Quote:
Originally Posted by MarchHare
You missed the point; God says nothing about slavery being wrong. In fact, he implicitly allows his people to keep slaves. All of us can surely agree that slavery is immoral, but in the Bible, it's not treated as such. If we're supposed to learn morality from the Bible (as many people claim), why doesn't God condomn slavery? This would make an especially potent addition to the narrative of the Old Testament and the story of the Jewish people escaping Egypt. Since they themselves were once slaves, you'd think that once they gained their freedom God would forbid them from having slaves of their own.
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I think God implicitly condemns slavery, he certainly comdemns the negative aspects of slavery (treating them poorly, etc.). I'm not sure if the world at that time was ready to abolish slavery.
Besides, God didn't give his entire revelation to us all at once - a condemning of slavery was coming, but it would have caused too much chaos at that time to completely abolish it. The law had to get progressively stiffer over time. A modern day example would Calgary's smoking laws, although the smoking laws progressed a lot faster.
So, at this timepoint in history, the law is "treat slaves well," but it shouldn't be regarded as the final plan.