[crazy_geek]

> And the Bible never speaks out against slavery.

Most people, when speaking about slavery, are only aware of American slavery. Slavery in ancient times was generally a very different thing.

But yes, it does speak about what was American style slavery, which involved effectively kidnapping and forced slavery:

Leviticus 21:16 "Anyone who kidnaps someone is to be put to death, whether the victim has been sold or is still in the kidnapper's possession."

Reading just bits and pieces of the bible doesn't give you the proper context to interpret properly.

As for what you think an actual divine would look like, what a divine book looks like depends heavily on what God's purpose was in writing it, which is evidently different than what you would have it be. But in many people's estimation, it does put every human work to shame.

As for explaining things that a 1st-century scribe couldn't possibly know, ummm, the Hebrew scriptures originated somewhere around 1400 B.C. or earlier depending on how you wish to count.

[brianobush]

> Reading just bits and pieces of the bible doesn't give you the proper context to interpret properly.

Right, but if you read more you will be utterly confused and find conflicting views. Which is why most people only pick the parts that they agree with.

[crazy_geek]

I've run into what appear to be conflicting views, but after some study, I'm able to resolve them. Usually it's understanding things in their proper context. That is: it's by reading more and paying more attention.

[chroma]

I'm pretty sure that verse allows slavery. It forbids kidnapping and enslaving people, but if someone is born a slave, buying and selling them is fine. Fortunately, I don't have to be an expert on the Bible to argue this point. If the Bible's anti-slavery position was so clear, why did it take almost two millennia for theologians to figure that out?

Also, do you really endorse that verse? That is: Do you think we should institute the death penalty for the crime of kidnapping? If not, why not? "Anyone who kidnaps someone is to be put to death," is as explicit and unambiguous as it is possible to be.

[crazy_geek]

> Also, do you really endorse that verse? That is: Do you think we should institute the death penalty for the crime of kidnapping?

Let me turn it around: If someone stole you and sold you, or stole your child and sold them for a slave, what do you think the penalty should be? Justify your answer.

[meows]

I think your discussion plays exactly into what the thread author was thinking. That the bible is a collection of books bound to their time, but whatever the thread author expected, whether the bible was a collection guided by divine power, or directly authored by divine power, it reeks of severely bounded humanity, it reeks of minds locked in their time.

I think people wanted timelessness. Transcendence. Even something that is not perfectly transcendent and timeless, like an artifact of space travel technology would strike the world into awe, the kind of awe that technologically primitive cultures must feel when they bump by the edge of an severely alien human flying on a helicopter -- a suggestion of an ocean beyond your faculties. A feeling of a turtle in a well.