How so? How does it differ?
I'll respond to the Hagar thing here. She may have enjoyed elevated pregnancy status, but was she "asked" if she wanted to "lie" with Abe in the first place? Offered an opt out "nah, I'll take a pass on the old guy"? No, as it says, she was "given." Very Handmaid's Tale. No doubt the plight of many slave girls. Hagar the Egyptian is a horrid story of slave mistreatment, (Yahweh never punished Sarah) and plenty of others were likely used and abused in the same way.
Hagar left, when Sarah started mistreating her. And, only under advisement by the angel of the Lord (and the promise of Ishmael's being prosperous) did she return. So, I'd say that, if she weren't cool with marrying Abe and found that to be a form of mistreatment, she could have departed.
And remember that the beef between the two started, because Hagar apparently started flaunting her pregnancy in Sarah's face. If I'm not mistaken, few things scarred the soul of an Anicent Near East woman more than not being able to have children. Getting poked in the eye with that by your handmaid-turned-rival wife couldn't have set well with her (notwithstanding the fact that it was Sarah's idea in the first place).
That the Levite slept like a babe while his concubine was being gang raped to death outside speaks less of the "rules" set out in the OT, but volumes of what was actually tolerated.
Point taken. But, the text states that the houseguest handed over the Levite's concubine (he actually offered both her and his own daughter).
Either the Levite wasn't there when it happen. Or, he did hand her over to those Benjamites, failing to add that part to his report to the Israelite elders.
That doesn't dismiss the fact that the rapists were to be punished by death for their deeds.
Indentured servitude didn't end with biblical days. Lots of Irish and others came to the Americas that exact way a few centuries ago. It was a harsh, terrible life, and as documentation shows, women were often sexually exploited, abused, raped, etc. A lowly slave/servant didn't have much recourse against a powerful and wealthy owner. Where would she (or he) go anyway? Today we have human trafficking. More of same.
Yet you think somehow, magically, primitive desert dwellers living thousands of years ago were more evolved. That's very Disney-esque.
I'm sure in 6030 people will look back at us and say, "wow, they were savages, but look how moral. They didn't rape or kill, but on the off chance they did, offenders were all punished. We can ascertain this from their books of written law."
No one said that these offenses didn't occur. But, when they did, there were stiff consequences for that happening. Are we more "evolved" than those folks were? By and large, we don't execute rapists today. In fact, the U.S. Supreme Court just overturned a LA state law that gave the death penalty to child rapists, claming it was "cruel and unusual punishment" to execute these dudes, simply because the girl survived the abuse.
You're right about the indentured servant thing. But, what you left out what that, when the abuses became too frequent and out of control, the Irish settlers had the option of leaving. So, those in the slave trade ended up getting slaves that were very conspicuous (i.e. black people), deemed them "chattel", and were designed to be slaves for life.
They were kidnapped from their homeland (contrary to Biblical law); they were severely beaten and killed (with no punishment given to those responsible); the women were indeed RAPED (repeatedly and often, with no penalty at all to their assailants). Any children produced from this received NO inheritance, not even freedom.
If you did any of those things to an OT servant (Hebrew or non-Hebrew), you got severely punished for such.
