The issue of slavery is perhaps the easiest moral question that humanity has ever faced, and the Bible got it wrong.

It's no wonder that it gets other more complex issues such as human sexuality so horrendously wrong too.

The Bible certainly not something that anyone should regard as a benchmark for anything good. And anything good in it can be found in plenty of other places.

Dear Sells,

We find a map of the human heart in many sources. I read scripture and find much good in it in addition to the horrible parts I have cited. Scripture is not the original form of humanities. The Jewish scriptures were not canonised until the first century at Yavne or Jamnia. The different varieties of the Christian tradition have different versions of the New Testament. However, to make the claim that scripture is not the original form of humanities is to ignore Plato, Buddha, Epicurus, Confucius and other minds and their thoughts of those who have considered the human condition. Such a statements indicates a great ignorance of the history of human thought. JWs have come to my door and told me the Bible is the first book written. You display similar ignorance when you state scripture is the original form of humanities.

I am inspired by the life of Spinoza who rejected all what he called narrative religion. I am inspired by Newton, Darwin and Einstein who discovered laws by which nature operates. I find much in mathematics - Gauss, Cantor, Euclid and all the other great minds that developed mathematical relationships. I am inspired by Roger Williams, a colonial American Baptist minister, who supposedly was the first to use the phrase separation of church and state. I am inspired by Sebastian Castellio who protested the execution of Servetus in Calvin's Geneva. "To kill a man is not to protect a doctrine, but it is to kill a man."

To see scripture as somehow privileged over other sources of inspiration is to give stone age legends an inordinate priority.

David,
You insist on moralising the bible. You could equally say that a history of the first half of the 20C promotes mass slaughter and hence dismiss it. King David was an adulterer and a murderer. The genius of Israel was to report the truth even when it showed the famous David in a very bad light. What other regime would do that?

AJPhilips
As for the bible getting slavery wrong and a whole lot of other things, it is not a document of morality but of history, art, legend, song poetry etc. Paul did say "There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus." This worked its way down the centuries to produce a Christian response that abolished slavery.

I find your comments so biased towards the negative that I wonder about plain old prejudice.

Sells, I am now curious.

If the Bible is not a document of morality, then what is the basis of your morality?

What is the basis of Christian morality, if not the Bible?

Dear Sells,

We see things very differently. I find Paul's statement, "There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus." extremely offensive.

Suppose you want to keep your identity as a Jew, Greek, male or female. As far as being a slave goes Paul advocated accepting that condition and serving your master. Suppose you don't want to be in Christ Jesus.

It really means little that Paul will not discriminate among those who buy the bill of goods he is selling. It is far better to treat all humans with consideration regardless of their identity, to respect their right to that identity and to treat them with kindness and respect even though they disagree with your viewpoint.

It is just another version of the prejudice inherent in Christianity. You're OK if you see things my way. Sells, I prefer to regard you as OK even if you don't see things my way.

Sells,

If you believe that the Bible is not a document on morality, then you would be in disagreement with the majority of Christians. Even conservative atheists think it is and thank it for a moral code that it did nothing to provide us with and often goes against.

I don’t think Paul was condemning slavery there. More mentioning it in passing as if it were a normal, natural thing. In fact, he even tells slaves to obey their masters at another point. In all those pages in the Bible, neither Jesus, nor his Father/himself ever bothered to say something as simple as, “Slavery is wrong.”

But I guess this is beside the point if you don’t think the Bible is a document on morality. I hope more and more Christians start to share this view of yours. The Bible certainly isn’t a place where one would want to look to for moral guidance, and just like this wishy-washy obscurantist, apophatic form of Christianity that some are turning to when losing their faith is not an option, I think it will spell the eventual death of the Abrahamic religions. After all, how often is it that the recovering gambler or alcoholic finds a God that can only be described by what he is not? Not many, that’s for sure. They’re usually swaying their arms, speaking in tongues and denouncing evolution in a happy-clappy Pentecostal church.

As for slavery, Christian churches (especially the Southern Baptists) used the Bible to justify it. Sure, there were Christians who fought against slavery but to suggest that Christianity was the driving force behind the abolition of it is a bit much. This sort of re-writing of history is common among Christian circles. I’m willing to bet that fifty years from now Christians will be crediting the church with the achievement of marriage equality.