Exposition of Exodus 21:20-21: How Slave Beaters Are To Be Treated
August 3, 2009 at 10:20 pm Daniel Fincke
20 “If a man beats his male or female slave with a rod and the slave dies as a direct result, he must be punished, 21 but he is not to be punished if the slave gets up after a day or two, since the slave is his property.
Hello fella’s.
First of all, Jesus said to love thy neighbor..this means all people, including African’s! It was the African people themselves who sold their own kind to the west as slaves for profit.
It was NOT condoned in the NT. God is a just God. He does not have preferences based on skin color.
Actually, slavery IS condoned in the New Testament. Paul writes in Ephesians 6:5, “Slaves, obey your earthly masters with respect and fear, and with sincerity of heart, just as you would obey Christ.”
And even if the New Testament did not condone slavery, so what? That would not make the God of the Bible, who was also supposedly the same unchanging God in the Old Testament and the New Testament, a “just God” if he instituted slavery (as he explicitly did in the passage explicated above) in the Old Testament. The (imaginary) reversal you (falsely) claim is in the New Testament does not make the Old Testament any less wicked and the God attested to in that Old Testament any less wicked and unjust.
And slavery is wrong even if it’s not based on “skin color”.
And referring to the Africans as “selling their own kind” is really crude. We’re all the same kind, humankind.
Daniel Fincke is the founder, owner, and primary blogger of Camels With Hammers. Dan has his PhD in philosophy from Fordham University. He wrote his dissertation on Nietzsche’s philosophy and metaethics. At Camels With Hammers he aims to discuss atheism, ethics, religion, Nietzsche, secularism, and general issues in philosophy in ways that are both accessible to non-philosophers and yet stimulating to professional philosophers. He is simultaneously an Adjunct Assistant Professor at both Hofstra University and the City University of New York Hunter College, and also an Adjunct Professor at William Paterson University, Fairfield University, and Fordham University. He has taught at the university level since 2003. His remarks on this blog, of course, do not speak for any of the universities with which he is affiliated.
Until he was 21 he was a devout Evangelical Christian. As an undergraduate, he studied philosophy and minored in religion at Grove City College, which is one of America's most religiously and politically right wing colleges. He became an atheist there during his senior year five months after The Portable Nietzsche dealt what would prove to be the fatal blows to his faith.
Dan lives in Manhattan. His gmail address is "camelswithhammers". You are invited to become his Facebook friend, +1 him on Google Plus, follow him on Twitter, and/or or like Camels With Hammers'Facebook page. Listen to an interview he gave to the Angry Atheist podcast to hear him discuss his deconversion and his views on atheism and religion. Watch a 10 minute video in which he overviews some of his views on Nietzsche that he developed in his dissertation. Read his article Apostasy As A Religious Act (Or "Why A Camel Hammers The Idols Of Faith") if you are curious about the meaning of the blog's name. Eric Steinhart is an occasional guest contributor, so remember to check the authorship of each blog post to know who you are reading. He is a non-theist metaphysician and philosopher of religion. He is Professor of Philosophy at William Paterson University, and is the author of many scholarly articles and three books.
Hello fella’s.
First of all, Jesus said to love thy neighbor..this means all people, including African’s! It was the African people themselves who sold their own kind to the west as slaves for profit.
It was NOT condoned in the NT. God is a just God. He does not have preferences based on skin color.
TY
Actually, slavery IS condoned in the New Testament. Paul writes in Ephesians 6:5, “Slaves, obey your earthly masters with respect and fear, and with sincerity of heart, just as you would obey Christ.”
And even if the New Testament did not condone slavery, so what? That would not make the God of the Bible, who was also supposedly the same unchanging God in the Old Testament and the New Testament, a “just God” if he instituted slavery (as he explicitly did in the passage explicated above) in the Old Testament. The (imaginary) reversal you (falsely) claim is in the New Testament does not make the Old Testament any less wicked and the God attested to in that Old Testament any less wicked and unjust.
And slavery is wrong even if it’s not based on “skin color”.
And referring to the Africans as “selling their own kind” is really crude. We’re all the same kind, humankind.