Exodus 21:1-4:
"If thou buy a Hebrew servant, six years he shall serve: and in the seventh he shall go out free for nothing. If he came in by himself, he shall go out by himself: if he were married, then his wife shall go out with him. If his master have given him a wife, and she have born him sons or daughters; the wife and her children shall be her master's, and he shall go out by himself."
Consider that. What type of employer demands that any children you bear while in their employ become the property of the employer… again, sounds like chattel slavery to me.
Once again, the lack of “Hooked on Phonics” training rears its silly head. The reason the wife and children remain under the employ of the master is because….THE MASTER GAVE THE MALE SERVANT THE WIFE, IN THE FIRST PLACE!! Had you bothered reading the data I posted on this matter, you would have known that, if the master gives a female servant to his male servant for a wife, it's effectively the same effect as his giving a daughter for wife. The master has paid for the woman's food, lodging, clothes, etc.
In other words, should the male servant cough up the dough for a dowry, he gets to leave with the wife (and the kids).
However, as verse 3 indicated, which you clearly didn’t read, if the man and wife came together to serve this master, they leave together (with the kids).
In fact, these “indentured servants” had so little in the way of human rights that they could be genitally mutilated on the whims of their masters:
Genesis 17:13:
"He that is born in thy house, and he that is bought with thy money, must needs be circumcised: and my covenant shall be in your flesh for an everlasting covenant."
Genesis 17:27:
"And all the men of his house, born in the house, and bought with money of the stranger, were circumcised with him."
Lack of reading comprehension, thy name is Luke. Did you somehow miss the terms, “He that is born in thy house” or “All the men of his house”? That means EVERY MALE, from the master, on down to the maleservant, gets circumcised. And (with regards to the Genesis verse), that happens to the grown men, simply because this is when the circumcision covenant began. Males, from that time forward, were circumcised, after they were EIGHT DAYS OLD.
But even more dishonest than any of this, is the deliberate omission by Loco and McWay of the specific terms and conditions that applied to female slaves.
Female slaves were indeed slaves for life… chattel slaves:
Exodus 21:7:
"And if a man sell his daughter to be a maidservant, she shall not go out as the menservants do."
Try that again, boy genius. Female slaves could be married and once that happens, the term, maidservants goes bye-bye.
You'd know that, had you bothered to read the next four verses, boy genius:
Verse 8-11
If she please not her master, who hath betrothed her to himself, then shall he let her be redeemed: to sell her unto a strange nation he shall have no power, seeing he hath dealt deceitfully with her.
And if he have betrothed her unto his son, he shall deal with her after the manner of daughters. If he take him another wife; her food, her raiment, and her duty of marriage, shall he not diminish. And if he do not these three unto her, then shall she go out free without money. That means that someone else can marry her, and once he does, she becomes a WIFE. That ain't chattel slavery. Furthermore, he can't sell her off to another nation, which would be the very antithesis of chattel slavery (in which people can be sold, anywhere, anytime, for any reason, without their consent).
Non-Hebrew slaves were considered chattel slaves whether male or female:
Leviticus 25:44-46:
"Your male and female slaves are to come from the nations around you; from them you may buy slaves. You may also buy some of the temporary residents living among you and members of their clans born in your country, and they will become your property. You can will them to your children as inherited property and can make them slaves for life, but you must not rule over your fellow Israelites ruthlessly."
If that were the case, the women would NOT BE ABLE TO BE REDEEMED. And, you mentioned earlier (which pretty much torpedoes this argument of yours), severe injury or mistreatment VOIDS the arrangement, allowing them to go free.
Once again, that ain't chattel slavery.
My assertion that female slaves were chattel slaves subject to rape and sexual violence and legally disenfranchised of their right to their own sexual consent seems to have caused the most consternation. It is a pretty damning indictment… but I don’t understand why I am being Hectored to provide specifics on this. The Bible is replete with examples of such barbarity.
You’re being “Hectored”, because (as is often the case), your claims are inaccurate. All one has to do is see from where you’re getting such foolishness, read it for himself, and commence the dissecting, appropriately. That’s probably why you usually hide your specific references.
For example: female slaves could be raped… but only at the price of a sacrificed ram. (The female slave would be flogged, but could not be put to death because she was property):
Leviticus 19:20-22:
"And whosoever lieth carnally with a woman, that is a bondmaid, betrothed to a husband, and not at all redeemed, nor freedom given her; she shall be scourged; they shall not be put to death, because she was not free. And he shall bring his trespass offering unto the LORD, unto the door of the tabernacle of the congregation, even a ram for a trespass offering. And the priest shall make an atonement for him with the ram of the trespass offering before the LORD for his sin which he hath done: and the sin which he hath done shall be forgiven him."
Operation FOOT-IN-MOUTH is a-go for Luke. Weren’t you just blubbering, not that long ago, about that Levite’s concubine who got assaulted and raped? I guess you conveniently forgot that, when the Levite reported what happened, the Israelite leaders demanded that the Benjamites responsible BE PUT TO DEATH (there ain’t no mention about any ram sacrifices).
Furthermore, from that particular verse, there is no mention of RAPE. Lying carnally with a woman implies that the sex is voluntary. The reason she gets flogged, INSTEAD OF KILLED (as what normally happens when betrothed women start creeping), is because she’s not married or betrothed yet. It ain’t official until the would-be redeemer actually coughs up the $$$$$$.
Verse 29 of this same chapter instructs fathers not to make prostitutes out of their daughters. In sexual purity and marital terms, the same applied for female servants.
Do not prostitute thy daughter, to cause her to be a whore; lest the land fall to whoredom, and the land become full of wickedness.
Women and children were routinely taken for chattel slaves as spoils of war:
Deuteronomy 20:14:
"But the women, and the little ones, and the cattle, and all that is in the city, even all the spoil thereof, shalt thou take unto thyself"
If a Hebrew man took a fancy to any female war captive, he could take her as a slave and try her out before deciding whether to keep her. It doesn’t really sound like indentured servitude if the employer has the right to rape the female staff members to decide whether he wants to keep them? Does it?
You missed the part, where he must give her a month to mourn. Then, he must MARRY her. Once that happens, she gets treated like any other wife. Non-Hebrew women, once married, became effectively HEBREWS, with all rights and privileges. Again see Ruth. She was a Moabitess. Yet, when her first husband died, she was redeemed and treated the EXACT same way that a Hebrew wife was treated, with regards to property inheiritance and care.
And, O non-comprehending one, there is no "trying her out" issue at all. He can't touch her for at least a month. And, if he wants get busy with her, HE HAS TO MARRY HER. If he divorces here after that, he gets NOTHING for casting her away. On the contrary, he has to pay for her care, especially if they have kids together. The firstborn from this dissolved marriage BECOMES HIS HEIR, when he dies.
Deuteronomy 21:10-14:
"When thou goest forth to war against thine enemies, and the Lord thy God hath delivered them into thine hands, and thou hast taken them captive, And seest among the captives a beautiful woman, and hast a desire unto her, that thou wouldest have her to thy wife; Then thou shalt bring her home to thine house; and she shall shave her head, and pare her nails; And she shall put the raiment of her captivity from off her, and shall remain in thine house, and bewail her father and her mother a full month: and after that thou shalt go in unto her, and be her husband, and she shall be thy wife.
And it shall be, if thou have no delight in her, then thou shalt let her go whither she will; but thou shalt not sell her at all for money, thou shalt not make merchandise of her, because thou hast humbled her."
…this translation of “humbled” in this sexual context is another example of a softening translation. It should be translated as “...because thou hast raped her”. As it was translated for centuries.
That’s from the KJV version. Where is this other version that supposedly translates “humbled” as “raped”? The Hebrew word for "humbled" is
"anah", which means "put down, oppressed, afflicted". The word "rape" is not used, in the translation of "anah".
So, that means, boy genius, you have to go the the painful inconvenience to show that (in the ancient Hebrerw text) a word, other than "anah" was used in that text, and this other word means "raped".
In fact, female slaves had so little control over their own sexual consent that they could be handed over as sexual surrogates:
Genesis 16:1-2:
"Now Sarai Abram's wife bare him no children: and she had an handmaid, an Egyptian, whose name was Hagar. And Sarai said unto Abram, Behold now, the LORD hath restrained me from bearing: I pray thee, go in unto my maid; it may be that I may obtain children by her. And Abram hearkened to the voice of Sarai."
You screwed up the last time you tried this trick, Luke. Exactly where is it stated that Hagar did NOT consent to this agreement and was raped? If she had not wanted to do the deed, she could have simply refused and/or RUN AWAY (as she did once Sarah started mistreating her, which started from Hagar’s apparent GLOATING over the fact that she could have kids and Sarah could not).
And, as Loco indicated, Abraham MARRIED Hagar, before they did the deed and had Ishmael.
In fact, not only did female slaves not even have ownership over their own sexual consent (considered the property of their master) but their mistress had right of first refusal on any children she might have… it doesn’t sound much like “indentured servitude” when the employer can gift the employee as a sexual plaything then forcefully adopt any child she might conceive, does it?
Genesis 30:3-4:
"And she said, Behold my maid Bilhah, go in unto her; and she shall bear upon my knees, that I may also have children by her. And she gave him Bilhah her handmaid to wife: and Jacob went in unto her."
Genesis 30:9-10:
"When Leah saw that she had left bearing, she took Zilpah her maid, and gave her Jacob to wife. And Zilpah Leah's maid bare Jacob a son."
…so, in conclusion:
A non-Hebrew woman living in one of the cities destroyed by marauding Hebrew hoardes would have her husband and infant children slaughtered before her and might only be spared the same fate herself because one of the Hebrew soldiers took a fancy to her… this Hebrew soldier would then forcibly take her back to Israel as a hostage, where, having first suffered the ignominy of having her head shaved and nails clipped, she would be kept under house arrest for a month.
Once the month was up she would then be subject to an indeterminate period of rapings… nothing too severe, just the standard raping female slaves were subject to and possibly a beating if she displeased her master, but not so vicious a beating that she would lose either an eye or a tooth, and if she was beaten to death then it wouldn’t be a continuous savage beating that might kill her on the spot but possibly a beating from which she might die a couple of days later.
If she’s lucky, and her new Hebrew master is somewhat decent enough to be put off by the continuous rape on the threat of torture, then he might let her go.
Once set free she now has to somehow escape to her homeland without being captured by any of the Hebrews involved in the slave trade, if she is actually recaptured then sold as a standard slave she has no hope of ever being set free.
She is now the property of her new master and can be raped; beaten or gifted as a sexual plaything… on the threat of more savage beatings. Should she have children, her children can be taken/stolen from her and forcibly adopted by her master or mistress.
In conclusion, your claims are utterly ridiculous and demonstratively FALSE. Nothing in those verses indicates any lack of consent by the female servants involved. In fact, as the verses clearly state (which you apparently missed, in your usual foolish haste), the master had to MARRY these women, before any children could be had. This was not some wanton raping, with reckless abandon (as what happened with black women in America).
You don’t marry “sexual playthings”, boy genius. The fact that Jacob did this means that he is on the hook for the care of these women and their children, REGARDLESS of their servant-status.
Any children not stolen in this manner will themselves be slaves for life, subject to the same beatings and sexual violence without any hope of reprieve. Male children will be forcibly circumcised in traditional Hebrew style: foreskin cut with a dull bronze blade and excess skin sucked off the penis by the priest with his mouth, despite the fact that such an operation is routinely fatal (up to 10% mortality rate) in a time before antibiotics... even more dangerous if the priest has any sort of STD or mouth infection.
All of this would be well within Hebrew Old Testament Mosaic Law.
Yep, sounds like "indentured servitude" to me... Morons.
If you keep quiet sometimes, no one will know how bone-headed your drivel can be. Circumcision was required for ALL HEBREWS MALES, period. It started with Abraham, Ishmael, and Isaac. Were any of them slaves, genius? NO!!! Jacob and Esau got circumcised, too. And, so did Jacob’s male children (those from Rachel, the wife he initially wanted; Leah, the one he was tricked into marrying; and their respective servants, who were willing pawns in a one-upmanship game, between rival sisters).
And, if that weren’t enough, Einstein, circumcision (a mere removing of foreskin) occurred, when these boys were EIGHT DAYS OLD, hardly the traumatic experience you so cluelessly make it out to be. Jacob had 12 sons. If your claims were actually true, only ONE or two would have survived circumcision.
On the contrary, per the book of Exodus, which you seem to be so eager to quote, the Hebrews multiplied GREATLY, when they were in Egypt. That flies right in the fact of the alleged “10% mortality rate” (a claim for which you apparently have nothing to support).
I would ask that those reading this thread take the time to call McWay on his bullshit when he starts his apologist bullshit:
-claiming each quotation is an example of a special case
-quoting an apologist translation that exchanges "worker" for "slave/servant"
-picking apart the grammar
-quoting an obscure saying attributed to Jebus which might possibly repeal all Old Testament slavery laws
...thanks. He needs to know he's not winning anyone over.
The Luke
You have continued in your usual fashion of utterly false claims, inserting things into texts that are not there, shooting yourself in the foot by clearly glossing over parts of Scripture, that UNDERMINE the very argument you try to make.
Worst (and most pathetically) of all, you whine like T.O. after a Cowboys loss, flinging stupid accusations, hoping that it will prop up your feeble arguments. No one is twisting your words, using “touch/feely” translations of the Bible, or any of that other nonsense you keep spewing. Your takes are weak, demonstratively false, and utterly unsupported.
That’s why it troubles you so much to actually produce references (if you can actually do that). A simple read of the facts burns your brittle claims to the ground.
