blaue_Fledermaus

I missed the context of banning books?

The description of the first primitive church in Jerusalem is very close to an ideal anarchist commune.

Not just mine, AFAIK it’s the most common one.

Just an example of not needing to be religious to create stupid justifications to kill people.

A single generation of incest is usually not enough to cause bad effects, and anyway it’s an at least 3000 years old story, that’s what people “knew” at the time.

And this behavior is not exclusive to “religious” people, the nominally atheist USSR did very similar.

He fulfilled the law, and did not have slaves.

The example of His own actions is to read the law with the perspective of protecting the weak, the “lesser”, the vulnerable.

I did study theology, but I certainly need a refresher.

Yes, the servitude can be considered a form of slavery, but I think it can be useful to distinguish as it’s quite different from the more modern chattel slavery.

And I don’t think it’s valid today, these laws in the Bible were written in and for a specific context of time and place, and the commandments of love supersede it.

Until 300 years ago when slavery was considered OK, the biblical law on it would still be VERY progressive.

I don’t and can’t disagree with what you said. The moment the powerful started using the Bible its message was twisted into supporting all sorts of evil, like those you mentioned.
But I believe the message of Jesus is that it is meant to be read from the perspective of protecting, helping, and freeing the weak, the “lesser”, the vulnerable.
And it was others reading it this way that made the ideas that became human rights to spread in the Western World.

That doesn’t hurt free will? Someone receiving a “revelation” is still free to act in it as they will; Christian theology also recognizes Natural/General Revelation in which anyone can find God’s will just by observing the natural world and/or society. Apostle Paul called the Greek philosophers “prophets”, and I personally think the title also applies to modern scientists.

(cont. Mastodon char limit)

I’m not saying it’s not possible, but that’s how it happened in the Western world.

Would it later on happen “naturally” without it? Maybe; hard to say, we can only speculate since it’s not how it went.

But even from a “Christian” perspective, I would agree, yes it would; these values align with God’s will and He would have put these ideas in peoples’ heads even if the Bible didn’t exist.

In that temporal and geographic context, yes, very much.

There’s no specific verse condemning it explicitly, but the overall arc of Abraham’s story is that whenever he tries to be “clever” and fulfill God’s promise on his own there are bad consequences, in this case the soured relationship between Hagar and Sarah, the need of God’s intervention to save his son from death in the desert, and the origin of yet another people that would later antagonize the Israelites, the Arabs.

Technically servitude is not the same as slavery, but still bad.

Considering that until 300 years ago most people considered slavery to be a natural right, a 3000 years old law limiting it to at most 7 years was VERY progressive.

Also treated by the Bible as something bad.

I’m really sorry you went through that, I hope you can find healing.

I imagine it’s not much, and you don’t have any reason to believe me, but because of it I wouldn’t hesitate in protecting you in these dangerous times.

Still bad, but servitude =/= slavery.

7 in the Bible is usually a symbol for completeness. The 70*7 specifically is meant to be “unending”.

It is very likely to really be a 7 years limit to debts.

And I would love if the Bible-thumping politicians proposed this debt limit for modern times, but they are all just hypocrites.

Yes, I don’t support banning books. One of the books in the Bible can even be considered pornographic (Song of Songs), but it has been considered a model for a healthy relationship.

I understand your position, but I respectfully urge you to study more history, all modern western ideas of universal human rights are based on or heavily influenced by the Bible. Dominion by Tom Holland, despite the terrible name, is a good source on the subject.

Also, sure, we are partially past it, but considering that until 300 years ago almost everybody considered slavery a natural right, a 3000 years old law limiting servitude to 7 years is VERY progressive.

Within the story itself it doesn’t show judgement, just “it happened”, but later on the descendents of Lot’s daughters are considered cursed peoples.

If there’s criticism to be made to the story is that it may have been written this way to justify the Israelites being racist against their cousins.

I’m not supporting banning books, just pointing that the Bible itself considers the events of that story bad.