US Politics on Sidechat | My favorite type of ‘why does the Bible endorse slavery’ conversation is the kind that ends with Christians explaining how some types of slavery are actually fine

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My favorite type of ‘why does the Bible endorse slavery’ conversation is the kind that ends with Christians explaining how some types of slavery are actually fine

Anonymous 11h

Those laws are mostly from Leviticus and the other books of the Old Testament. Most of that shit is thrown out by Jesus when he gives us a new more powerful commandment that encapsulates all the others and gets rid of some. Which can be boiled down to don’t be a horrible human being, a.k.a. love, thy neighbor. And we know that these laws no longer specifically apply to us because he is the fulfillment of the second covenant under which those laws where given.

Anonymous 12h

Honestly the text does permit and regulate slavery (Lev 25:44-46, Eph 6:5), and "servant" translations soften it, not the other way. The real point is that the Bible was read both ways: slaveholders leaned on stuff like the "Curse of Ham" to justify race-based slavery, while Black Christians and abolitionists read it as a liberation story. Defenders enforced their reading with violence, including against other Christians. Scripture didn't decide it; people did.

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Anonymous 12h

I think that’s where Christians are so wrong. The Bible is just a text, and that’s why it’s bad to build a moral/legal framework around. It can be changed by your own interpretation, which legal texts should not be. Bc they are supposed to 1) agree with common held mores of the society, and 2) hold every person to those beliefs equally. Which is why religion causes problems, bc it’s based on your smaller subset of society, and those interpretations, which weakens the grasp on “equality”.

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Anonymous

#2 12h

Which keeps us from achieving “equity”. Particularly Christianity, bc the Bible has been so bastardized by so many denominations, Christianity/abrahamic religions are unique in that way to me, the idea that if you think you know better than another, or you don’t like how another does something, you can split off and do your own thing, demonize those you don’t agree with, while not changing your religion completely. Same team, new colors. Why? Why not just make up a new text? (Ig mormons fr did)

Anonymous

#3 11h

Also, almost all of those laws are also in the Torah and I have literally never heard anyone talk about Judaism in this context.

Anonymous

#3 11h

Addendum: unless of course they’re being antisemitic assholes and fear mongering.

Anonymous

#2 11h

Right, I believe the text was divinely inspired, not that the divine comes from the text. The divine is ineffable. When an institution claims to hold its full truth, it's either lying or mistaken, and that claim lets it rule over what counts as divine in a way that protects the institution. That's not new, it's basically how orthodoxy was built. (1/4)

Anonymous

#2 11h

Early Christianity was really diverse. Around 180 CE, Irenaeus argued that true teaching came through bishops descended from the apostles. So the church decided which texts counted as scripture, then pointed to that scripture to prove the church was right. The 27-book NT list first shows up in 367 (Athanasius), and in 380 Theodosius made Nicene Christianity the state religion, so "heresy" became a legal offense. (2/4)

Anonymous

#2 11h

The groups we call "Gnostics" (a label many scholars now question) often taught that you reach God through direct inner knowledge, not bishops. That made them a threat. Most of their texts only survived because someone buried them at Nag Hammadi, Egypt, found in 1945. In 385 a Spanish bishop, Priscillian, was executed after fellow bishops accused him of heresy, the first known case of its kind. (3/4)

Anonymous

#2 11h

It didn't stop with Rome. In 1525 the Anabaptists in Zurich said faith should be a free adult choice, so they rebaptized adults and refused state control of the church. Catholics AND Protestants hunted them. Zurich drowned Felix Manz in 1527, and thousands more were burned or drowned across Europe. Mennonites, Amish and Hutterites descend from them. Every side claimed the same Bible; the fight was over who gets to say what it means. (4/4)

Anonymous

#3 10h

Yes! Galatians 5:14 says the whole law is fulfilled in "love your neighbor as yourself." And that line actually comes from Leviticus 19:18, so it's less Jesus discarding the Torah and more pointing to its heart. Hillel said nearly the same thing a generation earlier: what's hateful to you, don't do to your neighbor, the rest is commentary. Confucius said it too. It might be the most universal spiritual idea we have.