Ed, as is so often the case, is simply wrong.

Exodus 21:16: He who kidnaps a man, whether he sells him or he is found in his possession, shall surely be put to death.

Deut. 24:7: If a man is caught kidnapping any of his countrymen of the sons of Israel, and he deals with him violently or sells him, then that thief shall die; so you shall purge the evil from among you.

Both of these verses would be quite applicable to the American form of slavery as it was known in the 18th and 19th centuries. Much of what is called "slavery" in the Bible is actually indentured servitude, and no, God does not condemn that (whether it's tasteful to our delicate modern sensibilities or not). But the form of slavery in which someone is kidnapped and sold is dealt with in the strongest possible terms (and would give us insight into God's view on both the kidnapper and the one who possesses a kidnapped person).

I don't expect, however, this Ed's unbelief will be alleviated by the truth. When one has put his own moral authority above God's, there's not much room left convincing. It's always interesting when someone declares God's view of something to be wrong. "What standard is this person appealing to?" I ask myself. The standard is always, as it turns out, himself. Which reminds me of another passage in that Bible that Ed rejects, where Adam and Eve succumb to the most basic of temptations when they are told "you will be like God."

Let's pull out our copy of the Organon and engage in an old-fashioned exercise.

Christians must follow God's law, but it is their right or duty to abolish or break worldly laws in conflict with God's law.

Paul has admonished slaves to obey their masters, which does not condone the "institution" of slavery but merely prescribes that men obey the law.

Therefore, laws protecting slavery accord with God's law.

But the form of slavery in which someone is kidnapped and sold is dealt with in the strongest possible terms (and would give us insight into God's view on both the kidnapper and the one who possesses a kidnapped person).

Well said, brother!

Stingray:  a blog for salty Christians

JohnR:

You made one point that I think is worth responding to. I can't speak for Ed, but I can speak for myself. In your comment, you said, "It's always interesting when someone declares God's view of something to be wrong." I would certainly agree that anyone declaring God's opinion wrong is a fool at best. The analytic proposition of God's omniscience would render such a declaration nonsense. However, I suspect that your argument was intended not as a defense of God's omniscience, but of the Bible's authority as inerrant. If that's what you intended to imply, you should have simply said so. The Bible is filled with enough truth claims that have been falsified that we simply cannot accept it as the word of God, by definition, for the word of God must perfectly accord with reality if the term 'God' is to have any meaning. Then you turn from the innocence of sophistry and attributing unsaid thoughts to other minds to outright bigotry in saying that Ed appeals to no standard other than himself. I have read enough of Ed's writing to assure you that the standard to which Ed appeals is built on a far surer foundation than a fool's adolescent clinging to ancient documents whose authority is derived soley from tradition.

Which translation of God's inerrant word are we talking about anyway?

Therefore, laws protecting slavery accord with God's law.

It's fair to conclude that the type of slavery that existed in Paul's world was not a violation of God's law. But as I wrote in the post, that type of slavery was a far cry from what most people today think of as "slavery."

Doug (whether knowingly or not) makes an interesting point--the original texts of Scripture have been translated many times into English, with different shades of meaning and emphasis. Serious Bible scholars learn Greek and Hebrew and read the original texts. For the rest of us, it's instructive to read a passage in several different translations--Biblegateway.com makes this convenient.

I don't happen to think any of the passages mentioned here differ significantly between reliable translations, though.

So these slaves/indentured servants were free to leave their 'masters/employers' anytime without punishment? Does that include the slaves that were taken as spoils of war by David and others in the Bible? Taking slaves as spoils of war sure seems a lot like kidnapping to me, but that must be because of my 'delicate modern sensibilities' (I think 'moral' or 'enlightened' fit better in that sentence than 'delicate' btw).

I find it hard to believe that ancient Greek/Hebrew don't have different words to distinguish between 'servant' vs. 'slave', but regardless, even if Biblical slavery wasn't as brutal as the American variety, I doubt that it was voluntary or that they were not viewed as property.

Point well taken, Eric, though I wish I knew more about the context of Paul's statements here - was he really addressing what we would now think of as indentured servants? In my other post, by the way, I'm not categorically opposed to people who wish to believe that much of the Bible is divinely inspired or full of spiritual truths - in fact, that has been the consensus among most Christians since Augustine. I mostly take issue with the school that says scripture is the inerrant, perfectly transmitted word of God, sufficient as a source for all moral truth. Such a doctrine, in my view, is alien to Western and Christian civilization, and better suited to Wahhabi Islam.

"The Bible is filled with enough truth claims that have been falsified that we simply cannot accept it as the word of God, by definition, for the word of God must perfectly accord with reality if the term 'God' is to have any meaning."

Such as?

Slavery as described by the Bible includes slavery by purchase, slavery by indenture, slavery to pay debt, slavery by capture (as spoils of war), and obedience to anything/anyone by the individual’s choice (cf. Romans 6:16: “Do you not know that when you present yourselves to someone as slaves for obedience, you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin resulting in death, or of obedience resulting in righteousness?�).

“…the standard modern Christian explanation of Ephesians 6:5-6, that is, Paul is exhorting slaves to obey the law--not endorsing the institution of slavery.�

What’s missing is the understanding of the law as it relates to slavery in the Bible. If you look at Exodus 21, for example, the Bible very specifically explained the legal obligations of a slave-owner:

1"Now these are the ordinances which you are to set before them:
2"If you buy a Hebrew slave, he shall serve for six years; but on the seventh he shall go out as a free man without payment.
3"If he comes alone, he shall go out alone; if he is the husband of a wife, then his wife shall go out with him.
4"If his master gives him a wife, and she bears him sons or daughters, the wife and her children shall belong to her master, and he shall go out alone.
5"But if the slave plainly says, 'I love my master, my wife and my children; I will not go out as a free man,'
6then his master shall bring him to God, then he shall bring him to the door or the doorpost. And his master shall pierce his ear with an awl; and he shall serve him permanently.
7"If a man sells his daughter as a female slave, she is not to go free as the male slaves do.
8"If she is displeasing in the eyes of her master who designated her for himself, then he shall let her be redeemed. He does not have authority to sell her to a foreign people because of his unfairness to her.
9"If he designates her for his son, he shall deal with her according to the custom of daughters.
10"If he takes to himself another woman, he may not reduce her food, her clothing, or her conjugal rights.
11"If he will not do these three things for her, then she shall go out for nothing, without payment of money.

Look at Leviticus 25:35-46:

35'Now in case a countryman of yours becomes poor and his means with regard to you falter, then you are to sustain him, like a stranger or a sojourner, that he may live with you.
36'Do not take usurious interest from him, but revere your God, that your countryman may live with you.
37'You shall not give him your silver at interest, nor your food for gain.
38'I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt to give you the land of Canaan and to be your God.
39'If a countryman of yours becomes so poor with regard to you that he sells himself to you, you shall not subject him to a slave's service.
40'He shall be with you as a hired man, as if he were a sojourner; he shall serve with you until the year of jubilee.
41'He shall then go out from you, he and his sons with him, and shall go back to his family, that he may return to the property of his forefathers.
42'For they are My servants whom I brought out from the land of Egypt; they are not to be sold in a slave sale.
43'You shall not rule over him with severity, but are to revere your God.
44'As for your male and female slaves whom you may have--you may acquire male and female slaves from the pagan nations that are around you.
45'Then, too, it is out of the sons of the sojourners who live as aliens among you that you may gain acquisition, and out of their families who are with you, whom they will have produced in your land; they also may become your possession.
46'You may even bequeath them to your sons after you, to receive as a possession; you can use them as permanent slaves. But in respect to your countrymen, the sons of Israel, you shall not rule with severity over one another.

This is not an equivocal concession to slavery; this is an outline for how one is to treat slaves as property and as human beings. In practice, the most common problem with slavery is that the practical exercise of the system does not arise because of slavery itself, but out of the failure to treat slaves according to the law.

The slavery that existed in the times and cultures in which the Scriptures were written is that under the Torah, slaves were to be treated in specific ways. Deviation from those requirements was not supportable. There is no question that slavery in the 18th and 19th centuries did not comply with the Bible’s requirements as to how slave owners were to treat their slaves.

As far as the claim that the fact that Romans 13 dictates compliance with existing government requires that we condemn those who fought against slavery in America, where it was also legal at the time, the two are not related, nor does acceptance of one “require� the other. Clearly, when the explicit will of God conflicted with certain authorities, Peter said we must obey God, not men (Acts 5:29). To the extent that slavery, for example, as carried out in practice conflicted with God’s law as to how slaves were to be treated, there was an affirmative duty on Christians to seek change of the law because the legal system itself did not uphold it.

If Ed (or anyone else, for that matter) wants to use this subject as “one of the primary reasons why [he] can no longer accept the Bible as the word of God, as [he] once did,� that is certainly his prerogative. Unfortunate, but a matter of choice.

"The difference between the slavery that existed in the times and cultures in which the Scriptures were written and the slavery that existed in the 18th and 19th centuries is that under the Torah, slaves were to be treated in specific ways. Deviation from those requirements was not supportable. There is no question that slavery in the 18th and 19th centuries did not comply with the Bible’s requirements as to how slave owners were to treat their slaves."

Sorry about that - it looked funny.....

There is a really good book by Norman L. Geisler and Frank Turek titled I Don't Have Enough Faith to be an Atheist. If you haven't done so, I would recommend it to anyone wanting to understand the Christian Faith.

Bible scholars do not claim inerrancy and infallibility for modern translations. They claim inerrancy for the original Hebrew and Greek writings. That is why it is important to have an understanding of Hebrew and Greek. It is also important to have an understanding of the history, culture and times in which the authors were writing.

And to comment on the slavery issue. Do not confuse what Paul was talking about, becoming a slave to pay back a debt, with what was done in this country. Slavery in America was based on people being taken against their will to a foreign land and forcing them to work. I do not remember any of the Africans brought over to America owing a debt to any of the slave owners.

A person in Paul's day could not walk away from their debt, just as no one today can walk away from a bank loan of $20,000. People then became slaves to work off their debt they owed. After the debt was worked off they were free to go.

But the form of slavery in which someone is kidnapped and sold is dealt with in the strongest possible terms (and would give us insight into God's view on both the kidnapper and the one who possesses a kidnapped person).

Isn't a loophole to this passage created by keeping a defeated non-Israelite enemy as a slave?

Interesting that there is always so much wriggling to disclaim that the Bible approves of slavery. And a lot of claiming that we have to understand the cultures of the time. Regardless of what kind of slavery it was and whether it was comparable to slavery in the US seems rather irrelevant to me. Isn't all slavery still wrong? Or even indentured servitude? And why do Christians give the approval of slavery a pass, but on others issue, such has homosexuality or the equality of women, do they insist that it's God's Word meant exactly as plainly written? Isn't that cherry-picking which rules you follow and which you don't?

Truth claims that have been falsified:

(1) That God created the earth in seven days, (2) that a 40-day storm caused a flood that covered the entire surface of the earth, and that one man and his family gathered up male and female members of every sexually-reproducing terrestrial animal in anticipation of the storm, kept them alive during the flood, and returned them to their native habitats all over the world after the flood, (3) that there exists a mountain tall enough to observe all the kingdoms of the world. Of course, when not taken literally, these stories can be a source of genuine wisdom on the human condition and on life's purpose - but that is not what I'm arguing against. I'm arguing against taking the Bible literally when it makes claims that conflict with modern knowledge.

I have a full response which will be posted in the morning. Suffice to say that John Rabe isn't even in the ballpark of the truth with his comment, his smugness notwithstanding.

Let's not sidetrack the issue with comments on inerrancy and literalism. Not every believing Christian is a literalist or inerrantist.

My impression of Greco-Roman slavery has always been that it was more like indentured servitude or apprenticeship than the American version, and it certainly wasn't as racialized as in America (here's an interesting American history PhD topic: what came first, racism towards African Americans, or plantation slavery?). Of course I await Ed's response to these issues.

Much of the discussion here from both sides violates the historian's first commandment: thalt shalt not commit presentism. That said, can God not reveal moral truths progressively? If Saint Paul didn't specifically condemn early modern racialized slavery, does that make William Wilberforce a bad Christian?

Other than the public beating of Roman citizens in defiance of Roman Law (Acts 16:35-39) and free gospelizing rights, did Paul ever take sides on *any* Roman political issues?

"My impression of Greco-Roman slavery has always been that it was more like indentured servitude or apprenticeship than the American version, and it certainly wasn't as racialized as in America" That's a false dilemma, though. Slavery at that time was -- except for the lack of being racialized, which was indeed a more modern innovation -- much, much closer to the peculiar institution than it was to debt slavery or apprenticeships.

Congratulations on the most repulsive conservative thread I've seen in months.

Leviticus 25:45-46 (which lawyerchik1 quoted above) plainly states that non-Israelites who are slaves are simply treated as property, passed down from generation to generation.

Once you recognize that most of the good stuff in the Old Testament applies only to the Jews, and that non-Jews in general actually suffered miserably in the Bible, without recourse, some of the contradictions people are discussing here make more sense. There are nice, civilized rules in the bible -- they apply to the Jews.

Only Israelite slaves got the benefit of all those general rules about how to treat slaves well. As with other situations, conquered non-Israelites generally got enslaved, killed, or taken as potential wives (if they were virgins).

The tone of this conversation is not surprising, since the ultimate result of the pro-wal-mart neocon crowd's philosophy is that the majority of the world will be slaves and this elite gang will end up the owners.

This thread is the sort of conversation the ordinary working person really needs to see a lot of conservatives have, because it much better represents their true philosophies than the whole "free markets are good for EVERONE" baloney.

"Slavery in America was based on people being taken against their will to a foreign land and forcing them to work."

What do you think slaves taken as captives were?

"European slave buyers made the greater profit from the despicable trade, but their African partners also prospered. Many grew strong and fat on profits made from selling their brethren. Tinubu square, commercial centre of today's Lagos and home to Nigeria's Central Bank, is named after a major nineteenth century slave trader. Madam Tinubu was born in Egbaland and rose from rags to riches by trading in slaves , salt and tobacco in Badagry. She later became one of Nigeria's pioneering nationalists."

"Africa's rulers, traders and military aristocracy protected their interest in the slave trade. They discouraged Europeans from leaving the coastal areas to venture into the interior of the continent. European trading companies realised the benefit of dealing with African suppliers and not unnecessarily antagonising them. The companies could not have mustered the resources it would have taken to directly capture the tens of millions of people shipped out of Africa. It was far more sensible and safer to give Africans guns to fight the many wars that yielded captives for the trade. The slave trading network stretched deep into the Africa's interior. Slave trading firms were aware of their dependency on African suppliers. The Royal African Company, for instance, instructed its agents on the West coast "if any differences happen, to endeavour an amicable accommodation rather than use force." They were "to endeavour to live in all friendship with them" and "to hold frequent palavers with the Kings and the Great Men of the Country, and keep up a good correspondent with them, ingratiating yourself by such prudent methods" as may be deemed appropriate.�"
http://www.afbis.com/analysis/slave.htm

"The slave trade from Mozambique and southern Tanzania was carried out by agents of the Sultanate of Zanzibar in cooperation with some African tribes. Raids and prisoners of war were the typical sources of slaves. Written accounts from the time describe how slave traders marched African slaves 400 miles from the area around Lake Malawi in the interior to the Tanzanian coastal city of Kilwa Kivinje on the Indian Ocean."

http://www.culturalorientation.net/bantu/sbhist.html

Do not hand me the crap about how anything that wasn't Slavery as experienced in the 18th and 19th century is somehow less slavery than at any other time in history, or that those African slaves were the only ones taken against their will. It's not only not true, it disregards the plights of slaves all over the world from before most history books were written.

Chuck:

With respect to your claims that these statements have been proven false, they haven't been. I'm not going to get into a debate with you on creation versus evolution because I don't believe in beating my head against a brick wall. No matter what I say, you won't accept facts that support the Bible's historical record even though you'll do mental gymnastics worthy of the Olympics to support evolution. But it's one thing to say that you don't believe any of those things. It's quite another to establish conclusively that they are not accurate statements, and for that we will just have to agree to disagree.

For further research/reference, please see the following resources:

Oard, M.J. 1990. An Ice Age Caused by the Genesis Flood. Institute for Creation Research Monograph. San Diego, CA. 243 pp.
Kennett, J.P., Houtz R.E. , Andrews , P.B. Edwards, A.R., Gostin ,V.A., Hajos M., Hampton, M. , Jenkins, D.G., SW., Margolis, A.T. Ovenshine, K. Perch-Nielsen. 1977. Descriptions of Procedures and Data for Sites 277, 279, 281 by the Shipboard Party. In Initial Reports of the Deep Sea Drilling Project. 29:4558, 191-202, and 271-285. GPO: Washington, D.C.
Vardiman, L. 1996. Sea-Flood Sediment and the Age of the Earth. Institute for Creation Research Monograph. San Diego, CA. 94 pp.
Vardiman, L. 1996. Ice Cores and the Age of the Earth. Institute for Creation Research Monograph. San Diego, CA. 86 pp.

Further, all the mountains of the world have been under water at some time or times in the past, as indicated by sedimentary rocks and marine fossils near their summits. Even most volcanic mountains with their pillow lavas seem largely to have been formed when under water.

Most of the earth's crust consists of sedimentary rocks (sandstones, shales, limestones, etc.). These were originally formed in almost all cases under water, usually by deposition after transportation by water from various sources.

The assigned "ages" of the sedimentary beds (which comprise the bulk of the "geologic column") have been deduced from their assemblages of fossils. Fossils, however, normally require very rapid burial and compaction to be preserved at all. Thus every sedimentary formation appears to have been formed rapidly—even catastrophically—and more and more present-day geologists are returning to this point of view.

Since there is known to be a global continuity of sedimentary formations in the geologic column (that is, there is no worldwide "unconformity," or time gap, between successive "ages"), and since each unit was formed rapidly, the entire geologic column seems to be the product of continuous rapid deposition of sediments, comprising in effect the geological record of a time when "the world that then was, being overflowed with water, perished."

It is also significant that the types of rocks, the vast extent of specific sedimentary rock formations, the minerals and metals, coal and oil found in rocks, the various types of structures (i.e., faults, folds, thrusts, etc.), sedimentary rocks grossly deformed while still soft from recent deposition, and numerous other features seem to occur indiscriminately throughout the various "ages" supposedly represented in the column. To all outward appearances, therefore, they were all formed in essentially the same brief time period.

The fossil sequences in the sedimentary rocks do not constitute a legitimate exception to this rule, for there is a flagrant circular reasoning process involved in using them to identify their supposed geologic age. That is, the fossils have been dated by the rocks where they are found, which in turn had been dated by their imbedded fossils with the sequences based on their relative assumed stages of evolution, which had ultimately been based on the ancient philosophy of the "great chain of being." Instead of representing the evolution of life over many ages, the fossils really speak of the destruction of life (remember that fossils are dead things, catastrophically buried for preservation) in one age, with their actual local "sequences" having been determined by the ecological communities in which they were living at the time of burial.

The fact that there are traditions of the great Flood found in hundreds of tribes in all parts of the world (all similar in one way or another to that in the Genesis record) is firm evidence that those tribes all originated from the one family preserved through the cataclysm.

[With thanks to the folks at ICR, from which I obtained this information (primarily for lack of time, but also because they're right)].

It is not our duty to break all laws that are in conflict with God's laws.

First, we must make some important determinations.

1. The law to be broken must involve a grievous injustice.

2. There must be no other avenue to bring forth justice.

3. We have a duty to first avail ourselves of the legislative and judicial processes.

4. There should be some distinction made between prohibitive laws and permissive laws. A prohibitive law might exclude certain people from voting, riding a bus, etc. Permissive laws might allow divorce in cases where we think God's law would prohibit same, permit strip bars in residential neighborhoods, or allow 14-year-olds to marry. In the latter cases particualy, I think we have a duty to render unto Caesar while we work through the system.

I believe the American Revolution was justified because the issues at stake were enormous, there were no other viable avenues of redress left, and those who fought or encouraged the revolution were willing to stake their lives and honor for what they believed.

3. We must be willing to pay the consequences for disobedience.

I might not believe that states should legalize gambling; however, a fundamental civil right is not denied by allowing gambling, rather it can be agued that gambling is so detrimental to society that it should be outlawed. However, the fact that I might consider gambling inconsistent with God's law gives me neither the legal nor moral right to destroy gambling devices.

If I oppose a war, I can and should protest, organize, demonstrate, petition, run for office, etc. That doesn't give me the moral right to shut down traffic or invade the offices of college faculty. I may believe that certain housing or business developments are an assualt on God's law regarding protection of the environment. That doesn't give me the right to torch a housing devlopment under construction. Any other process would lead to anarchy.

1. The law to be broken must involve a grievous injustice.

2. There must be no other avenue to bring forth justice.

Okay, fine. Can we agree that slavery - even as it existed in Roman times (Spartacus might disagree that his slavery was an idyllic indentured servitude) represents a gross injustice? For a freeman to break the law to undermine slavery might be unnecessary, but to the slave is there any avenue to changing his condition other than escaping his master or taking whatever measures necessary to secure his liberty? You supported the American Revolution; surely as a fellow partisan of the patriot cause you can agree that God permits men in slavery to break their bondage even if it means breaking the law. To render to Caesar what is his and to God what is his is what Christ commanded, and to me that admonishment is greater than Paul's. The issue of my status as a free man is not Caesar's; it is God's.

As for your faith in the inerrant Bible, lawyerchik, all I can do is admit some astonishment and even admiration at the certitude of your faith; if you honestly find the arguments you linked convincing from a rational and scientific standpoint, fine. I'll caution you, however, that such a rigid faith, like pig iron, will be easily broken if you ever find yourself capable of subjecting it to some heat and light, and that is how dogmatic atheists are made. I agree with David that not all Christians are literalists; indeed, most through history have not been. That's why I think it's okay to defend Christianity against Biblical literalism.

"that such a rigid faith, like pig iron, will be easily broken if you ever find yourself capable of subjecting it to some heat and light, and that is how dogmatic atheists are made."

You assume that I have never subjected it to heat or light.... :)

I have to say that I'm amused that anon thinks this argument has something to do with the "pro-walmart neo-con crowd". I'm pro-Walmart myself and I'm the one representing the other side in it. Not everything in the world fits so easily into simple dichotomies.

I'm even more amused by lawyerchik's cutting and pasting of the ridiculous geological claims of the ICR about a global flood. But it gives me an opportunity to write something more detailed explaining why those claims are patently absurd, which I intend to do this afternoon. In the meantime, my response to this can be found at the top of my blog.

Lawyerchic, would you find reports from the (admittedly hypothetical) "Institute For Evolution-Is-Obviously-Right Research" very convincing? If not, then why should anyone accept anything from your obviously biased source?

In any case, I'll just completely disregard the evolution/creation thing and just point out that point (3) was certainly correct, in that there is no mountain tall enough from which all kingdoms of the world can be seen. (Or is there an "Institute For Really, Really Tall Mountains That Somehow No One Has Discovered Research" that will disprove that one? Heh.)

//Not even getting into the rest of the debate...

Yes, I believe that slavery is a gross injustice that permits for rebellion.

As for the Bible, I think it represents a progression of covenant relationships whereby God reveals as society can handle. Thus, an "eye for an eye" represented an improvement over unfettered revenge, but is no longer the standard of justice today, because God has revealed a fuller understanding of justice as we are prepared to receive it. So, today, if my neighbor burns my house down, the law provides for other redress short of me burning his or her house down in return.

For a society that was frequently on the move, capital punsishment might have once been necessary for that society's survival; I would argue that such is not the case today. Maybe at one time it was necessary to stone adulterers to prevent the breakdown of families; today that isn't needed, although the church obviously could do a better of supporting marriage.

Much of the discussion here from both sides violates the historian's first commandment: thalt shalt not commit presentism. That said, can God not reveal moral truths progressively?

Many Christians do argue that God can indeed do so. They use this argument to do things like bless same-sex marriages. Then they get denounced by religious conservatives for "violating God's eternal truths" or something like that.

So that raises the question - if God can indeed reveal moral truths progressively, then why were the Christians who argued against slavery correct, but the Christians who currently argue for same-sex marriages incorrect?

Justice Scalia would love this line of reasoning . . .

"If not, then why should anyone accept anything from your obviously biased source?"

Back atcha. The difference is that you won't accept anything from what you determine to be a biased source, and I will examine what I find on any source and make a determination from there whether it is internally consistent, coherent, and cohesive before dismissing it out of hand.

"in that there is no mountain tall enough from which all kingdoms of the world can be seen"

Maybe not now, but that doesn't mean that there wasn't at the time the passage was written.

"an "eye for an eye" represented an improvement over unfettered revenge"

The point of that passage was that the punishment should fit the crime. In other words, don't kill someone for stealing, but don't let somebody off with a light sentence for killing someone (say, an unborn child?!?!?).

In the analogy of the person who burns down his neighbor's house - the Law never provided that the one wronged got to burn the other's house down. Instead, he was to make restitution, but not more than the property would have been worth.

The other issues with respect to what the Law required as far as things like stoning are that the change in the Law did not mean that God revealed moral truths progressively. God does not change anymore than His truth changes. The fact that He makes concessions for our sin does not mean that He either accepts our sin or that He "changed His mind" about whether it is sin or not.

The Law was given to illustrate how perfect God is and how we can never measure up to His standard of perfection, which is why we need the saving blood of Jesus Christ to pay for our sins once and for all.

Any sin, regardless of how big or how small, is enough to keep us from fellowship with God, and it is only His grace that provided a way to restore that fellowship in the sacrificial death, burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

The reason that those who argued against slavery were correct and those who argue in favor of same-sex marriage are incorrect is that slavery became so corrupt that it was no longer feasible.

Beneath the relationship between slave and master was still the recognition that both were created in God's image and were worthy of respect and dignity. When slavery as a system lost that structure, restoring it was the only lawful and moral solution.

However, the Bible specifically condemns homosexual behavior. Where people get this issue confused is when they say that homosexuals are evil. They're no more evil than any other sinner.

Anyone who commits adultery or fornication or gluttony or whatever is just as much a sinner as the homosexual. Just because I "feel" like doing something (whether it's having sex with someone I am not married to or stealing or ramming my car into another person) doesn't make it right, nor should I be exempt from the consequences of my acting on my "feelings."

The problem is that the homosexual agenda is intended to force society to go against God's law and accord equal status to their behavior with the marriage of a man and woman, which was established by God as not only the union between a man and a woman but also as an illustration of the relationship between Christ and the church, and that is simply not acceptable.

Would you acknowledge that you are willing to accept the possibility that a mountain tall enough to see all the world's kingdoms existed at some point in the past out of sheer faith in the Bible? You are willing to entertain this possibility, in other words, because the Bible mentions it - not, say, because you have seen evidence that such a mountain once stood. Can we agree here?

"willing to entertain this possibility, in other words, because the Bible mentions it"

Yes. The Bible says that the devil took Jesus to a very high mountain, and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their grandeur. The language does not require the description you gave for it, and I do not intend to add anything to what the Bible has to say about it. If the Bible says that Jesus was taken to a high mountain and shown all of the kingdoms of the world, then He was.

D.A. Carson’s explanation is, "Standing on a high mountain would not itself provide a glimpse of 'all the kingdoms of the world'; some supernatural vision is presupposed. Moreover a forty-day fast is scarcely the ideal background for a trek to ... rugged sites." ["Matthew," The Expositor’s Bible Commentary, Vol. 8 (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan Publishing House, 1984), page 111]. However, "there is no reason to think the framework of the story is purely symbolic..." Id.

This is not inconsistent nor illogical to the position that the Bible is inerrant, and your claim that it would is a straw man set up for the express purpose of knocking it down without any foundation in Biblical study or interpretation.

That should have been:

D.A. Carson's explanation is, "Standing on a high mountain would not itself provide a glimpse of 'all the kingdoms of the world'; some supernatural vision is presupposed. Moreover a forty-day fast is scarcely the ideal background for a trek to ... rugged sites." ["Matthew," The Expositor's Bible Commentary, Vol. 8 (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan Publishing House, 1984), page 111]. However, "there is no reason to think the framework of the story is purely symbolic..."

That's what happens when I cut, paste, edit and try to post all at the same time....

But can't you see that's what I'm asking for? The wise have often asked for a definition of terms before carrying out debate. What precisely is meant by inerrant? It is possible for someone to say that the Bible represents perfect truth - but I'm afraid that it is impossible take all of its statements literally. There is no mountain, and never was, and never could be a mountain that affords a view of the entire habitable world. But that's not to say that in some sense the story is "true" and that the language of the Bible was written for relatively simple people with little understanding of physical science by men who were not considered with physical science but who were trying to spread truths they had encountered in concert with or contemplating the divine. If Biblical literalism is merely a straw man I and other "secular" forces have constructed, why do you so often argue from it and for it?

Ed Brayton has rebutted Lawyerchic1's "science" lesson.

http://scienceblogs.com/dispatches/2006/03/those_bad_flood_geology_argume.php#more

I didn’t say “Biblical literalism�; you did. Specifically, I said “This is not inconsistent nor illogical to the position that the Bible is inerrant.� They’re two different things, and I’ve been arguing inerrancy.

Eric Thacker made the point that “Bible scholars do not claim inerrancy and infallibility for modern translations. They claim inerrancy for the original Hebrew and Greek writings. That is why it is important to have an understanding of Hebrew and Greek. It is also important to have an understanding of the history, culture and times in which the authors were writing.� He’s right.

In Matthew 4:4, Jesus responded to Satan’s temptation by affirming verbal plenary inspiration when He said, man is to live by every word (plenary) that proceeds out of the mouth of God (inspiration).

In Matthew 5:17-18, Christ promised that the entire Old Testament, the Law and the Prophets, would be fulfilled, not abolished. In fact, He declared that not even the smallest Hebrew letter, the yodh, which looks like an apostrophe (‘), or stroke of a letter, a small distinguishing extension or protrusion of several Hebrews letters (cf. the extension on the letter R with it absence on the letter P), would pass away until all is fulfilled. Christ’s point is that it is all inspired and true and will be fulfilled.

He spoke of the Old Testament in terms of actual history. Adam and Eve were two human beings, created by God in the beginning, who lived and acted in certain ways (Matt. 19:3-5; Mark 10:6-8). He spoke of Jonah and his experience in the belly of the great fish as an historical event (Matt. 12:40). He also verified the events of the flood in Noah’s day along with the ark (Matt. 24:38-39; Luke 17:26-27). He verified God’s destruction of Sodom and the historicity of Lot and his wife (Matt. 10:15; Luke 17:28-29). These are only a few illustrations; many others exist.

The difficulty many people have with accepting the inerrancy of the Bible is that if it is to be taken as truth about history, then it must be taken as truth about man's ultimate destiny - in other words, if the Bible is inerrant on things that can be seen, what if it's also true about what happens to those who reject God's gift of salvation? That's where a lot of arguments go with respect to what happens to good people who die without Christ.

The reality is that if someone dies without having accepted the finished work of Jesus Christ as payment for his sins, he is going to spend eternity separated from God in conscious torment. That's why I get into these discussions about the Bible - because God said that His word is true and will be fulfilled down to the smallest detail, and because I don't want people to go through their lives without at least hearing from the "other side."

Think about it - what if I'm right? What if the Bible is inerrant, and what it has to say about history, science, and everything else is true? I mean, if I'm wrong, what have I really lost, except the respect of people I've never met or the illusion of a life in paradise?

Whereas if you're wrong, and the Bible really is true about everything it claims for itself, then what?

All I'm saying is, do the research yourself. So few people who claim that the Bible is full of errors have actually read it - take a concordance (Strong's is excellent) and cross-reference passages you think are in error with other passages in the Bible and see what you find.

That's really the only approach with any intellectual integrity about it. If, after you've done that, you still don't think I'm right, then at least you will have a sound foundation for your opinion.

This is what inerrant means:

The bible, as written was inspired by God. The writers, under the influence of the Holy Spirit, wrote without error, although each writer's personality was preserved. In other words, what they wrote was not dictated.

Inerrancy also means that the bible, as written, is not only inerrant in matters of faith, but also in history and, to the limited extent that it touches the subject, science.

Inerrancy is not the same thing as literalism. Inerrancy is a property of the bible. Literalism is one of many hermeneutics used to interpret the bible.

In testing biblical inerrancy, the following points of analysis are fair game:

1) Miracles are possible, and by definition they are inexplicable by science. Thus, stating that the Red Sea parted does not prove that the bible is wrong because science can't explain it, that's why it's called a miracle and not a parlor trick. There are about 100 or so miracles but they take up only about ten pages of text in a typical bible. Each one gets a free pass: they are completely irrelevant in the debate over inerrancy.

2) Translation errors are possible. The onus is on the person defending inerrancy who wants to invoke the translation error explanation to provide the details.

3) Non-western writing styles are sometimes an explanation. It is well known that quotations are handled differently today than in biblical times. Whereas today we place a premium on reproducing the exact wording, in biblical times the emphasis was placed on reproducing the meaning and content. Similarly for numbers.

4) Genealogies in the bible were not intended as chronologies.

5) Multiple consistent interpretations are possible. The defender of inerrancy need only demonstrate that some plausible interpretation is possible.

6) Metaphors are common in the bible. "Christ is a vine" does not mean we can pick grapes from him. In particular, the apocalyptic texts are written in highly symbolic language.

7) Ancient Hebrew had a very limited vocabulary, more than ten times fewer words than modern English. That means there is a one-to-many mapping. The most famous example of this is probably the Hebrew word yom, which can be translated into day or age, and hence leads to different interpretations of the creation account.

8) Sometimes accurate translations are impossible, or at the very least problematic. For example, we Protestants use this passage:

He had no relations with her until she bore a son, and he named him Jesus (Matt 1:25)

To trivially disprove the Catholic doctrine of Mary's perpetual virginity. (So "Catholic" is this doctrine that all three biggies from the Reformation, Calvin, Luther, and Zwingli affirmed it!) But of course we should avoid a trivial proof, knowing that Roman apologists are not stupid. Indeed they have a good point: For us the word "until" means that state after the terminus was different from the state before. That is, If Mary and Joseph had no sex until Jesus was born, then it means that they did have sex afterwards. But it is not so clear. The Greek use of the word is more like: I am describing something about a certain time period terminated by the "until", but what I say about that period has no bearing whatsoever on the period that follows.

Here is how this debate always degenerates, in my experience. Those arguing against inerrancy will present a passage and demand that you interpret it literally as written. Any explanation using any of the analysis described above will be treated as a cop-out. For example I can argue that the Genesis account is scientifically accurate, but part of that requires interpreting yom as age. If you insist that I must interpret it as 24-hour day, then you might as well just anoint yourself victorious by default.

However, the Bible specifically condemns homosexual behavior. Where people get this issue confused is when they say that homosexuals are evil. They're no more evil than any other sinner.

Anyone who commits adultery or fornication or gluttony or whatever is just as much a sinner as the homosexual. Just because I "feel" like doing something (whether it's having sex with someone I am not married to or stealing or ramming my car into another person) doesn't make it right, nor should I be exempt from the consequences of my acting on my "feelings."

The problem is that the homosexual agenda is intended to force society to go against God's law and accord equal status to their behavior with the marriage of a man and woman, which was established by God as not only the union between a man and a woman but also as an illustration of the relationship between Christ and the church, and that is simply not acceptable.

Neither the Bible nor Christians are a legitimate or even recognizable moral authority on the subject of sexual orientation. The amount and sheer depravity and cruelty practiced by "Christians" toward gay and lesbian people for the last few thousand years on the supposed basis of a few passages of someone's holy book, outweighs any possible legitimacy their opinions might have once had.

In short, sometimes the Bible and its followers are just plain wrong or even stupid. Get over it.

And the atrocities committed by non-Christians against Christians on the premise that the world is somehow entitled to eliminate them from the face of the earth for their faith means their way better?

And the atrocities committed by non-Christians against Christians on the premise that the world is somehow entitled to eliminate them from the face of the earth for their faith means their way better?

Of course not, but "They did it too" isn't a very convincing argument.

Does the Bible condone slavery? Does God ever allow something to go on that He doesn’t like? In the Old Testament we find what God thinks about divorce.
Mal 2:16 "For the LORD God of Israel says That He hates divorce,
In the New Testament we have Jesus expanding on the subject.
Mt 19:8 He said to them, "Moses, because of the hardness of your hearts, permitted you to divorce your wives, but from the beginning it was not so.
When Jesus walked the earth, more than half the people of the world would qualify to be called slaves. All God’s instructions on slavery mentioned earlier in the comments mitigate bad treatment of slaves. Begins to sound a lot like the situation with divorce.
I can understand why we as humans are caught up with this short life on this fallen earth but God who has a view and not a point of view as we do is a whole lot more interested in releasing us from our slavery to sin and providing for our eternity than in fixing this fallen world by countermanding the sinful choices we have made.

18For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. 19For it is written:
"I will destroy the wisdom of the wise;
the intelligence of the intelligent I will frustrate."
20Where is the wise man? Where is the scholar? Where is the philosopher of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? 21For since in the wisdom of God the world through its wisdom did not know him, God was pleased through the foolishness of what was preached to save those who believe. 22Jews demand miraculous signs and Greeks look for wisdom, 23but we preach Christ crucified: a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, 24but to those whom God has called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. 25For the foolishness of God is wiser than man's wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than man's strength.

26Brothers, think of what you were when you were called. Not many of you were wise by human standards; not many were influential; not many were of noble birth. 27But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong. 28He chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things�and the things that are not�to nullify the things that are, 29so that no one may boast before him. 30It is because of him that you are in Christ Jesus, who has become for us wisdom from God�that is, our righteousness, holiness and redemption. 31Therefore, as it is written: "Let him who boasts boast in the Lord."

1 Corinthians 18-31 (NIV)

So Christians must do whatever it is in their power to overturn unjust laws, or laws that are contrary to God's law and His character?

Does that also include Christians standing against laws that make illegal aliens criminals, and treat human beings different because of their legal residential status? what should the Christian respond be? The Bible talks about cities of refuge. Can the USA be considered a place of refuge for the many who seek physical,political, economic freedom?

The "cities of refuge" in the Old Testament were for people who had involuntarily killed someone - it was a place of safety, because otherwise, they might be "accidentally" killed in retaliation. See Numbers 35:10-29.

These cities were "for the Israelites, and for the foreigner, and for the settler among them, so that anyone who kills any person accidentally may flee there."

The designation of cities of refuge had nothing to do with "the many who seek physical,political, economic freedom."

""They did it too" isn't a very convincing argument."

Neither is "because Christians did something wrong, the whole system is invalid."

"Neither the Bible nor Christians are a legitimate or even recognizable moral authority on the subject of sexual orientation."

Aside from the fact that your statement evidences a total lack of understanding of what the Bible has to say on its value as moral authority or morality in general, the Bible is clear that ANY sin, no matter how great or small, is offensive to God and violates His perfect nature.

The grace revealed in the Bible is not that He condemns one sin or another but that He made a way for all people to be reconciled to Himself.

Romans is the best analysis of the whole sin picture in relation to man's standing before God.

Romans 1:18-24: For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of people who suppress the truth by their unrighteousness, because what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. For since the creation of the world his invisible attributes--his eternal power and divine nature--have been clearly seen, because they are understood through what has been made [i.e., creation]. So people are without excuse.

For although they knew God, they did not glorify him as God or give him thanks, but they became futile in their thoughts and their senseless hearts were darkened. Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for an image resembling mortal human beings or birds or four-footed animals or reptiles.

Therefore God gave them over in the desires of their hearts to impurity, to dishonor their bodies among themselves. They exchanged the truth of God for a lie and worshiped and served the creation rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen.

For this reason God gave them over to dishonorable passions. For their women exchanged the natural sexual relations for unnatural ones, and likewise the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed in their passions for one another. Men committed shameless acts with men and received in themselves the due penalty for their error.

And just as they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them over to a depraved mind, to do what should not be done. They are filled with every kind of unrighteousness, wickedness, covetousness, malice. They are rife with envy, murder, strife, deceit, hostility. They are gossips, slanderers, haters of God, insolent, arrogant, boastful, contrivers of all sorts of evil, disobedient to parents, senseless, covenant-breakers, heartless, ruthless. Although they fully know God's righteous decree that those who practice such things deserve to die, they not only do them but also approve of those who practice them.

2:1 Therefore you are without excuse, whoever you are, when you judge someone else. For on whatever grounds you judge another, you condemn yourself, because you who judge practice the same things.

The point of all of this is that the Bible IS the authority for morality, and that no one is excused. The purpose of the law (and the Bible's recitation of it) is to demonstrate that all of us are without excuse - we are all sinners in need of God's grace.

Romans 3:20- For no one is declared righteous before him by the works of the law, for through the law comes the knowledge of sin.

Romans 3:22b-24: For there is no distinction, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. But they are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus.

The fact that all are sinners, however, and that as a result, anyone should just be allowed to do whatever because if it's all under grace it's all forgiven is also hogwash and Paul addresses that argument in Romans 6.

The point of resisting efforts to allow homosexuality to have equal status with marriage between a man and a woman a) defies God's law; b) mocks the institution of marriage as God set it up; and, 3) perpetuates the moral slide illustrated in Romans 1.

The argument that because homosexuals have these feelings and this "wiring", they should be allowed to act on those feelings is no more valid than arguing that a sociopath who recognizes no moral restrictions whatsoever or a pedophile should be allowed to follow his (or her) feelings - after all, if that's how God "made" them, then it should be OK, right? Let me know when you plan to let your child go visit a pedophile.....

Lawyerchik, I have to disagree with your assertion that a non-literalist viewpoint is necessarily formed by an unwillingness to accept your view of eternal, conscious torment for all unbelievers. You have made the claim yourself that the Scriptures are innerant as they were originally written, not as they've been translated, yet your view, which you seem to consider an open and shut case, is based much more on modern translation than original text. Specifically, mistranslation of the word "Aionion" as eternal, and translation of three greek words, Gehenna, Hades, and Tartarus, as the pagan word "Hell". Being an innerancy believing literalist far from necessitates sharing your believe in eternal, conscious torments.

I know the differences between the places - the totality of the Scripture, not just the verses you want to read, supports the description I've presented.

Before Christ's birth, there was a place referred to in the Gospels as "Abraham's Bosom" where those whose faith in God's fulfillment of His promise to send the Messiah were given comfort. Where those who died without such faith were committed was separated from "Abraham's Bosom" by a great chasm. See Luke 16:14-31.

By the time you get to Revelation, after the millenial reign of Christ and the last battle, the devil and those who fight will him will be "thrown into the lake of fire and sulfur, where the beast and the false prophet are too, and they will be tormented there day and night forever and ever."

Death and Hades will also be thrown into the lake of fire. Revelation 20:15 says, "If anyone’s name was not found written in the book of life, that person was thrown into the lake of fire." That's what it says. "Lake of fire," "torment", "day and night forever and ever."

The version I usually use is the New American Standard version; the New International Version is (somewhat) more readable, but it lacks the accuracy of the NASB.

A note on the comment about Hebrew vocabulary being different than today's English.

In the Tanakh [note 1] (an acronym for the Jewish Bible, or Old Testament) the same Hebrew word "eved" is used for slave and servant. For example, the land of Egypt is called the "beit avodim" (house of slavery) Exodus 20:2. Moses is described as an "eved Adonai" (servant of the Lord) Deuteronomy 34:5.

God freed the Israelites from slavery in Egypt so that they could be servants to Him.
"Because the Israelites are my servants, whom I brought out of Egypt, they must not be sold as slaves." Leviticus 25:42

"for the Israelites belong to me as servants. They are my servants, whom I brought out of Egypt. I am the LORD your God." Leviticus 25:55

So, while the same word is used to describe slavery and service to God, they are vastly different concepts. Slavery, while permitted, is not necessarily condoned. (See Lev. 25:42 "they must not be sold as slaves"). But all Israel is to be in service of God. "You will be for Me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation." Exodus 19:6.

Be well,
Joseph

1 Tanakh stands for the three-part division of Scripture: Torah (“Teaching” or “Law”), Nevi’im (“Prophets”) and Khethuvim (“Writings” sometimes referred to by the first book in this section, “Psalms”). Jesus referred to Scripture as “the Law of Moses, the Prophets and the Psalms.” Luke 24:44

Can I just mention one thing?

In regards to the whole issue of being able to see all the nations of the earth from a mountain, and claiming this proves the Bible in error. This is absurd.

First- you'e quoting the English translation, and it's not always accurate. The word "world" is used to describe a famine- we know it wasn't referring to a global famine. The phrase all the nations is English...what the original shows precisely, I don't know.

Common sense alert- the Biblical authors weren't idiots. They lived in a region of mountains and very tall ones at that...now, anyone with common sense knows that men who lived thousands of yrs in mountain terrain would surely know that a mt won't allow you to see all the world. It's clearly either a supernatural vision or a figure of speech. The writers would have to have lived their entire lives in a cave to not know you can't see all the world from a mountain/hill. So, you take the obvious answer- they weren't fools, they had been on many mountains themselves, thus it was a vision or figure of speech.