FALSE. Are you really so ignorant that you think the Bible was written in modern English?
I don't think anyone has said this or even implied it. Your strawman does not impress.
Nowhere does the Bible condone slavery at all. In fact it specifically condemns slavery. One would have to be profoundly ignorant to believe that the Bible was written in contemporary English and that the words we use today carried the same meaning then as they do now. What they called slavery we would today call an apprenticeship. If you wanted to learn a trade you would willingly contract yourself with someone who was a master in the trade to teach you and in return for your dedication and servitude you would get free room and board (typically for seven years) and be taught how to use the tools of your chosen trade. Today we call them "graduate students".
I would have to very much disagree. You might be able to try and squeeze your little interpretation in with passages regarding fellow Hebrew slaves, such as -
“If you buy a Hebrew servant, he is to serve you for six years. But in the seventh year, he shall go free, without paying anything. 3 If he comes alone, he is to go free alone; but if he has a wife when he comes, she is to go with him. 4 If his master gives him a wife and she bears him sons or daughters, the woman and her children shall belong to her master, and only the man shall go free.
5 “But if the servant declares, ‘I love my master and my wife and children and do not want to go free,’ 6 then his master must take him before the judges.[a] He shall take him to the door or the doorpost and pierce his ear with an awl. Then he will be his servant for life."
However it most certainly can't be stated for passages like -
“‘Your male and female slaves are to come from the nations around you; from them you may buy slaves. 45 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. 46 You can bequeath them to your children as inherited property and can make them slaves for life, but you must not rule over your fellow Israelites ruthlessly.'"
or -
“Anyone who beats their male or female slave with a rod must be punished if the slave dies as a direct result, 21 but they are not to be punished if the slave recovers after a day or two, since the slave is their property."
Your interpretation here doesn't correlate with the culture at the time, and you can try and reinterpret your religious texts all you want. During the time period they indeed had and condoned slavery. In terms of fellow Hebrew servitude, they were still considered property. Often Hebrews were owned due to issues with debt. However, this doesn't change the fact that they still owned them. I'm not sure what your definition of slavery is, but most definitions have to do with the owning of another human being.
Those who weren't Hebrew were undeniably considered property. It's simply impossible to interpret it any other way, or at least to do so and still be intellectually honest. Often these slaves would even be passed down to the owner's children. And of course the slaves' children would become slaves. If the Bible doesn't condone slavery, then there is no such thing as slavery.
“Anyone who kidnaps another and either sells him or still has him when he is caught must be put to death” (Exodus 21:16)
That is what we mean by "slavery" today and it is condemned by the Bible. "Slaves obey your master" should be more accurately translated as "Servants, obey your employer". What WE call slavery, the forced imprisonment of people based on race or class did exist but it was outlawed by the Bible.
Wrong. Kidnapping isn't the same as slavery. For one thing, this applies to fellow Hebrews, not the captured members of other surrounding nations who were clearly sold as slaves. And Hebrew slaves were often bought due to their debt, or potentially their parent's debt. This is about kidnapping fellow Hebrews. It can be compared to a Caucasian woman being kidnapped during the 1800s in the US, which I don't doubt was against the law. It doesn't change the fact that slavery still happened in the US.
Modern translations such as:
American Standard version
English Revised version
American King James version
World English Bible
All use the word "servants":
"Servants, obey in all things them that are your masters according to the flesh"
Thats because there wasn't considered much of a difference between the two. A slave is someone who serves you. The difference is just that you own them as property rather than they being employed. Your various Biblical interpretations do not impress me.
So what the American Atheists had to do was CHERRY PICK a translation that confirmed their anti religious prejudice. That level of intellectual dishonesty disqualifies them, and those who support them, as being unbiased modern educated intellectuals engaged in the dispassionate pursuit of the truth and exposes them, AND YOU, as being no better than a trailer park creationist who cherry picks scientists for quotes that support his preconceived anti evolution bias.
The American Atheists deliberately chose a translation that used "slavery" instead of "servant" and then truncated the quotation in order to give the false impression that the intent of passage was to condone the forced imprisonment of people according to race.
Which makes them, and those here supporting them, anti religious bigots.
As I have shown above, this is nonsense.
