The Bible is OK with slavery

== Debate Theory ==Con claims that I dropped the argument regarding the contemporary understanding of the Bible by Christians. While it is true that I did not directly address it, the mere fact that this is entirely irrelevant to this topic should be rebuttal enough. There is a reason why there are so many different denominations of Christianity; they all have their own understanding of the Bible. What my opponent is most likely referring to when she says "the common understanding" is actually her own understanding because, obviously, each and every Christian believes that they have the correct understanding. There are a lot of people who still believe the Earth is 6000 years old, there are still people who believe there was a Great Flood 4000 years and there are people and there are still people who reject evolution on the basis of what the Bible says. The notion that there is a "common understanding of the Bible" is ridiculous at best. "Even if there weren't a textualist reason for doing so (in Matthew 5:17-20), Christian theology only follows the teachings of Jesus and his disciples, not the OT. " Maybe a little reminder of the topic proposed by my opponent will help clarify why this is a moot point:The King James Bible, when read as a whole, actively approves of slaveryThis is about the Bible, not about how some Christians understand it. We are here to discuss whether or not what my opponent refers to as "the common understanding" of the Bible actually matches what is in the book. The rest of this section is simply a reassertion that Christians do not follow the rules in the OT, not telling me anything about whether or not they should, according to scriptures. == Definitions == Here my opponent once again tries to argue in favor of this rather pathetic argument that opposing slavery was simply to avant-garde for the Bible, which is really something strange to say when we're talking about the supposed inspired of God. The analogy that my opponent uses is abortion; she claims that abortion is immoral but that it would be too complicated to ban, so she allows it. This analogy obviously fail when you consider the negative outcomes of banning slavery which are. .. . nonexistent. While it is true that banning abortions will lead to dangerous back-alley abortions, I fail to see what could come out of banning slavery. My opponent also brings up the point that "okay" means to sanction or give approval, which I accept. She mentions that this will be a problem for me, but I fail to see how. == Rebuttals ==R1) Leviticus and ExodusRegarding the passages in the old testament, my opponent claims that she refuted their validity by two different ways: the textual and non-textual approach. Let's start with the latter. The non-textual approach that my opponent proposes is basically the statement that "Christians follow the spirit of the Bible" rather than the Bible itself, which is kind of an admition of defeat when we consider the actual topic of this debate. Moreover, shouldn't the spirit of the Bible be based on the book as a WHOLE? R2) Matthew 5:17-20The textual approach that my opponent proposes is Matthew 5:17-20. Once again, my opponent is appealing to what Christians believe, which is not only irrelevant to the topic but also does not tell us anything about what is actually in the Bible. As I said earlier, many Christians believe that the Earth is 6000 years old, and yet I guess my opponent would argue against that. While I would grant that Jesus's sacrifice was most likely done in order to absolve us of original sin (a notion that is both immoral and defeated if you reject the literal account of Genesis, but that's for another debate), but I do not grant for a second that his sacrifice was meant to get rid of the law of the OT since the passage she quoted herself precisely says the opposite. This is why I said at the beggining that there are no such things as truism when we are talking about literary interpretations; if the passage says that Jesus did NOT come to destroy the law and my opponent's understanding of that passage is that Jesus DID in fact come to destroy the law, then what is out question? "Whosoever therefore shall break one of these least commandments, and shall teach men so, he shall be called the least in the kingdom of heaven. " Christians still follow the 10 Commandments because of this passage. Matthew 5:19 also shows that the "laws" that Jesus was talking about in Matthew 5:17 that he did "not come to destroy" were the 10 Commandments" Really? Because what I'm reading is Jesus telling us to follow EVERY commandments, even the least important ones. Christians would obviously like to understand this as "only the ten commandments" because those are obvious and easy to follow whereas the other ones are not as easy to follow and don't always make a lot of sense. But what the passage is referring to is "one of these least commandments", which would actually be an indication that Jesus is specifically referring to the other commandments (I doubt that he would refer to the ten commandments as "least"). "Again, I refer my opponent to the fact that Christians do not keep kosher. He has no response for this argument" Actually I have the most obvious of responses: Christians are acting hypocritically, they follow the laws that they want, disregard the rest and then claim divine support for these laws. "If you accept my opponent's interpretation of Matthew 5:17-20, you would have to conclude that all Christians go to Hell for not keeping kosher. " I'm starting to think that my opponent has not read her Bible, but then again the passage that refutes this is one of those that she quoted. And not any passage, but the one she is currently talking about. Verse 19 is pretty clear: breaking one of the commandments leads to being called least. .. . IN THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN. Moreover, this is a blatant appeal to consequences. "Therefore, you have to accept my interpretation of Matthew 5:17-20, which is that it kept the 10 Commandments in place, but abrogated all the other parts of the OT. We cannot consider the OT to be binding law upon Christians. " This is simply a follow-up to the appeal to the consequences which I hope the audience will reject. R3) 1 Timothy 1The fact that Jesus was not the one speaking was simply an observation, not an actual argumentMy opponent then completely misinterprets my argument regarding menstealers as if my focus was on the MEN aspect, when in fact it was on the STEALERS aspect. I'll wait for her response to my actual argument in her next round. So it would seem that my opponent wants to play the translation game. Fine, let's play:KJ21: menstealersASV: menstealersAMP: kidnappersCEB: kidnappersCEV: kidnappersDARBY: kidnappersGNV: menstealersGW: kidnappersGNT: kidnappersHCSB: kidnappersISV: kidnappersKJV: menstealersLEB: kidnappersTLB: kidnappersI think that's enough for now. It would seem that translation would actually favor my interpretation. "My opponent next falsely assumes I believe in God" I am admittedly surprised that she doesn't. "Whether God exists is irrelevant to the question of whether the Bible and its authors were "okay" with slavery. I don't accept the premise that God wrote the Bible and no one contends that Jesus wrote the Bible. I also refer you to my argument above that a failure to advocate a ban on something does not mean you are "okay" with that thing. There's also something called status quo bias, which means that people often are not "okay" with status quo and may even *hate* the status quo, but they don't advocate for change because it is too difficult. " I'm sorry, but this is utterly ridiculous. While I agree that Jesus did not write the Bible, I think we would both agree that a lot of passages in there are his words (supposedly). Moreover, the Bible is supposed to be the inspired word of God, so why were these people afraid to directly oppose it in their book? Even if the excuse is that "slavery was not going anywhere", how is that a good reason to avoid including even a CRITICISM of it? I also agree that a failure to ban something does not necessarily mean that you are okay with, but when you include a line like "slaves, obey your masters", then it becomes more then a simple failure to ban it. It would also have been a good excuse if slavery was simply never mentioned, but the fact that the authors are clearly aware that it exists and mention it several times and yet decided not to oppose it seems to favor my understanding. "After all, the Bible is a historical text written by people in around 100-300 AD. You can't possibly expect for people to advocate abolishing slavery at this time. " My opponent is exactly right; I would not expect them to be against slavery, because I think that they were okay with it. My opponent's position is that they did not want to abolish slavery because that would have been too ahead of their time. .. The inspired word of God chose not to include a profound moral statement because it feared being called avant-garde. .. I don't buy that. "Because there was a widespread belief at the time that slaves would not necessarily do well as free men, it's not surprising that the Bible didn't advocate full abolition. " Oh, come on. The Bible would not abolish slavery because it feared for the well-being of the slaves? Before I offer my rebuttal, I must ask my opponent if she is really convinced by that. R4) Ephesians 6:5-8I'm almost out of characters so I'll just say this: Telling the slaves to obey their masters ("with fear and trembling") is absolutely an endorsement of slavery. "Jefferson believed in gradual emancipation with job training; he thought that total, instant abolition would leave former slaves homeless and destitute. " Once again, Jefferson did not have God's authority to back up his laws. Being a politician, he was also worried about the public's opinion. I await my opponent's response.