Why does the Bible permit slavery?

[Mircea]

Originally Posted by lovesMountains

You completely miss the point, but then, you didn't want to understand it or the Bible in the first place.

Oh, no I understand perfectly. Torture, murder, rape and slavery are never justifiable, unless Yahweh benefits from it.

In International Law/Relations we have something called jus cogens and peremptory norms.

Some things are never justifiable (with "never" meaning "at no time ever" for those who are confused about what "never" means).

Originally Posted by mshipmate

2 If thou buy an Hebrew servant, six years he shall serve: and in the seventh he shall go out free for nothing.
3 If he came in by himself, he shall go out by himself: if he were married, then his wife shall go out with him.

Here God is saying that servitude can not break up the family.

Exodus 21:4 "If his master have given him a wife, and she have born him sons or daughters; the wife and her children shall be her master's, and he shall go out by himself."

This again was for the purpose of protection for family members if there was no competent provider for his wife/children.

That is not correct. I notice you rather cleverly omitted this part:

Exodus 21:5 But if the servant should declare, ‘I love my master, my wife, and my children; I will not go out free,’ 21:6 then his master must bring him to the judges, and he will bring him to the door or the doorposts, and his master will pierce his ear with an awl, and he shall serve him forever.

Originally Posted by mshipmate

This isn't slavery as we understand where the slave has no rights and is a slave for the rest of his life, etc etc.

Yes, it is slavery.

For your information, what is at issue here is that the slave would not have the right or the means to acquire a wife. The idea of the master “giving” him a wife is clear – the master would have to pay the bride price, or did you forget that women were bought and sold like animals?

Anyway, the wife and the children are actually the possession of the master unless the slave were to pay the bride price – - but then he is a slave, probably because he got into debt (oh, how christian) and cannot afford to reimburse his master for the bride price. Here, the law makes an assumption that the master is better able to provide for the wife than the freed slave (and keeping the children with the mother was important.

You might want to read some of these works so that you understand slavery in Hebrew times:

H. L. Elleson, “The Hebrew Slave: A Study in Early Israelite Society,”
Evangelical Quarterly 45 (1973): 30-35


N. P. Lemche, “The Manumission of Slaves – The Fallow Year – The Sabbatical Year – The Jobel Year,”Vetus Testamentum 26 (1976): 38-59

“The ‘Hebrew Slave,’ Comments on the Slave Law – Ex. 21:2-11,”
Vetus Testamentum 25 (1975): 129-44 (also by Lemche).

Originally Posted by mshipmate

Also think of this with the idea of being a slave/servant: aren't we a slave/servant of Christ?

No, never. I don't do slavery, and certainly not to some pathetic god-thing.