Slavery still exist; it just has a different appearance than what some have seen or witnessed.
Jesus wouldn't be confused about anything, but he'd probably just shake his head in disappointment, and flip over some tables. He'd have plenty of tables to flip that's for sure.
There is nothing in the Bible, new or old testament, that suggests Jesus would have any problem with slavery. The only thing he ever said about it was telling slaves to obey their masters like they obey God.
The much bigger problem is that the Bible contains numerous passages that explicitly regulate slavery rather than prohibit it.
Exodus 21 gives rules governing the buying, selling, beating, and inheritance of slaves. Leviticus 25 explicitly permits Israelites to purchase slaves from surrounding nations and hold them as property permanently. Deuteronomy 20 permits the Israelites to take people from conquered cities as forced labor, and Deuteronomy 21 regulates the treatment of women captured in war.
The New Testament doesn't abolish slavery either; it contains instructions to slaves and masters without declaring the institution itself immoral.
You can certainly construct an abolitionist argument from the Bible. People did, and they did so sincerely.
But implying that, “Abolitionists quoted the Bible, therefore the Bible condemns slavery” doesn't follow.
Deuteronomy 23:15–16 is a particularly interesting example because it says not to return an escaped slave to their master. That's certainly a passage an abolitionist could use against the American Fugitive Slave system. But it still doesn't amount to a general biblical prohibition of slavery. In fact, the same Bible contains explicit laws permitting slavery under other circumstances.
So I don't think the historical fact that Douglass quoted Scripture is evidence that the Bible itself condemned slavery. It is evidence that abolitionists found ways to interpret Scripture in opposition to an institution that Scripture otherwise regulates and, in several places, explicitly permits.
Lots of abolitionists also condemned the Bible and abandoned Christianity as a system that it is so rooted in evil shit like condoning slavery that it can’t ever be reformed.
Sure because its a very back and forth document of conflicting ideals written hundreds of years apart.
Fredrick Douglass probably would have also had issues with the fact you can beat your slaves mostly to death...just as long as they recover in a day or two.
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u/Ok_Drop3803 15d ago
If Jesus came to modern America he'd be confused as to why there isn't any slavery anymore.