[Vision2020] On Slavery and biblical justifications

[Phil Nisbet]

Don

I think you are confusing the issue here.  I am refering to biblical 
slavery, to whit, that as practiced and recognized in Torah and as further 
understood from Talmudic texts as opposed to the Roman and Greek system of 
slavery.

Under Roman and Greek laws, slavery was for life or until an owner freed the 
slave.  That was not the idea or the concept in the Mosiac ocdes, where 
service in the capacity of 'slave' was that of a bonded servant, a person 
who was required to work for somebody else to pay back a sum of money that 
the owner of that contract had put forward.  Under the Mosiac system, no 
bonded servant could be required to work for a person for more than 7 years. 
  That is the form of slavery that the 'bible' speaks of.

Freedom granted on the seventh year was refered to as Jubilee and is similar 
in concept to a sabatical year when debts in general should be forgiven.  I 
believe that African Americans during the time of the Civil War refered to 
Jubilee as the great time when they would all be freed, but the actual 
requirement should have seen them all granted freedom 6 years from the 
initiation of their status as 'slaves'.

Roman law also allowed the kinds of torture that are seen in slavery in the 
South and clean up to this day in Modren Sudan, where Islamic warlords still 
practice slavery.  Those actions were completely unallowed in Torah.

Since the debate in terms of justification of the practice is based on 
practices in the late Bronze Age to Early Iron Age in the Middle East and 
the legal documents of that day rather than the practices of the Roman 
Empire, one would assume that those seeing a biblical basis for slavery 
would be bound to follow not the life time slavery allowed under Roman law.

Phil Nisbet

Phil Nisbet

>From: Donovan Arnold <donovanjarnold2005 at yahoo.com>
>To: Phil Nisbet <pcnisbet1 at hotmail.com>, vision2020 at moscow.com
>Subject: Re: [Vision2020] On Slavery and biblical justifications
>Date: Sat, 11 Jun 2005 02:24:58 -0700 (PDT)
>
>Ms. Nisbet,
>
>You have some interesting comments on slavery,
>especially regarding slavery in ancient Rome which I
>know nothing about other than 1/3 of the population of
>Rome at one point was slaves.
>
>To me, the evil of slavery rests in the establishment
>of people as property. The treatment of slaves and how
>long they were slaves were secondary issues.
>
>Slaves ran away, set their owners property on fire,
>and staged violent revolts against their owners. They
>did this in an attempt to gain freedom. Because slaves
>cost about $20,000 a piece in today's dollars, owners
>took to beatings to suppress these actions so they did
>not lose their "property".
>
>Slave owners also suppressed literacy efforts of the
>slave population as well. This was to keep them from
>reading the Bible and planning revolts. In many
>southern cities slaves outnumbered non-slaves.
>
>I believe that today slavery still exists but it is
>better known as the federal minimum wage and illegal
>immigration.
>
>I was unaware that people were only slaves for 6 years
>in Rome. If this was the case, why would so many men
>fight and die in the games to earn their freedom?
>Would not most people just wait out the 6 years than
>fight in games with a 90%+ morality rate?
>
>Donovan J Arnold
>
>
>
>--- Phil Nisbet <pcnisbet1 at hotmail.com> wrote:
>
> > Dale
> >
> > On a more logical note and from a review of the
> > data, you have to admit that
> > a defense of slavery as practiced in the Southern US
> > was not indeed an
> > institution concieved in biblical laws.  Slaves in
> > Israel were only bound to
> > service for 6 years, not held for life.  Further,
> > treating a slave in any
> > manner that would not also apply to the master was
> > strictly forbidden.
> >
> > The mode of operation of the Southern planation
> > system was based upon Roman
> > laws respecting slavery as passed on through the
> > offices of the Catholic
> > Church in its use of Roman statutes.  Slaves were
> > subject to the rule of the
> > pater familius, who had every right to torture, maim
> > and otherwise dispose
> > of a slave that suited him.
> >
> > Southerners tried to hide behind biblical law as a
> > cover, but they did not
> > follow the law and free their servents at the end of
> > the required 6 years.
> > They also felt free to brand, hamstring, whip and
> > beat their servents,
> > imposing cruel and unusual punishments on them that
> > are indeed strictly
> > forbidden in the law.
> >
> > That being understood, I am not sure how you would
> > find that slavery as
> > practiced by the American South would be acceptable
> > to anyone who is a
> > strict constructionist in terms of biblical law.
> >
> > Phil Nisbet
> >
> >
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