Post by Karl Aksel on Jan 25, 2019 23:37:31 GMT
"Yes, have many children and repopulate the earth and subdue it."
I'm sorry, I... don't see it.
In fact, if you read further in that same chapter, you see Noah curse one of his sons:
“A curse upon the Canaanites,” he swore.
“May they be the lowest of slaves
To the descendants of Shem and Japheth.”
Then he said,
“God bless Shem,
And may Canaan be his slave.
God bless Japheth,
And let him share the prosperity of Shem,
And let Canaan be his slave.”
www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Genesis+9&version=TLB
Those are the only references to slavery in that chapter. And God had no problem with this, because apparently he made it so.
On the contrary, it is questionable ethics for all who have modern ethics. So those who defend the Bible in terms of slavery, are - practically by definition - the ones with very poor ethics.
God is explicit about things he does not want you to do. He tells you explicitly not to steal, not to murder, not to wear clothes made for the opposite sex etc. But at no point does he instruct us not to have slaves. He had every opportunity to do so (or rather, the Bible authors did), but there was never any condemnation, any kind of condemnation, of slavery.
First of all, it wasn't "a former slave" - it was his own son. Not by blood, but by love. Second, he didn't tell the slave master to receive him as friend rather than slave, he beseeched him to. Third, you are placing the cart before the horse. This is the correct way to look at it: Paul's request to have Onesimus freed in no way contradicts his position that slaves should be diligent to their masters. Throughout the history of slavery we have slave owners granting freedom to slaves, or people asking for individuals to be freed, who were not opposed to the institution of slavery. There is no contradiction, as there is no overlap. Just because you want something to happen to one specific individual, does not mean you want the same to happen to all individuals of the same demographic.
Unlike Moses, St. Paul was not a rebel leader. Only a travelling missionary, going out into the world to preach the Gospel. Back during the first 300 or 400 years of Christianity, a great many of the converts to the religion came from the lower classes of people, including slaves, the disabled, the poor, etc. This is because the Gospel taught that God Had a Special Love for the poor & downtrodden, and encouraged humility over pride.
Yes, indeed - specifically, even if they were not rewarded in this life, they'd be rewarded all the more in the next. And slave owners didn't mind this at all, because here was a religion which told slaves to be content to be slaves! So there was incentive both from below and above to encourage Christianity, which is a major reason why it spread so fast.