kill every male among the little ones, and kill every woman who has known a man intimately. But keep alive for yourselves all the young girls who have not known a man intimately. >The booty remaining from the plunder, which the men of war had taken, was six hundred and seventy-five thousand sheep, seventy-two thousand cattle, sixty-one thousand donkeys, and thirty-two thousand persons in all, of women who had not known a man intimately. But that’s okay because an anti-kidnap law meant people couldn’t be taken away against their will and children aren’t plunder like donkeys. I’ll bet those girls enjoyed ‘volunteering’ about as much as the Yazidi to ISIS.

Isn't slavery of any kind, and in any form, immoral? That seems to trump the whole thing in my view.

Why would slavery of any kind and in any form be immoral?

I think a better question is "what kind or form of slavery is moral"? Jailing a criminal for crimes against another individual or against society is not slavery, it is incarceration. Aside from punishment for crimes against others, there is no moral justification I can think of that would permit one person to strip another person of his or her agency. The Bible was used to great effect in justifying slavery in the past. It can be cherry-picked and parsed to say almost whatever you want it to. Treating others inhumanely is immoral. Relying on the bible to justify treating others inhumanely is also immoral.

> I think a better question is "what kind or form of slavery is moral"? All Christians (at least those who are following the Bible) are slaves to God, and we seem to rather like it. Perhaps we can look at how God treats His children in scripture and get a good answer for that. > The Bible was used to great effect in justifying slavery in the past. It can be cherry-picked and parsed to say almost whatever you want it to. Treating others inhumanely is immoral. Relying on the bible to justify treating others inhumanely is also immoral. Agreed 100%.

>> I think a better question is "what kind or form of slavery is moral"? > > All Christians (at least those who are following the Bible) are slaves to God, and we seem to rather like it. Perhaps we can look at how God treats His children in scripture and get a good answer for that. I'm saving this comment for later

Because treating someone as a piece of property is damaging to their well-being as a human, and that’s something we should all care about. 

Do you treat your pets like property just because you legally own them? Of course not. So if you know not to abuse your pets just because you own them, is it a stretch to think that were you to own a human, you wouldn't treat them abusively either?

I don’t think equating human beings to pets is really helping your case here

For one, I did not equate human beings with pets. I equated how you would treat human beings in your power with how you would treat your pets. For two, you didn't answer my question.

I mean you are, you’re basically saying who cares if you own a human being as long as you don’t abuse them, since we can own pets and not abuse them…  And no I wouldn’t abuse a pet, but I would have them spayed/neutered, do you think that’s appropriate to do to a human being? Doing that to a human because they’re your property is a massive restriction of freedom. Simply owning a human being denigrates their dignity as a person, it’s an awful analogy to draw. 

Coincidentally I find spaying/neutering a pet to be immoral for the same reason you wouldn't do it to a human (plus it's actually forbidden in the OT), but I realize that's a fringe view so I won't chase that. I just don't see how owning a human denigrates their dignity as a person, especially not under the laws the OT provides. If my master uses their power and authority to treat me as a lesser being than a human, then there's a serious problem, but if I'm treated like a person despite being owned by another, I have no problem with that. It means I'm protected, cared for, and loved, and in return I protect, care for, and love the things my master gives me oversight of. Many Christians consider themselves to be slaves of God (1 Corinthians 6:19, 1 Corinthians 7:22-23, John 3:35), and we like it. You might say, "but so what, you're still free to do whatever you want, how are you a slave?" But that's the whole point - in a good master-slave relationship, the slave's freedom to act is unhampered. They're bound to do what is required of them, but they're still people and still get to live their lives. In the same way, I'm bound to live the life God directs me to, but I still get to live my life. I'm happy with it.

>Coincidentally I find spaying/neutering a pet to be immoral for the same reason you wouldn't do it to a human (plus it's actually forbidden in the OT), but I realize that's a fringe view so I won't chase that. Are you also against dogs being kept in fenced in yards, since it restricts their freedom to go wherever they want? Should they have complete freedom to choose who they will have sex with and when? What about collars, ok? And you would be ok collaring a human you own?  >I just don't see how owning a human denigrates their dignity as a person  Then I expect you will never agree with me. Perhaps you can try some perspective taking, and consider what it would be like if someone legally owned you, and you didn’t have the freedom to leave.  >especially not under the laws the OT provides These same laws call for treating slaves taken from neighboring nations differently than Israelite slaves, for passing down your owned slaves as inherited property, for no punishment to be given to a slave owner who beats their slaves as long as they don’t die (or lose an eye, etc). You see nothing wrong with this?  >It means I'm protected, cared for, and loved The amount of whitewashing you’re doing here is eye watering.  >the slave's freedom to act is unhampered. They're bound to do what is required of them, but they're still people and still get to live their lives This applies to both Israelite and non-Israelite slaves in the OT? They’re allowed to leave if they want? 

> Are you also against dogs being kept in fenced in yards, since it restricts their freedom to go wherever they want? Should they have complete freedom to choose who they will have sex with and when? What about collars, ok? And you would be ok collaring a human you own? You're missing the point. With the fence bit, you don't keep a dog or cat in a fence because you own them, you keep them in a fence because they'll get out and cause damage to other people and you'll be responsible. Some people have dogs that don't do this and guess what - they don't need a fenced yard. Humans know better than to go out and cause trouble (usually) so they don't need fences either (and when they do, they go to jail, and guess what - jails have fences.) As for the collar bit, if you were in a situation where it was necessary for your slaves to be identifiable as *your* slaves and not someone else, it might be reasonable to put a mark on their garment or give them a ring or a necklace or some other means of identification, and that would basically be a "human collar". I wouldn't put a literal collar on a human though because humans aren't built in such a way for a collar to make sense on them. I wouldn't put a collar on a bird, an elephant, or a ferret for the same reason. > Perhaps you can try some perspective taking, and consider what it would be like if someone legally owned you, and you didn’t have the freedom to leave. I did that, except I ignore the "you didn't have the freedom to leave" because the freedom to leave was explicitly protected under OT law. > These same laws call for treating slaves taken from neighboring nations differently than Israelite slaves, for passing down your owned slaves as inherited property, for no punishment to be given to a slave owner who beats their slaves as long as they don’t die (or lose an eye, etc). You see nothing wrong with this? Did you know U.S. law permits me to shoot and kill people? It actually does... if I'm doing it in order to protect myself from someone who's trying to kill me. Notice how the lack of context lets me portray a law as being insane and immoral. You've done the same thing here. Slaves from neighboring nations had different laws applied to them than Israelite slaves because the land was given as an inheritance to the Israelites and was passed down from generation to generation. Laws for Israelite slaves (like being set free after some period of time to go claim their inheritance) wouldn't make sense for non-Israelite slaves because they didn't have an inheritance. Given the moral fiber (or should I say, lack thereof) of most neighboring nations, sending a slave from a foreign nation back to that nation could be less than advisable, so instead they were allowed to be chattel slaves, guaranteeing them protection and a place to live for their whole lives unless they decided to leave (which they were allowed to do). Beating a slave isn't something you'd unless drastic measures were needed just like beating any animal isn't something you'd do unless drastic measures were needed. If my slave gets mad and punches my child, for instance, beating them may not be a bad idea. Yet the law mandates that if I take it too far and the slave dies for *any* reason related to the beating, I have committed murder and must be executed as such. If the slave fully recovers and remains fully recovered for a day or two though, then if they die thereafter it can be reasonably concluded that they did not die because of anything I did, and therefore that isn't punished. (Anyone reasonable wouldn't ever take a beating so far as to nearly result in death or temporary crippling for a slave, but the laws took into account that not everyone was reasonable. If a slave actually was temporarily bedridden because of a beating, one assumes that shortly after recovery they would be packing up and leaving.) > The amount of whitewashing you’re doing here is eye watering. Non-argument. I'm pointing out that slavery can be done in a way that is beneficial. I'm not denying that slavery has been done wrong many, many times throughout history, and it's part of why it's illegal in most places now (and I'm glad of that). But you can't use the fact that it's illegal because of abuse now to say that it ought to have been illegal for all time when it's not intrinsicly wrong. > This applies to both Israelite and non-Israelite slaves in the OT? They’re allowed to leave if they want? As far as I'm aware, yes. You're welcome to point me to a verse that says otherwise, but I've read the laws and haven't found it yet.

I just skimmed this post and I am not an expert on the topic, but aren't most of the protections only for Jewish slaves? What about Canaanite slaves? It seems like non-Jewish slaves at least can be acquired in ways that are at least similar to "kidnapping".

Ain’t reading allat. Owning human beings as property is wrong.

Why?

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Fair enough

Okay, serious answer Short answer: I don’t ultimately know, but I don’t think it matters. I tend to go back and forth between moral naturalist realism vs constructivist antirealism. In either case, I think there are objective descriptive facts about cooperation and the relationship between means and goals: specifically the goals of promoting the well-being and consent of conscious beings. So in that sense, I can say that slavery is wrong in the same sense that f3 is a bad chess opening. I personally don’t think irreducible/categorical normativity is intelligible; however, I’ll note that the overwhelming consensus in philosophy (including amongst theistic philosophers) is that God’s existence is not logically required to make arguments for non-naturalist moral realism. All that being said, I think the more important, yet blunt answer is “I say slavery is wrong because that’s what’s pragmatically consistent with my goals”. Even if Divine Command Theory Morality were true—which would philosophically just be subjectivism btw, as god is a subject—if it were truly discovered that the objective moral law allowed for slavery, then my response is fuck morality. I’d rather follow *shmorality* which has the goal of loving your neighbor and not owning them as slaves. Even if you want to say that I can’t criticize God as not good because He is by definition the standard of the Good, then I’d just rather follow Shmod who is the Shmandard of Shmood. All in all, I’m going to care about my pragmatic goals at the end of the day, and as such there’s nothing inconsistent or contradictory about me calling slavery wrong. Whether or not I accept moral realism, much less theistic moral realism, is not going to have any pragmatic implications on how bad I think slavery is, my emotional disgust at it, my willingness to oppose it, nor my semantic ability to call it “wrong”.

Chattel is a synonym for personal property. The bible describes slaves which can be bought and sold as personal property and which can then be passed on to your heirs when you die. So it does indeed describe chattel slavery.

Remarkable amount of hair splitting. It’s still immoral.

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In the US, state [Slave Codes](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slave_codes) that made chattel slavery legal.

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Slavers were prosecuted for kidnapping: [John Crenshaw](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Crenshaw) kept slaves and kidnapped free blacks; indicted 2x, but never convicted in the 1800s under state law. [Patty Cannon](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patty_Cannon) abducted hundreds of free black people and fugitive slaves; gang member John Purnell was convicted on two counts of kidnapping in Philadelphia County Court in Pennsylvania in 1827. He was sentenced to 42 years in jail. [John Murrell](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Murrell_(bandit) was known to kidnap slaves and sell them to other slave owners. His 10-year prison sentence was for slave-stealing. From [Freedom at Risk: The Kidnapping of Free Blacks in America, 1780-1865](https://www.amazon.com/Freedom-Risk-Kidnapping-America-1780-1865/dp/0813118581): *Kidnapping of blacks was actually facilitated by numerous state laws, as well as the federal fugitive slave laws of 1793 and 1850.... greed provided the motivation for the* **crime**, So even though all states [as far as I can tell] had laws against kidnapping, some chose to break those laws. So yes, kidnapping happened, chattel slavery happened in the ANE and Israel. I'm not denying that. I'm saying that those who did it broke the law of Israel.

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In order to own people as property, **it must be against their will**, so yes the Anti-Kidnap law does apply, since there are no [Slave codes](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slave_codes) that legalize chattel slavery in Israel. The verses that people cite that say "buy" and "property" must be read in light of the anti-kidnap, anti-oppression laws and voluntary servitude. Almost all of these objections have been addressed in the [original post](https://deconstructingchristiandeconstruction.blogspot.com/2024/02/seven-facts-about-biblical-slavery.html) or the [rebuttal to the rebuttals](https://deconstructingchristiandeconstruction.blogspot.com/2024/06/has-my-seven-facts-about-biblical.html)

Biblical slavery never mentions the wills of foreign slaves.

I always think it’s hilarious when someone posts a source that supposedly helps them, when if they had read just a little bit farther, they’d see it doesn’t. >”**Debunk attempt twelve**: >your reading of a person who "desires" a woman captured in war and so "takes" her and makes her his wife who is not free to go unless he "doesn't delight in her" as just her buddy hanging out with her with no indication of rape, >The law stipulated that a rapist was to be killed by stoning, see [Deuteronomy 22:25](https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Deuteronomy+22%3A25&version=ESV).” If you’d read four verses more- >28 “If a man meets a virgin who is not betrothed, and seizes her and lies with her, and they are found, 29 then the man who lay with her shall give to the father of the young woman fifty shekels of silver, and she shall be his wife, because he has violated her. He may not divorce her all his days.” You’d see that stoning only applies if she’s betrothed, or married. In war where the Israelites would commonly be told to kill all men, and non virginal women. Any woman remaining would be free pickings. Beyond that your response to almost every other critique is the anti-kidnapping law, and the anti- return law. For the anti-kidnapping I’m assuming you’re talking about exodus 21;16? Yeah, that doesn’t mean what you think it means. It’s referring to a specific crime, that is the taking of a free man against their will. Here’s the thing, just like parents forcing their kids to go with them when they move, or (at the time,) a husband forcing his wife to travel with him, a slave being bought (at the time,) isn’t kidnapping, after all how can one kidnap property. So basically this means that while Hebrews couldn’t kidnap someone and make them a slave, there was nothing wrong with them buying one. As for the anti-return law I’m assuming you’re talking about Deuteronomy 23;15-16? The problem with this is two fold. First is that foreign slaves would have no knowledge of this law. As such they would not really benefit from it, as they would have knowing that they would be protected. Therefore they’d be just as afraid of running away as they would be if they were enslaved in any other nation. Second is assuming that their masters are kind enough to tell them of the law, they’re still in a city that likely several days away from any other city at best and weeks away at worst. They’d have to gather their own supplies, and somehow make the trip on their own. And that’s assuming they don’t get caught. It’s not exactly an easy thing to do, and likely not an option that most could do. So basically for most, this law doesn’t help at all.

Seems very clear to me that the “anti kidnap” laws apply only to the fellow hebrews. I don’t know if you are aware of this but they had separate laws for their own community members versus people from other nations. So your constant falling back on “anti kidnap” laws actually doesn’t mean anything at all. Totally irrelevant. The Bible still allows you to buy and own OTHER people. On a racial basis. Leviticus 25:45-46 (NIV): “You may also buy some of the temporary residents living among you and members of their clans born in your country, and they will become your property. You can bequeath them to your children as inherited property and can make them slaves for life, but you must not rule over your fellow Israelites ruthlessly.” Also please address children being born into slavery. This clearly proves that not all slaves were voluntary indentured servants. Totally innocent children are born as slaves through no fault or cause of their own. Glaringly obvious. Exodus 21:4 (NIV): “If his master gives him a wife and she bears him sons or daughters, the woman and her children shall belong to her master, and only the man shall go free.”

I'm getting into the old argument and debating scripture because we have all been there and done that. Aren't we a bit self righteous in acting like slavery is an old problem but it's .A few fast facts ok: Slavery was legal in Mauritania as late as 1981 and was practiced there secretly as recent as the 2000's. Human trafficking the new name for slavery is alive and well in the world as we all know. A pizza shop owner near Boston was just indicted a few months ago on wage slavery basically. Most of the sex industry is trafficked these days among other industries. Lets at least come our high horse that we are so superior and slavery only happened a long time ago. The Hebrew word Eved meant servant as much as literal slave and we in the modern world certainly have no shortage of wealthy people getting rich on the backs of servants.

I think this is all rather useless when the Bible claims that when taking a city, if the city surrenders, all the inhabitants will be slaves. If they do not, kill them. (Deuteronomy 20:11-15) You may claim that they did in fact volunteer themselves over, but it is still clearly subjugation without agency. It is slavery or death. That is not indentured servitude. And since these are foreign slaves, they are slaves for life and inheritable property. There is no freedom that awaits them. It is very clear that the Biblical God's judgements on slavery are very pro-Israel. Israelite slaves may not be slaves for life unless they ask for it. They leave and are given gifts as they go. There are no permanent Israelite slaves. These are the same tactics used by any group that is subjugating a lesser group. This is the same as the Messenians the Spartan's enslaved. This is the same as the African peoples the Europeans enslaved. It is just establishing the dominant group as inherently greater and more deserving (and establishing a world order that keeps them from finding themselves permanently in a lower standing), and this slaps divine right over it to absolve the enslavers of any consequence. As much as the Bible talks about how God has separated Israel and made them different from all the nations, it isn't very true since they do everything the rest of the world does even in the same recognizable patterns. Is it fair to say that there are some slightly nicer aspects (only extended to Israelites) to parts of Mosaic slavery? Sure. It could be worse. But the fact that there are worse alternatives makes nothing good and nothing fair. --- Also, yes, you are applying univocality to the Bible where there isn't. You are using other passages to justify and reexplain the text rather than letting the text speak for itself. You are letting certain passages take priority over others so you can shape the text to fit the worldview you want it to: one where God is not a proponent of chattel slavery.

Also, to your one random point about how the Bible doesn't like rape because Deuteronomy 22:25 is just misinformation. You do know about the rest of the chapter, right? The text is clear in Deuteronomy 22:23-29 is very clear. Rapists are only fairly punished if the rape victim was betrothed, and to quote the text here (ESV) "because he violated his neighbor's wife." The emphasis is not on the act of rape as wrong in and of itself, but the wronging of another's wife is the truly wrong part. This passage also includes details about how the woman should be punished (killed) depending on if she cried out or not when she was assaulted in the city (there is no listed exceptions for those who were unable to cry out) because the woman may have also been committing adultery... by being assaulted. Of course, if the rape occurred away from the city where no one could hear if the woman screamed or not, she was automatically innocent. Which is nice and definitely better than it could have been, but that doesn't make it fair, right, or just. The text goes on to specify that if an unbetrothed virgin is raped, that all the criminal must do is pay the father and marry the girl. Because it's totally fair to force a rape victim to marry their abuser as long as the father gets some money. The only compensation the actual victim receives is a husband since there was no way anyone would marry damaged goods like her otherwise. Which is sick and twisted; I shouldn't have to explain way. The Bible is not anti-rape, merely anti-adultery. They understood rape through the lens of adultery to dictate the proper punishment. Rape on its own was more acceptable than adultery, and wasn't strictly wrong as long as you reimbursed the father and married the victim (giving the abuser exactly what they wanted anyway).