Slavery In The Christian Metanarrative Is Defined As A Swath Of Privations Many Pains Therefore The Christian Metanarrative Cannot Have A Pro Slavery Verse Much Less A Pro Slavery Any-Thing

MetaChristianity

Christianity and Slavery: Does It Mean Jesus Isn’t Good After All? https://www.thinkingchristian.net/posts/2020/08/christianity-and-slavery-does-it-mean-jesus-isnt-good-after-all/

How Good Was Jesus if He Didn’t Eliminate Slavery? http://gettingtothetruthofthings.blogspot.com/2020/10/how-good-was-jesus-if-he-didnt.html

Scripture’s Meaning Makers and Slavery and Any Topic Whatsoever at https://metachristianity.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/scriptures-meaning-makers-and-slavery-and-any-topic-whatsoever.pdf

Disappointing: Seidensticker’s Atheist Critique Not Even Semi-Serious After All https://www.thinkingchristian.net/posts/2020/09/disappointing-seidenstickers-atheist-critique-not-even-semi-serious-after-all/

Biblical Argument Against Slavery, by Colin Green at both https://metachristianity.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/biblical-argument-against-slavery-by-colin-green-post-copy.pdf and at https://gettingtothetruthofthings.blogspot.com/2020/07/gods-complaint-against-slavery-in.html

Jennifer Glancy And Slavery In The Pauline Churches – A Curious Case (…looking at Glancy’s Slavery In Early Christianity…) in PDF here at https://metachristianity.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/review-of-glancys-slavery-in-early-christianity-by-colin-green.pdf as well as at https://gettingtothetruthofthings.blogspot.com/2020/05/the-strange-case-of-jennifer-glancy-and.html

‘In the image of the Image’ Gregory of Nyssa’s Opposition to Slavery by Adan Couchman https://www.amazon.com/Image-Gregory-Nyssas-Opposition-Slavery-ebook/dp/B0CBNHC6FN/

The Whole Humanity Gregory Of Nyssa Critique Of Slavery In Light Of His Eschatology – by David Bentley Hart the-whole-humanity-gregory-of-nyssa-critique-of-slavery-in-light-of-his-eschatology-by-david-bentley-hart

Does The Bible Teach That Slaves Can Be Beaten And Mistreated? http://gettingtothetruthofthings.blogspot.com/2020/12/does-bible-teach-that-slaves-can-be.html

Pastor Martin Luther King Jr. on Being, Non-Being, & The Summum Bonum Of Life https://randalrauser.com/2018/06/okay-so-laura-ingalls-wilder-was-a-racist-now-what/#comment-4300257193

Christianity’s Anti-Slavery Narrative Isn’t Exactly “New” News ((…including Philemon…)) https://randalrauser.com/2018/06/okay-so-laura-ingalls-wilder-was-a-racist-now-what/#comment-5031811299

Paul’s Letter To Philemon: Manumission Or What? —by Colin A. Green via PDF at both http://jgrchj.net/volume18/JGRChJ-18_Green.pdf and also here at https://metachristianity.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/pauls-letter-to-philemon-manumission-or-what-by-colin-green-pdf.pdf

Segues Amid Racism In America & Social Justice https://randalrauser.com/2018/06/okay-so-laura-ingalls-wilder-was-a-racist-now-what/#comment-4993890642

First-Century Anti-Racism vis-à-vis The Book of Acts https://disqus.com/home/discussion/standtoreason/force_is_required_to_override_belief_in_reality/#comment-3027550452

In The OT & NT Faith Outdistances Both Biology And Sin https://disqus.com/home/discussion/standtoreason/force_is_required_to_override_belief_in_reality/#comment-3017575605

Faith Is The Offense That Outreaches Both The Outsider & The Infidel https://disqus.com/home/discussion/standtoreason/do_christians_and_muslims_worship_the_same_god/#comment-3426344202

WVW: Does the Bible Support Slavery – Leviticus 25:44-46 https://www.bibledingers.com/post/wvw-does-the-bible-support-slavery-leviticus-25-44-46

Historian or Assyriologist who supposes Scripture condones slavery? See the PDF of Scripture’s Meaning Makers and Slavery and Any Topic Whatsoever at https://metachristianity.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/scriptures-meaning-makers-and-slavery-and-any-topic-whatsoever.pdf

A Secular Jew Makes A Surprising Discovery About Christians And American Slavery https://www.acton.org/pub/commentary/2019/04/17/secular-jew-makes-surprising-discovery-about-christians-and-american

Ten Reasons the Bible Has It Right on Slavery https://www.thinkingchristian.net/posts/2014/08/ten-reasons-the-bible-has-it-right-on-slavery

On Christianity and Slavery: You Would Think… https://www.thinkingchristian.net/posts/2013/02/on-christianity-and-slavery/

Metaphysics Of Race (9 Part) Series: https://www.parableman.com/blog/metaphysics-of-race-series

Slavery’s Only Absolute – Ceaseless – Antithesis: Trinity ((…a bit esoteric but writing has to be fun sometimes…)) https://www.thinkingchristian.net/posts/2014/08/ten-reasons-the-bible-has-it-right-on-slavery/#comment-104642

The Christian Metanarrative Defines Slavery As A Swath Of Privation’s Many Pains Therefore The Christian Metanarrative Cannot Have A “Pro-Slavery” Verse Much Less A “Pro-Slavery” Any-Thing https://randalrauser.com/2018/06/okay-so-laura-ingalls-wilder-was-a-racist-now-what/#comment-5031847118

See: BibleViolence Deficiency Of Being, Old Testament Violence, The Metaphysic of Privation, And Christ Crucified https://metachristianity.com/old-testament-violence-the-metaphysic-of-privation-and-christ-crucified/

Saying “Some Say The Bible Condones Slavery/Racism” *vs* Saying “I Say The Bible Condones Slavery/Racism” https://randalrauser.com/2019/11/blame-the-victim-conservative-christianity-and-a-culture-of-shaming-women/#comment-4706516949 *NOTE that this specific link is copy/pasted a few paragraphs down from here. It is from a discussion about a common pattern of some who are forever first asserting “The Bible Condones Slavery” and then when pushed on details and consistency they pull back to “The Bible Says Such & Such” and when pushed on details and consistency they pull back to “Well but SOME SAY it say….” And so on.

See: RACISM.BIBLE —Race, Racism, And Antiracism Resources

Scholastics Contra Racism by Edward Feser https://edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2020/09/scholastics-contra-racism.html

The Nelson Hackett Project https://nelsonhackettproject.uark.edu/

The Nelson Hackett Project/Documents https://nelsonhackettproject.uark.edu/the-documents/

The Religious Roots Of Abolition https://americainclass.org/the-religious-roots-of-abolition

American Abolitionists and Antislavery Activists — Conscience of the Nation http://www.americanabolitionists.com

Atheist/Non-Theist Tim O’Neill comments: “Like most things in history, the abolition of slavery was a gradual process and involved many factors. But if I were to single out one religious tradition that was most influential, it would be Christianity.” There are related segues from him ((…in his informative blog/website…)) in the following: https://historyforatheists.com/2020/01/tom-holland-dominion

Preaching Deliverance to the Captives: Particular Baptist Sermons on the Abolition of the Slave Trade — by Matthew Roe at https://www.amazon.com/Preaching-Deliverance-Captives-Particular-Abolition/dp/100893254X

The Bible Against Slavery: An Inquiry Into the Patriarchal and Mosaic Systems on the Subject of Human Rights —by Theodore Dwight Weld at https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/1440046336 and also at https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/1975745507

Is Slavery Sanctioned by the Bible? — by Isaac Allen at https://www.amazon.com/Slavery-Sanctioned-Bible-Isaac-Allen-ebook/dp/B0082RZQIY

A Condensed Anti-slavery Bible Argument — by George Bourne 1780-1845 — at https://docsouth.unc.edu/church/bourne/menu.html and also at a PDF at https://metachristianity.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/condensed-anti-slavery-bible-argument-by-george-bourne-1780-1845.pdf and also at https://www.amazon.com/condensed-anti-slavery-Bible-argument/dp/B002YT8P48

The Complete Antislavery Writings of Anthony Benezet, 1754-1783: An Annotated Critical Edition — by David L. Crosby at https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/080715475X

To Preach Deliverance to the Captives: Freedom and Slavery in the Protestant Mind of George Bourne, 1780–1845 — at https://www.amazon.com/Preach-Deliverance-Captives-Protestant-Antislavery-ebook/dp/B07Z8FC326

“Is The Bible Pro Slavery?” from Gavin Ortlund Excerpts of his YouTube Video – at PDF at https://metachristianity.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/is-the-bible-pro-slavery-from-gavin-ortlund-excerpts-of-his-youtube-video.pdf

The Misreading of Slave Passages in the Bible – Part Two – by Ben Witherington ((…this is a multi-part series with more than two parts but Part 2 is placed here as a general reference…)) which is at https://www.patheos.com/blogs/bibleandculture/2023/08/01/the-misreading-of-slave-passages-in-the-bible-part-two/

Avoiding An Obvious Category Error — The following quote is from “Christianity and Slavery: Does It Mean Jesus Isn’t Good After All?” —by Tom Gilson at https://www.thinkingchristian.net/posts/2020/08/christianity-and-slavery-does-it-mean-jesus-isnt-good-after-all/

“…We’d started out talking about whether Christ was good, and I let myself be sidetracked into talking about whether Christians are good…”

ALSO NOTE: Some of the hyperlinks there and in a few other places in the content here will go to STR’s ((https://www.str.org/)) old format an read as “error” but they are being left in as “place-holders” because the threads are still in disqus format and perhaps when time permits they will be updated. Many of those specific links for that specific comment ((…Saying “Some Say The Bible Condones Slavery/Racism” *vs*…)) are from the following:

—Primer 1 of 3:

From “GM” is the following for the larger context on the topic of “Slavery” and one of the ways “Sub-Narrative” vs. “Meta-Narrative” can never be conflated in any coherent sense:

Quote:

“This is part of the problem of this whole conversation. One half is to accurately describe what was going on in the Old Testament…. and one is the moral vision of the Old Testament as a whole. It’s absolutely vital to understand that the Mosaic law was not God’s ideal, it was God working with a certain people group in a certain cultural context to fulfill the Abrahamic covenant of bringing a certain kind of blessing to the world (a savior and kingdom of God). That the law was not God’s ideal is apparent in the narrative of the development of the law, God explicitly saying so through Jeremiah and Jesus himself saying that they were granted laws, not because they are good in of themselves, but were accommodations to the hardness of their hearts, and asking more of them would have been futile. And so on. The perfectly egalitarian human relationships of Genesis 2 is the ideal moral paradigm of the Old Testament….. ……the overarching argument involves the necessity to point out that none of this is representative of God’s ideal. You make a huge jump from tolerance to endorsement from God’s perspective that doesn’t take into account the moral vision of the biblical narrative……. the job of the critic is to demonstrate the premise of God’s future-oriented, creation repairing agenda as a falsehood, and that the Sinai covenant represents His ideal for all mankind, forever. Until the critic does that, trying to force “endorse” into the key hole of temporary, forward looking tolerance [of things we’re told He hates] is dialectical wishful thinking……” End quote (by GM).

—Primer 2 of 3:

The Christian Metanarrative Defines Slavery As A Swath Of Privation’s Many Pains Therefore The Christian Metanarrative Cannot Have A “Pro-Slavery” Verse Much Less A “Pro-Slavery” Any-Thing. “Sub-Narratives” never can “become” “Meta-Narrative”. The key to the meaning of any verse comes from the paragraph, not just from the individual words, and then the key to the meaning of any paragraph comes from the chapter, not just from the individual paragraphs, and then the key to the meaning of any chapter comes from the specific book, not just from the individual chapters, and then the key to the meaning of any individual book in Scripture comes from the Whole Metanarrative that is [Scripture] and not just from the individual books, and then the key to the meaning of the Metanarrative comes from logical lucidity vis-à-vis ontological referents in a specific Metaphysic, not just from [The-Bible], and then the key to the meaning of the Map that is the Metaphysic comes from the Terrain that is the Trinitarian Life and not just from the Metaphysic, and that Terrain sums to Timeless Reciprocity & Ceaseless Self-Giving vis-a-vis Processions vis-a-vis the Trinitarian Life even as robust explanatory power on all fronts teaches us that just as it is incoherent to say “Physics” somehow “Comes-From” that physics book over there on the shelf, so too it is incoherent to say that Metaphysical Naturalism or that the Christian Metaphysic either does or “can in principle” somehow “Come-From” ANY-thing that reduces to a World-Contingent Explanatory Terminus.

—Primer 2 of 3 Continued:

The following is described as “continued” because it is a topic that fits well withing the concept of the Whole of Scripture aka The Christian Metaphysic and how that is so often expunged from folks who conclude that scripture condones slavery. Part of that is why these early sections are still a “Primer” as they have to do with “critical thinking” if we mean to “map reality” and so then we come to the following PDF:

Scripture’s Meaning Makers and Slavery and Any Topic Whatsoever at https://metachristianity.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/scriptures-meaning-makers-and-slavery-and-any-topic-whatsoever.pdf

Before moving into Primer 3 perhaps the following latticework vis-a-vis logical identity, semantic architecture, epistemological content, and metaphysically irreducible termini:

Scripture’s© Singular® Metanarrative© & Thematic® Lines© find no Malleability in the Epicenter as all definitions and meaning-makers must survive the traversal and demands of Being-Itself as Timeless Reciprocity & Ceaseless Self-Giving vis-a-vis the Trinitarian Life. Ultimately our Meaning and Life and Wholeness in Existence converge in the Singular Terminus of Self-Giving ||| Reciprocity. Non-Theism’s terminus in Being as Irreducible Indifference and Terminal Non-Distinction contradicts all that we call *sight* even as our terminus in Trinitarian Being as Timeless Reciprocity & Ceaseless Self-Giving affirms all that we call *sight*.

—Primer 3 of 3:

Divine Command Theory breaks down and collapses into a logical absurdity as we follow through with its premises and push through to their endpoints as we traverse 1/ Logical Impossibility and 2/ The Good and 3/ Reason’s Obligation and 4/ Reason’s final terminus and 5/ reality’s irreducible or concrete furniture vis-à-vis the Trinitarian Life. Such preliminary premises are required to expose the error of some of our Non-Theist friends in their treatment of “Moral Excellence” outside of our own perfection of being. Ontology obviously beats rhetoric and we find therefore that anyone who equates ((1)) the pains of Privation vis-a-vis all things Adamic ((…slavery for example and etc…)) to ((2)) The Good // The Moral Ideal of Timeless and Eternal Kingdom Metrics ((…the perfection of being…)) is theologically and metaphysically and emotionally uninformed. Evil is not a positive substance but is instead a deficiency of substance ((Being, Good, Etc.)) — Evil is therein a Hollow or Vacuum of said substance — and that is Evil in the sense of “The Privation of The Good” — as “The Good Minus Something”. The Christian Metanarrative Defines Slavery as Privation’s Pain **therefore** The Christian Metanarrative Cannot Have a “Pro-Slavery-Verse”. Our Non-Theist friends too often go about their criticism of the Christian Metaphysic by selectively expunging both reality as it actually is and also expunging the Christian’s metaphysical landscape of Privation. Perhaps the assumption is that doing so is going to help their premise/premises do (real/ontic) work but of course one cannot invent Non-Christian landscapes and then claim one is exposing problems with Christian premises. Regarding Divine Command Theory ((DCT)), first, recall the “NOTE” earlier about the various Links which go to “error” and then see related context on DCT in Divine Command Theory Collapses Into A Metaphysical Absurdity — at https://metachristianity.com/divine-command-theory-collapses-into-a-metaphysical-absurdity/

Irreducible Consequences of Primers 1 & 2 & 3

We are Social Beings for an ontic reason – as it is the case that our own being begins and ends within the contours of a full-on metaphysical Full-Stop as per the Necessary Being – that is to say within the contours of Being Itself. The term “Normal” and the term “Moral Excellence” cannot have a semantic intent which begins or ends outside of Reality as per Reality’s Concrete Furniture and in the Christian Metaphysic we find that we are to be the living Imago Dei created off of the Blueprint of Being Itself as Timeless Reciprocity & Ceaseless Self-Giving vis-à-vis the Trinitarian Life. The Christian Metaphysic is in the end a thoroughly Trinitarian metaphysic and, therein, we find that “Being” in fact “is” Being Itself in Timeless Self-Giving vis-à-vis Irreducible Diffusiveness of Being in totum. It is that Terminus at which we find The Always & The Already, that which is ceaselessly Beneath and Above – namely Timeless Reciprocity & Necessity as on Ontic Singularity – that is to say – Love & Necessity as an Ontic Singularity.

It is there that we find in the Christian metaphysic the intellectual and moral grounds for affirming the term, “Love Himself” vis-à-vis the A and the Z of the Trinitarian Life with respect to the Divine Decree of the Imago Dei and all that necessarily comes with “that”. That is to say, it is there that we find nothing less than the immutable love of the Necessary Being – and all that comes with “that”. That is to say, it is there in nothing less than Being that we find The Always and The Already constituting Being as Timeless Reciprocity and Ceaseless Self-Giving vis-à-vis Ontic Diffusiveness of the Ontic-Self in totum, and all that necessarily comes with “that”.

It is THAT explanatory terminus which is reality’s rock-bottom, reality’s irreducible substratum – the A and the Z of every Possible Ontic, of every Possible Sentence – of all Possible Syllogisms.

The Shocking ‘Slave Bible’ ~ Parts Were Deleted to Manipulate Slaves:

F. Sanders commented on that: “I’ve spent some time with this terrible 1807 American “Slave Bible” in the last year or so. It’s a perverse document that sets itself a hard editorial task: If you hand the Bible to slaves, which parts do you need to omit in order to keep it “safe?”

Our Non-Theist friends may not see the relevance of that (sinful) move by Christians expunging Scripture’s *actual* Metanarrative. Leviticus is removed entirely, which reveals the comical sloppiness of the Non-Theist’s exegeses who seem unable to read more than a few verses at a time. More informed Christians who knew the Wider/Actual “Meta-Narrative” of Scripture see “Leviticus” and REMOVE it with the goal of HIDING parts of Scripture which encourage thoughts of Fairness, Liberation, Justice, Freedom, Covenant Value vis-à-vis God transcending Tribe/Biology, and so on, and so on.

It’s a simple fact: Sub-Narratives never can “become” Meta-Narrative. “But Leviticus! But Sinai!” is fine to work off of, but again that is a common manifestation of a failure of basic reading comprehension:

“When I said “arbitrary,” I was referring to the idea that the interpretation of the verses is some kind of arbitrary choice—as if both options were equally valid. They’re not, for the reasons I explained. And my point from the beginning has been that only a person who did not understand the Bible as a whole, including all the background information of the Law, could use the verses that way. No honest English reader could read the Bible as a whole and come up with their interpretation. The verse says what it says as part of a specific narrative, not as some kind of stand-alone fortune cookie. It’s not my apologetic. I didn’t make up the rules of reading comprehension.” (by Amy Hall)

Reading Comprehension and Catcher In The Rye:

Critics will often point to Mt. Sinai’s Law, describe something in it, and then this: Full-Stop. Well, given that method we can, in reply, suggest that they take any book like, say, The Catcher In The Rye. Let’s say in paperback it had 300 pages. So the Critic, to repeat the method by which he treats Sinai, would do the following — Take out pages 1-50 and then leave pages 51-99 and then also remove pages 100-300. Then base every definition and every sub-narrative solely on pages 51-99. That’s not Catcher In The Rye, but, instead, it is [Catch] “Full Stop”. Scripture or the bible is much larger and so they would want to rip out the 1st 300 pages of a book, read 10 pages, rip out the last 500 pages, & then weave for us a tale all about what the book says about such & such. And? Well on the basic rules of reading comprehension that is either uninformed or else dishonest.

The following is a quote of “A fuller extract from Gregory of Nyssa on the evils of slavery” by Roger Pearse at https://www.roger-pearse.com/weblog/2019/01/24/a-fuller-extract-from-gregory-of-nyssa-on-the-evils-of-slavery/

Begin R. Pearse Quote:

A few years ago I found online an extract from Gregory of Nyssa against slavery which I wrote about here. Today I came across the full text of the translation, and the passage is rather longer than I had thought, and well worth giving in full.

The passage appears in the Homilies on Ecclesiastes, homily 4. Gregory is working his way through the text of Ecclesiastes, and the various ways in which Solomon attempted to fill his life with stuff, rather than with God. In Ecclesiastes 2:7 he starts listing his possessions, which include slaves.

Note that the biblical Greek text on which Gregory commented is sensibly translated at the head of the passage, as it is not always the same as our modern texts which are based on the Hebrew.

Ecclesiastes 2:7 –

I got me slaves and slave-girls, and homebred slaves were born for me, and much property in cattle and sheep became mine, above all who had been before me in Jerusalem….

334.5. We still find the occasion for confession controlling the argument. The one who gives an account of his doings relates one after another almost all the things through which the futility of the activities of this life is recognized. But now he reaches as it were a more serious indictment of things he has done, as a result of which one is accused of the feeling of Pride. For what is such a gross example of arrogance in the matters enumerated above – an opulent house. and an abundance of vines, and ripeness in vegetable-plots, and collecting waters in pools and chanelling them in gardens – as for a human being to think himself the master of his own kind? I got me slaves and slave-girls, he says, and homebred slaves were born for me.

Do you notice the enormity of the boast? This kind of language is raised up as a challenge to God. For we hear from prophecy that all things are the slaves of the power that transcends all (Ps 119/118,91). So, when someone [p335] turns the property of God into his own property and arrogates dominion to his own kind, so as to think himself the owner of men and women, what is he doing but overstepping his own nature through pride, regarding himself as something different from his subordinates?

335,5. I got me slaves and slave-girls. What do you mean? You condemn man to slavery, when his nature is free and possesses free will, and you legislate in competition with God, overturning his law for the human species. The one made on the specific terms that he should be the owner of the earth, and appointed to government by the Creator – him you bring under the yoke of slavery, as though defying and fighting against the divine decree.

335,11. You have forgotten the limits of your authority, and that your rule is confined to control over things without reason. For it says Let them rule over winged creatures and fishes and four-footed things and creeping things (Gen, 1,26). Why do you go beyond what is subject to you and raise yourself up against the very species which is free, counting your own kind on a level with four-footed things and even footless things? You have subjected all things to man, declares the word through the prophecy, and in the text it lists the things subject, cattle and oxen and sheep (Ps 8,7- 8). Surely [p336] human beings have not been produced from your cattle? Surely cows have not conceived human stock? Irrational beasts are the only slaves of mankind. But to you these things are of small account. Raising fodder for the cattle, and green plants for the slaves of men, it says (Ps 1041 103,14). But by dividing the human species in two with ‘slavery’ and ‘ownership’ you have caused it to be enslaved to itself, and to be the owner of itself.

336,6. I got me slaves and slave-girls. For what price, tell me? What did you find in existence worth as much as this human nature? What price did you put on rationality? How many obols did you reckon the equivalent of the likeness of God? How many staters did you get for selling the being shaped by God? God said, Let us make man in our own image and likeness (Gen 1,26). If he is in the likeness of God, and rules the whole earth, and has been granted authority over everything on earth from God, who is his buyer, tell me? who is his seller? To God alone belongs this power; or rather, not even to God himself. For his gracious gifts, it says, are irrevocable (Rom 11,29). God would not therefore reduce the human race to slavery, since he himself, when we had been enslaved to sin, spontaneously recalled us to freedom. But if God does not enslave what is free, who is he that sets his own power above God’s?

336,20. How too shall the ruler of the whole earth and all earthly things be put up for sale? [p337] For the property of the person sold is bound to be sold with him, too. So how much do we think the whole earth is worth? And how much all the things on the earth (Gen 1,26)? If they are priceless, what price is the one above them worth, tell me? Though you were to say the whole world, even so you have not found the price he is worth (Mat 16,26; Mk 8,36). He who knew the nature of mankind rightly said that the whole world was not worth giving in exchange for a human soul. Whenever a human being is for sale, therefore, nothing less than the owner of the earth is led into the sale-room. Presumably, then, the property belonging to him is up for auction too. That means the earth, the islands, the sea, and all that is in them. What will the buyer pay, and what will the vendor accept, considering how much property is entailed in the deal?

337,13. But has the scrap of paper, and the written contract, and the counting out of obols deceived you into thinking yourself the master of the image of God? What folly! If the contract were lost, if the writing were eaten away by worms, if a drop of water should somehow seep in and obliterate it, what guarantee have you of their slavery? what have you to sustain your title as owner? I see no superiority over the subordinate [p338] accruing to you from the title other than the mere title. What does this power contribute to you as a person? not longevity, nor beauty, nor good health, nor superiority in virtue. Your origin is from the same ancestors, your life is of the same kind, sufferings of soul and body prevail alike over you who own him and over the one who is subject to your ownership – pains and pleasures, merriment and distress, sorrows and delights, rages and terrors, sickness and death. Is there any difference in these things between the slave and his owner? Do they not draw in the same air as they breathe? Do they not see the sun in the same way? Do they not alike sustain their being by consuming food? Is not the arrangement of their guts the same? Are not the two one dust after death? Is there not one judgment for them? a common Kingdom, and a common Gehenna?

338,14. If you are equal in all these ways, therefore, in what respect have you something extra, tell me, that you who are human think yourself the master of a human being, and say, I got me slaves and slave-girls, like herds of goats or pigs. For when he said, I got me slaves and slave-girls, he added that abundance in flocks of sheep and cattle came to him. For he says, and much property in cattle and sheep became mine, as though both cattle and slaves were subject to his authority to an equal degree.

The Greek text translated is that in the modern Gregorii Nysseni Opera (GNO) series, (volume 5), and page and line numbers are indicated.

The translation itself is by the excellent Stuart G. Hall, and Rachel Moriarty.^[1] The latter contributes a preface indicating that unfortunately the translation has been tampered with in order to make it “gender neutral”. The translation of the homilies is followed by a series of useful studies, and I could wish that others adopted such a format.

It’s obvious, in context, that Gregory is not preaching an abolitionist sermon, but an expository one. He’s not calling for the institution of slavery to be abolished. Indeed his hearers might not have been prepared for anything that radical. But Gregory is worrying away at the idea. The germ of the idea that led to abolition is present.

Useful to have this, and it is perhaps not as well-known as it might be.

—End R. Pearse Quote—

“The Bible Condones Slavery”

Not when we read WHOLE metanarratives. Even Slave Owners in the 18th/19th centuries knew they had to remove huge slices of the Old Testament in order to carve out and hide God’s Wider definitions of Good/Ideal (…see the earlier section headed with The Shocking ‘Slave Bible’ ~ Parts Were Deleted to Manipulate Slaves etc…).

Two more examples:

First:

Biblical Argument Against Slavery, by Colin Green at both https://metachristianity.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/biblical-argument-against-slavery-by-colin-green-post-copy.pdf and at https://gettingtothetruthofthings.blogspot.com/2020/07/gods-complaint-against-slavery-in.html

Second:

The following is a Copy/Paste of https://randalrauser.com/2019/11/blame-the-victim-conservative-christianity-and-a-culture-of-shaming-women/#comment-4706516949 It is from a discussion about a common pattern of some who are forever first asserting “The Bible Condones Slavery” and then when pushed on details and consistency they pull back to “The Bible Says Such & Such” and when pushed on details and consistency they pull back further to “Well but SOME SAY it says….” And so on. NOTE: Some of the hyperlinks there and in a few other places in the content here will go to STR’s ((https://www.str.org/)) old format an read as “error” but they are being left in as “place-holders” because the threads are still in disqus format and perhaps when time permits they will be updated. Many of those specific links for that specific comment are from the following:

The Copy/Pastes is fairly long so it will begin and end with Centered Headers to make its Start/Stop transitions distinct from its internal copy/paste/excerpts and so on:

—Begin Copy/Paste Of “Some-Say-Said vs. It Says” —

— SOME SAID vs. IT SAYS — You never tell us. That is why your comments at http://disq.us/p/25qc3ut and at http://disq.us/p/1f368wg are worth taking a look at a tenth-ish time — for despite going to seminary you still don’t seem able to progress past fairly basic intellectual concepts when it comes to WHAT your actual claim IS with respect to A through G as per the following:

*A. Racism
*B. Scripture
*C. Pastor Martin Luther King Jr.’s exegetical conclusion on (a) vs. (b)
*D. Exegetical Error

*E. Your observation of “But Some Christians Have Used A-Verse To Condone Racism”
*F. Your possible/apparent claim that Scripture DOES in fact Condone Racism/Slavery/Etc.
*G. Your possible/apparent claim that you are NOT claiming “F” that but rather you are MERELY only trying to point out “E” ((…“But Some Christians Have Used A-Verse To Affirm Racism”…))

You never tell us if you mean “F” or if you mean “G”. Why not? Well — let’s be clear/precise:

For years now your pattern is the same as you come roaring in going on and on about how Scripture condones / likes / defines-as-good the stuff of Racism/Slavery/Etc. but then when pushed on the fact that Narrative / Meta-Narrative / Sub-Narrative actually matter you “sort-of” pull back from what WOULD sum to such a bold exegetical commitment on your part with things like “…I specifically made a point that they were verses that some other people understand mean that….and that’s all….”. That would work if it were not for what you then predictably do next and so another “but-then” cannot be avoided. So but then in the next breath you continue chastising Christians who affirm Pastor Martin Luther King Jr.’s exegetical conclusion as-if-they-are-getting-it-wrong and/or as-if-they-are-being-dishonest.

Well which of those many and varied and sloppy half-attempts of yours is it?

It’s been years and you still can’t stop that same Dancing-Hedge routine. So far in THIS thread you’ve not addressed [A] http://disq.us/p/25oj10q nor your earlier hints that Good Christians really ought to CONDONE folks waking into Gay Bars and mass-shooting Gays as per [B] http://disq.us/p/25ok6zs and as per its request for clarification on that point with “Feel free to correct any errors Etc.” in this thread’s http://disq.us/p/25phwro — and by the way you have not yet replied to the actual questions in that which is therefore our [C] http://disq.us/p/25phwro — nor have you replied to [D] http://disq.us/p/25qm045

You opine along the line of “…..but there are or have been different conclusions within Christendom….” and YET you’ve not replied to the content in [E] http://disq.us/p/25qm045 which asks specifically about that.

Instead you shout “Dishonest!” and, so, that brings us to the list under review – namely:

*A. Racism
*B. Scripture
*C. Pastor Martin Luther King Jr.’s exegetical conclusion on (a) vs. (b)
*D. Exegetical Error

*E. Your observation of “But Some Christians Have Used A-Verse To Condone Racism”
*F. Your possible/apparent claim that Scripture DOES in fact Condone Racism/Slavery/Etc.
*G. Your possible/apparent claim that you are NOT claiming “F” that but rather you are MERELY only trying to point out “E” ((…“But Some Christians Have Used A-Verse To Affirm Racism”…))

Before we get to what must be the tenth time addressing your Favorite-Dishonest-Christian-Racism-Link in that thread of 257-ish comments, two simple questions:

[1] Who got it right with respect to Scripture and Racism? Pastor Martin Luther King Jr. *OR* the various misuses and abuses housed within the sins of various Christians and Non-Christians? NO ONE disagrees with the fact of those abuses and misuses, but you seem to think we are being dishonest when we FAIL to find PRO-Racism verses in Scripture’s ANTI-Racist metanarrative. But HOW is that dishonesty on our part even possible and WHY did you choose that term (dishonest) to describe that FAILURE on our part? Can we SAY what a verse SAYS for you with some examples you may like to list? Give any example you would like. Think it through. PRO-Racist verses CANNOT be found in an ANTI-Racist metanarrative…. and as such as per the link http://disq.us/p/1f368wg you provided within that thread’s 257 comments, don’t count on me to just dance to evasive questions and thereby indirectly help anyone dial-up any other implicit or explicit conclusion about what ANY “verse” in fact SAYS.

[2] Who got it right with respect to defining what God Tolerates vs Condones: Those who define terms in and by the premise of, “Sinai is God’s Ideal for Mankind” (…such as in your constant appeals to Moses/Law…), or, instead, others who define those same terms by the premise of, “Sinai is not God’s Ideal for Mankind”? Thousands of years of both (a) Messianic Jews and (b) Christians both converge “there” with respect to Sinai/Tolerate/Condone ((…as per the necessary Means/Ends related to the Perfection of Being / of the Adamic…as alluded to in earlier comments in this thread…)).

That was half-ish from-ish http://disq.us/p/1hzzaho btw for reference. Of course again you never flat out tell us as one who has graduated seminary whether or not you mean to stop at “F” or else “G” from the earlier list.

Speaking of “general/basic” questions, the following excerpt asks a few more which have been long-standing with respect to your general pool of fallacious sound-bites:

Still beating the drums of Sinai Full Stop, eh? After all these years too. Why? Hair as Glory of Woman “vs” Woman as Glory of Man and all of that “as-if” Men are not allowed to wear real hats on their real heads? Why? I thought you went to seminary, yes? Didn’t they discuss basic metaphysics? Category errors? Contingent vs. Necessary?

Also — Did you ever imply that *Christians* ought *not* find a moral problem ((given Christianity)) with going into bars and mass shooting Gays?

If so then apparently nothing has changed wrt your exegetical elimitivism. Or was that someone else there at STR….? Feel free correct any error on that premise and/or person who floated it ((Etc.)).

Did you ever imply that “a verse” is enough to define Racism as The Good via your own exegetical argument beyond your usual [someone once said so]?

You went to seminary, yes? Surely then you must actually believe that one of several interpretations gets closer than the others to “X” — whatever you believe “X” on Christianity “is” vis-à-vis the Cruciform Lens ((…or vis-à-vis the body of Scripture and so on…)).

Or is this all merely still you continuing your yesteryear shouts about how / why Christians ought not mind mass-shooting / open-firing in Gay Bars? Or was that someone else & not you? Been awhile so perhaps the recall is imprecise. Feel free to correct any errors Etc.

While you’re at it perhaps you can explain why thousands of years of Messianic Jews & Christians converge with Scripture defining Sinai as lacking both the Means to Moral Excellence and also the Ends of Moral Excellence. Messianic Jews & Christians converge there – where did they all go off the proverbial rails?

Also — why do you float/suggest premises by which we are to literally believe that literal males cannot wear literal hats on their literal heads ((*on *Christianity))?

With respect to your trend of multiple years of avoiding giving us an answer as to whether you, as one who went to seminary, mean to land on “F” or else on “G” from the above list, we see that same dance of yours occurring both Before & After your favorite link/comment as that SAME question of “F” vs. “G” leads us into it and as that SAME question of “F” vs. “G” then follows it – each time left unanswered by you.

Recall the list of “A” through “G” as it will be referenced as we move forward:

*A. Racism
*B. Scripture
*C. Pastor Martin Luther King Jr.’s exegetical conclusion on (a) vs. (b)
*D. Exegetical Error

*E. Your observation of “But Some Christians Have Used A-Verse To Condone Racism”
*F. Your possible/apparent claim that Scripture DOES in fact Condone Racism/Slavery/Etc.
*G. Your possible/apparent claim that you are NOT claiming “F” that but rather you are MERELY only trying to point out “E” ((…“But Some Christians Have Used A-Verse To Affirm Racism”…))

Quick Example before looking at your Favorite-Dishonest-Christian-Racism-Link:

From here at RR’s Blog:

Me: http://disq.us/p/239voui
You: http://disq.us/p/239wf7h
Me: http://disq.us/p/23ah6n6

Me Two Years Ago: http://disq.us/p/1qhhc5t
Me again asking you a question and reminding you not to invent excuses: http://disq.us/p/23fvuxb ((…ried twice http://disq.us/p/23f72l1 …))

Again you never flat out tell us as one who has graduated seminary whether or not you mean to stop at “F” or else “G” from the earlier list.

Example:

Regarding Racism/Slavery vs. Pastor King’s Exegetical Conclusion vs. Your refusal to tell us if you mean “F” or “G” from the earlier list:

**Begin Excerpt/Copy-Paste:

Metanarrative is fundamental. Without Metanarrative you’ve / we’ve no rational “metrics”. Therein one cannot pretend that one’s wider metaphysic is superfluous. Where on lands with respect to Being & Reason & Mind & Contingency & The Perfection Of Being & Change/Becoming & A….Z ((…and so on…)) will necessarily stomp all over one’s semantic intent with respect to Perception & Knowledge & what counts as rational metrics and what counts as rational inquiry ((…and so on…)). YET you quote verses which you <say> condone Racism/Slavery ((…is it “F” or is it “G” from the earlier list??…)) and all while acting “As-If” the contingent abstractions of contingent minds of contingent beings are all one needs – Full Stop – and THEN you ask us to <say> what those verses <say>. And? What has our ((…the Christians in the following links / threads…)) reply always been? Well we grant you your wish and, so, we repeatedly *do* tell you want “that-verse” in fact “says”. We quote those SAME verses you demand that we “Be-Honest” about and then proceed to tell you how they DON’T affirm/condone Racism/Slavery ((Etc.)).

So? Where is the *dishonesty*? Do you WANT us to expunge the first 1000 words, the last 1000 words, and then “interpret” the remaining 54 words in the middle? Did you want us to <say> something <else> besides what we <said>? If so, why? How is it possible for there to be a Pro-Racist *verse* in an Anti-Racist *Metanarrative*?

**End Excerpt/Copy-Paste.

Since context is everything, we find “therein” on that same topic that we have an actual history of a Before/After “Comment History” vis-à-vis your favorite link/comment as follows.

[RECALL / NOTE: Some of the hyperlinks will go to STR’s old format an read as “error” but they are being left in as place holders because the threads are still in disqus format perhaps when time permits they will be updated. Many of those specific links are from ((A)) https://disqus.com/home/discussion/standtoreason/believing_biblical_doctrines_requires_humility_not_arrogance/ and ((B)) https://disqus.com/home/discussion/standtoreason/if_naturalistic_evolution_is_true_people_are_not_equal/ and ((C)) https://disqus.com/home/discussion/standtoreason/force_is_required_to_override_belief_in_reality/#comment-3027550452….]

Again you never flat out tell us as one who has graduated seminary whether or not you mean to stop at “F” or else “G” from the earlier list. So for reference the first of those is copied here for context:

**Begin Excerpt/Copy-Paste:

Here’s my comment to you from there, and it’s actually relevant to “interpretation” as being discussed in this thread (…. P. Kirkpatrick’s say vs. mean is again in play etc….). So perhaps this is helpful after all. Here’s the quote (of me to you) from the other thread:

Begin quote:

It is your claim that Scripture, the Bible, has no (rational) support for racism, and that’s fine, but, once again, you also “chastise” with this,

“Again, you can try to explain what it “really meant” or that it “no longer applies to us,” but to deny what it literally says is dishonest.”

This statement by you claims that “what it really meant” (as claimed by Amy and others here etc.) and “what it literally says” are at odds / do not agree. And it claims so much that you even call the failure to acknowledge the difference (not same) as dishonest.

So tell us, AG, why is Amy (and others here etc.) dishonest if she (we, etc.) is/are in fact saying what Scripture literally says?

We are saying that Scripture literally does not justify racism. Now, are we being dishonest by *not* acknowledging what Scripture actually says?

You also say “you can try to explain… BUT…..”, again forcing a wedge of disagreement / difference between the explanations of what Scripture literally says (per Amy and others etc.) as opposed to “what it literally says”.

Your own personal beliefs about racism are not part of this discussion. Rather, your claims about this supposed difference and this supposed dishonesty is what is in review. You’re the one making these claims.

If in fact we are being dishonest for failing to affirm this difference well then Pastor Martin Luther King Jr. in fact got it wrong with respect to his exegetical (scriptural) conclusions. If in fact this supposed difference is fallacious “at bottom“, well then it does not exist, and non-existence just is non-being.

End quote.

I could be mistaken but I don’t recall a response from you there.

That said, that discussion was another good example of this business of interpretation, and also of zooming in so close (“Holy Race”, etc.) that one fails to see the entire narrative.

Lastly notice the opening acknowledgement: “It is your claim that Scripture, the Bible, has no (rational) support for racism…”

That wasn’t the contention. The issue was your stark contradiction of that by all the rest. Hence the following:

Your own personal beliefs about racism are not part of this discussion. Rather, your claims about this supposed difference and this supposed dishonesty is what is in review. You’re the one making these claims.

**End Excerpt/Copy-Paste.

Again you never flat out tell us as one who has graduated seminary whether or not you mean to stop at “F” or else “G” from the earlier list. Occasionally you get ((…at least for a few comments before hedging…)) quite specific and say that you do NOT disagree the accuracy of Pastor Martin Luther King’s exegetical conclusion. A basic item from that is the second link ((… http://disq.us/p/1f6ogz7 …)) from the list which is copied here:

**Begin Excerpt/Copy-Paste:

You Say:
But to deny that it literally says “X” when I quote it saying “X” is dishonest.

My Reply:
But there are no verses that literally support racism.

We agree, correct?

If we agree then you have no point to stand by.

How can a pro-racist *verse* exist within an anti-racist *narrative*?

You can’t have it both ways. Unless you refuse to interpret. You ask us to <say> what those verses <say> and we repeatedly *do* as we unpack the anti-racist narrative of Scripture. Where then is the *dishonesty*?

**End Excerpt/Copy-Paste.

Again you never flat out tell us as one who has graduated seminary whether or not you mean to stop at “F” or else “G” from the earlier list. So the third item ((… http://disq.us/p/1f6zx1v …)) continues the theme and is copied here:

**Begin Excerpt/Copy-Paste:

I never once claimed that there are verses which *you* understand to support racism.

You accused Amy (and the rest of us in that thread) of being *dishonest* when we say that there are *no* verses which literally support racism. You stated that the reason we were all *dishonest* when we make that claim about what Scripture literally SAYS is because we were NOT saying what Scripture literally SAYS.

You stated,

“Again, you can try to explain what it “really meant” or that it “no longer applies to us,” but to deny what it literally says is dishonest.”

You seem to believe there are verses which literally SAY that God and/or God’s agenda is racist, and that, therefore, when Christians disagree with that then they are *dishonest*.

But there are no verses that literally SAY / support racism.

How can a pro-racist *verse* exist within an anti-racist *narrative*?

You can’t have it both ways.

**End Excerpt/Copy-Paste.

More context then with the following:

Similar Problems In Your Analytic:

Again you never flat out tell us as one who has graduated seminary whether or not you mean to stop at “F” or else “G” from the earlier list. Instead you hint of accusing Christians with the crime of defamation/libel for seeking clarification/distinction of terms in the same context. So there is ((was)) http://disq.us/p/1f6hrd5 which is copied here:

**Begin Excerpt/Copy-Paste:

On interpreting OT verses:

I asked you then and will ask you again here: Was Pastor MLK Jr. correct about Scripture affirming our equality and not supporting racism?

You ask us to <say> what those verses <say> and we repeatedly *do*. So where is our *dishonesty*?

What did *you* mean when you said Christians (MLK?) are *dishonest* because on that issue (racism) Christians (MLK?) don’t say what Scripture REALLY SAYS? It seems you’ve got Pastor Martin Luther King Jr. pegged as *dishonest* or else misguided. Of course asking for clarification then didn’t lead to any forthcoming clarifications from you. Why?

Or, perhaps wording it differently:

Why do (did) *you* say (claim) that Christians are *dishonest* and why are Christians not saying what scripture REALLY SAYS when they affirm Pastor Martin Luther King Jr.’s conclusions? What is the interpretative disagreement you have with their (dishonest?) conclusions? You ask us to <say> what those verses <say> and we repeatedly *do*. So where is our dishonesty?

You’ve been asked for clarification multiple times then and now here. You like to call quoting you in that context and looking for distinction / clarification in that context a (legal) criminal offense. Interesting.

**End Excerpt/Copy-Paste.

More context then with the following:

Similar Problems In Your Analytic:

Again you never flat out tell us as one who has graduated seminary whether or not you mean to stop at “F” or else “G” from the earlier list. You take a verse, expunge Narrative & Metanarrative, insist that is what it “literally” means, and then “Stop” there at “F”. But do you stop there? When challenged you Flip-Flop and pull-back to “G” ((…again “F” and “G” from the earlier list…)). Therein there is http://disq.us/p/1f67yqk which is copied here:

**Begin Excerpt/Copy-Paste:

You Said:
Again, you can try to explain what it “really meant” or that it “no longer applies to us,” but to deny what it literally says is dishonest.

My Reply:
Why would I help you promote your claim that Pastor Martin Luther King Jr.’s intellectual assent to Scripture’s affirmation of equality was misguided? Your claim that what Scripture “REALLY SAYS” affirms God’s racist agenda was there (as here) void of interpretation. It’s demonstrable. Thank you for the reminder of yet another example of your flawed methodology in this arena. Or, do you disagree with those who have interpreted differently than MLK? Your use of “REALLY SAYS” didn’t seem to leave that option open.

Panning the lens out is the ticket. You ask us to <say> what those verses <say> and we repeatedly *do*. So where is our *dishonesty*?

**End Excerpt/Copy-Paste.

More context then with the following:

Similar Problems In Your Analytic:

Again you never flat out tell us as one who has graduated seminary whether or not you mean to stop at “F” or else “G” from the earlier list. Recall that when Scripture describes an ax head floating on water or Peter walking on water, you opine that such is absurd. But when it’s pointed out to you that we as causal agents suspend things on top of water all the time, you again opine that we cannot invoke God as Causal Agent when reading Scripture. But of course the writer’s intention/meaning DID “MEAN” / “Believe” in the God Who Is Above Nature and so all the semantic intent of Being Itself comes into play. Your response? You expunge Narrative / Metanarrative / Author’s intent / and the Genre/Goal of the Communique under review given that SAME “Being Itself” and so on. So a bit of that is alluded to in http://disq.us/p/1hz2nf3 which is copied here:

**Begin Excerpt/Copy-Paste:

Misdiagnosing Reality: That you believe it is impossible to keep objects on top of water (…causal continuum, being, intentionally manipulating nature’s fundamental particles…) is peculiar.

That and similar kinds of evidence-free beliefs of yours — and your emotional commitment to your a priori of No-God — all force you to so misread reality and all lead you into misguided modes of interpreting not only our experienced reality through time as human beings but of course also the unavoidable variations of descriptions of that experienced reality occurring across and beneath differing conceptual ceilings through time. All of that cumulatively stifles your analytical range.

Whereas, the Christian is forever open to new data points as they come streaming in. Temporal beginning? No problem. No temporal beginning? No problem. Molecules to Body? No problem. Immaterial else absurdity? No problem. Brutally repeatable moral experience? No problem. The irreducible self? No problem. Logic’s lucidity over forced absurdity? No problem. Intelligibility/reality? No problem.

Such intellectual liberty to follow all modes of all evidence wherever said evidence may lead is refreshing.

Fortunately technology has greatly increased our ability to rapidly cross-reference [1] large numbers of scientific observations and [2] large numbers of documents and texts which cumulatively span thousands of years. Such technologies have helped us to more accurately map necessary and unavoidable topographic features of the ontological history of becoming vis-à-vis both Cosmos and Conscious Observer.

Of course, your entire range begins and ends with something far less robust.

—End Copy/Paste Of “Some-Say-Said vs. It Says” —

Recall from the beginning of this post/essay the following four items:

—Primer 1 of 3:
—Primer 2 of 3:
—Primer 3 of 3:
—Irreducible Consequences of Primers 1 & 2 & 3

The following continues within that same content:

Meaning Makers:

Making “a verse” or making “a chapter” the source of all Meaning Makers in one’s argument only after ripping out the 400 pages which come before it and the 400 pages which come after it displays a lack of understanding surrounding the rules of basic reading comprehension and subnarrative and metanarrative and far more. All of Privation is Evil and that is a part of the “Why” behind parts of Scripture defining Sinai as housing elements God Hates just as it is a part of the “Why” behind parts of Scripture defining Sinai as the Ministry of Death just as it is a part of the “Why” both the Old Testament and the New Testament speak of Sinai as that which pales in comparison to the Far-Better yet to come ((in Christ)). When we fail to read WHOLE “Metanarratives” we are simply not rising above intellectually sloppy reading.

Meaning Maker:

It really is basic reading comprehension and basic logic: All Metanarratives — and [Reality] just is a Metanarrative — arrive in and by this or that Metaphysical Wellspring of all ontological possibility and that Singularity forces One Terminus and hence One Meaning Maker which all definitions must necessarily stream-from and pass-through and – upon interpretation (Etc.) – either survive or fail-to-survive.

Meaning Maker: See The Christ Key: Unlocking the Centrality of Christ in the Old Testament by Chad Bird.

Meaning Maker: Christ = Epicenter In all the heat and noise the [Epicenter] provides Man with two unbreakable pillars:

[1] What God is like — the Trinitarian Life — three distinctions — the Triune God — wherein we find Timeless Reciprocity & Ceaseless Self-Giving.

[2] What it is that keeps Man in relation with God and/or gets Man back into relation with God — namely Pour||Drink vis-à-vis God Himself as All Sufficiency Himself in His Own Self-Outpouring. The Epicenter holds through all of Man’s possible worlds — both with & without “Man in Privation”.

Once again: Slavery In The Christian Metanarrative Is Defined As A Swath Of Privations Many Pains. Therefore The Christian Metanarrative Cannot Have A Pro-Slavery Verse Much Less A Pro-Slavery Any-Thing.

Scripture’s Meaning Makers and Slavery and Any Topic Whatsoever https://metachristianity.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/scriptures-meaning-makers-and-slavery-and-any-topic-whatsoever.pdf

Metanarrative, Subnarrative, Endorse, and Definitions Once Again:

The two excerpts below are from Hurtado and their general context is scripture defining slavery as evil and assigning slaves the status of Christ’s Body and so then of Brother, of Family, of Full Partaker in the Kingdom. Before the two excerpts it is worth noticing an insightful reply by someone who was discussing these quotes on why that content of Scripture and its narrative is expected:

“Considering that slavery was social de-personing and that crucifixion was the ultimate means of depersonalization, that makes sense.”

Here are the two excerpts:

“….also noteworthy is the extended exhortation and encouragement to Christian slaves in 1 Peter 2:18-25, where the author likens any unjust sufferings that they may bear, likely as Christian slaves of pagan masters, to the sufferings of Christ (vv. 21-25). This linkage of the suffering of slaves with Christ effectively ennobles the situation of slaves, at least at the level of the discourse, a striking step in a world in which slaves typically counted for little as to dignity. Of course, this did not amount to the abolition of slavery or even securing the freedom of slaves, at least at that point. But this sort of compassionate rhetoric addressed to slaves was unusual, if not unique, in the Roman world….”

—&—

“….although it may seem to comfortable moderns that the early Christian texts are morally deficient in failing to summon slaves to rise up in revolt and in failing to demand that Christian masters immediately free all their slaves, neither was actually a realistic option at the time. But the point to underscore is that, despite the various limits on the scope of their actions imposed by their social situation, Christian wives, slaves, and children were addressed as moral agents in early Christian texts and, perhaps just as importantly, as fellow members of the body of believers in which these various exhortations were delivered. We should not discount too hastily what this, even this modest conferral of dignity, could have meant in that ancient setting to those who were otherwise unable to change their situation….”

—both excerpts are from: Hurtado, Larry W.. Destroyer of the gods: Early Christian Distinctiveness in the Roman World . Baylor University Press.

Continuing With Metanarrative, Subnarrative, Endorse, and Definitions Once Again:

Given the topic of Genesis 3 → John 3, the concept of 1. “narrative” and of 2. “sub-narrative” and of 3. “meta-narrative” is from time to time, quite selectively, even intentionally (…it seems…) lost on our Non-Theist friends. Treating Sinai as “The-Good” and thereby expunging Scripture’s own metrics – and thereby creating a straw-man.

Genesis 3:15-17 just is John 3:15-17 in the literal Descriptive-Prescriptive of the Christian Metaphysic. It’s not complicated → Teens in youth groups can see the obvious here:

The amalgamation of Genesis 3:15-17 and John 3:15-17 house all currencies as Man’s Privation actualizes (…whether within Time and Physicality or by any other mode…). We find BOTH Genesis’ promise of that terrible topography of the “Dark Outside” rapidly ensuing AND Genesis’ promise of the topography of our emancipation within and by amalgamation as John 3:15-17’s fulfillment of Genesis 3:15-17 actualizes. Therefore we find that Scripture’s [A to Z] forces us to define (…the descriptive, the prescriptive…) all the business of Slavery, of Domination, and of all such Moral Landscapes as the “Dark Outside” – or on definition all such “Hellish” topographies – that such contexts and subtexts actually referent landscapes which are far less than God’s Eternal Ideal for “The Adamic”.

Brief divergence:

While it’s off topic here it is helpful to note that “The Edenic” landscape in Genesis 3 houses two “Doors” within Eden and they both face outward. One faces outward into “Eternal Life” and one faces outward into “Privation” ((our current reality)). The radical “ontic change” from Eden to Eternal Life is nothing less than Categorical and that is why “Outward Facing Door” is the right syntax. Whatever “Eden” was it was neither Privation as we know it here in the Privation of Good nor was it Eternal Life vis-à-vis the Perfection of Being. That’s off topic but regarding all definitions and Good and Evil and Innocence and Culpability and all the rest we must take Genesis 3 and the entire height and breadth and width of the Christian Metaphysic on its own terms.

End brief divergence.

Our Non-Theist friends will forever cherry pick it seems – “a” verse or chapter here or there – full stop – as if that is how “Reality” “Works”. Too often that is a road block that will not permit such discussions to take place based on all of Scripture.

Even Worse:

As our Non-Theist friends preach of love and write of love and theorize of love they merely attest to their assent that, in fact, in spite of their Atheism, they really do believe otherwise, for they forever push all ontological regressions – they try to – into what their own paradigm denies them, namely that they can and do have Semantic Intent that has a Rational Terminus – which provides Metaphysical Closure – and not a kind of “Eternally Open-Ended Non-Distinction” – but in fact a Metaphysical Terminus of – oh – say – something akin to the Trinitarian Life vis-à-vis Irreducible Reciprocity & Ceaseless Self-Giving amid Self/Other. Notice that while the Trinitarian Life DOES provide them their hope for such an ontology they freely and knowingly choose something other than that lucidity vis-à-vis Reason and her Explanatory Terminus – notice that they instead choose a bobble termed reductio ad absurdum and YET it is all in the (now unavoidably) irrational attempt to reach the same End Point. https://metachristianity.com/reason-reality-golden-thread-reciprocity/

Genesis 3:16 is proof that God’s own stated end-points in scripture’s [A to Z] describes enmity between Male/Female as the Dark Outside. John 3:16 restores such. It is nothing less than a Downhill Ontic from the Edenic to all things Sinai which is why Leviticus gives to us a lens wherein we find all the same endpoints when it comes to Sons and Slaves and everything in between.

The Language and Definitions Pre-Fall is very different from the Language and Definitions after our fall into Privation (…some say into the isolated Self….out of “Other” as in out of “God”…). Also, the Language and Definitions and syntax Post-Resurrection, where Man is again offered the Way into “Other”, are all once again that which is found Pre-Fall – no difference in male, female, Jew, Gentile, slave, free, and so on…all are His Beloved… and so on…and so on.

This business of slavery and male/female and all of that is an “issue” only because our Non-Theist friends do not take God at His Own Word in scripture’s own self-described End-Points, or [A to Z]. It’s easy to fuss against Straw-men of course – nonetheless the “A” and the “Z” of all definitions stream from nothing less than the Trinitarian Life – Who is the Beginning and End of all things – of all definitions – vis-à-vis timeless reciprocity vis-à-vis that same “A” to “Z”.

Repeating Layers: We run into “Behold, I make all things new” and before John 3:16 we find inequality, bloodshed, dark, and, in the reverse direction, before Genesis 3:16 we find equality, life, light. And again: after Genesis 3:16 but before John 3:16 we find God’s Own, “….I have no desire of this. Prepare for me a Body…”.

God ENDORSES?

All of this brings us again and again and again into the incoherence of the Critic’s “Scripture Endorses”. It is by 1000 different avenues that Scripture’s vectors define all things Outside of Eden as the Pains of Privation and all things Sinai as Less-Than that Far-Better yet to come regarding both the Means and Ends of Moral Excellence, and so on, and so on. Jesus “justified” Divorce in Codified Law even as He (God|Jesus) also Hated it and notice a few things about what God Hates regarding Less Than Moral Excellence and The-Ideal and The Far-Better Yet-To-Come:

[Regulating Hated X’s] Does Not Equal [Endorsing X’s]

The Non-Theist or Critic who insists God Endorses Slavery has given himself away because SINAI really IS “The” metric of Endorse in his assessment. The amount of hiding-of-one’s eyes, so to speak, one has to do in order to make that work is unfortunate. That is to say that one has expunged far too much, especially the OT, such as Genesis in which [A] the Far Better than Sinai in fact precedes Sinai and [B] the OT Prophets in which something Far Better than Sinai is going to leave Sinai behind, and far, far more. Sinai-As-The-Metric is a fool’s errand which has jettisoned half of the OT to get to half-of-a-narrative to do half-of-the-work.

The OT itself and the NT with it define both the reality of [C] “God-Hating-X“ and simultaneously the reality of [D] “God-Regulating-Different-Forms-Of-X“ (via Law/Sinai). Why? Those are just four places where the fallacy of “Endorses Slavery” expunges huge swaths of what is right there in black in white. It would be better for the “Endorses Slavery” advocate to interact with reality as it actually is, rather than with some sort of something that he wishes it to be, but isn’t. Dialectical wishful thinking:

“…the overarching argument involves the necessity to point out that none of this is representative of God’s ideal. You make a huge jump from tolerance to endorsement from God’s perspective that doesn’t take into account the moral vision of the biblical narrative…… the job of the critic is to demonstrate the premise of God’s future-oriented, creation repairing agenda as a falsehood, and that the Sinai covenant represents His ideal for all mankind, forever. Until the critic does that, trying to force *endorse* into the key hole of temporary, forward looking tolerance [of things we’re expressly told He hates] is dialectical wishful thinking……” (by GM)

But that’s obvious because freely choosing to avoid interacting with Scripture’s Metrics until one has first expunged half of Scripture just is a product of wishful thinking. The Endorses-Slavery Advocate often suggests,

“Either God is still wrong today, or His position has evolved…”

Given that the Far Better first precedes all things Sinai according to the OT, and given that the Far Better also outdistances, outperforms, and leaves behind all things Sinai according to the OT, they are referring to their own invention of some sort of Non-Old-Testament Map. As for the NT, well, it’s all the same.

So what about all things Sinai? So far what we find the Non-Theist doing with Sinai ((other than autohypnotic dialectical wishful thinking)) is something like the following:

God is evil on my terms — because Sinai.
God is evil on God’s own terms — because Sinai.

Both fail for the obvious reasons discussed so far and also discussed in “Divine Command Theory Reduces To A Metaphysical Absurdity” at https://metachristianity.com/divine-command-theory-collapses-into-a-metaphysical-absurdity/

What we are doing is using a “lens” for “Good” and the Non-Theist is using “Sinai” and “The Bible” as if either of THOSE is “the metric” in the Christian Metaphysic. But NEITHER of those is the Metric Of or Standard Of or Source Of The Good. Saying The Good is based on (…it’s ontics and so on…) the Bible is like saying Physics “comes from” (…the Ontic and so on…) the physics book over there on the shelf. But “Good” is *not* based on the Bible. Not according to Scripture at least. Just as “Physics” does not “come from” that Physics Book over on the shelf. There is something FAR WIDER/THICKER. Notice the KEY problem for the Critic of Scripture using this fallacy: It is a giant strawman to claim that within Christendom The Good in fact “comes from” something Created and/or World-Contingent ((Sinai / The Bible)) given that “it” (The Good) just is *GOD* (in Christendom).

Remember that this applies to all things Sinai given that Moral Excellence is defined (in Scripture) as that which precedes, outdistances, out-performs, and leaves behind, all things Sinai. While it is understandable that discomfort compels the Non-Theist to avoid reality as it actually is and thereby invent and then argue against various Non-Christian, Non-Old-Testament, and Non-Paradigmatic Start/Stop points or premises, it would be better for our Non-Theist friends to interact with the real world as it actually is. https://randalrauser.com/2018/04/the-complementarian-dilemma/#comment-3858775297

A Critic once changed from Slavery to the Hebrews and Capital Punishment for the disobedient child. It is apparent that he elected not to read, or include, the context of Hebrews there. Why? Well, first, he needs to read up on the fact that, since every child disobeys, the Jew clearly did not read it as he did and had they done so they would have gone out of existence as a people since all children disobey. So it’s obviously something quite different and while that IS a BIG problem there is STILL the problem that he is appealing to Sinai as Scripture’s Metric. AGAIN. “Leapfrogging between Commands” so to speak never gets outside of those cul-de-sacs.

Metanarrative As Sinai Can’t Restore Life — It Only Restrain Death

Muddied waters with respect to ON THE ONE HAND: what Scripture means by Restraining/Containing Death ((…Law/Sinai/Etc…..)) and then on THE OTHER HAND Birthing/Giving Life ((….God’s Own Self-Outpouring or All-Sufficiency’s Own Self-Outpouring because nothing less can solve the nature of the “Problem” of “Privation” which just is a “Deficiency of Being” and, so, nothing less than “Being Himself/Itself” Pouring Himself Out/Into that Vacuum/Hollow will or can provide any full on metaphysical closure….)).

The fruit of that confusion in so many of our Non-Theist friends manifests with the following sort of errors:

When knowledge [widens] it is evidence of No-God.
When knowledge [fails to widen] it is evidence of No-God.
When knowledge [narrows/falls] it is evidence of No-God.
When knowledge is [static / stagnating] for long periods, well, that too is evidence of No-God.

Knowledge as the means…..

“….[back then]…. such things were done in-line with those groups’ understanding of their directives from god at the time. To reinterpret now does nothing to change the source of their “legitimacy” then…”

The problem with the critic’s syllogism of legitimacy is along the lines of:

Legitimacy: Is Sinai God’s Ideal for Mankind according to Scripture? The Messianic Jews tell us that the Jews “then” “knew” of the “Far Better” “yet to come” and so on “too”. Follow closely: IF the answer is, “Well NO Sinai is NOT God’s Ideal” THEN Moral Excellence is defined (and found) by a different metric and the premise which defines changes in knowledge and/or changes in sight-lines as a redefining of Moral Excellence is both uninformed and uninformed. The legitimacy of definitions is entirely dependent on the moral narrative of Scripture. The Christian metaphysic presents us with Scripture’s actual metanarrative which is instead in the form of the following:

[1] Widening and changing trajectories with respect to Man’s knowledge of God and Life affirm Scripture’s topography (…from the get-go…).

[2] Real-time peaks and nadirs within the knowledge of good and evil, of God and Life, is therein part of that topography (…from the get-go…).

[3] Sinai never was God’s Ideal for Mankind (…from… the… get.. go…).

Basic Rules Of Reading Comprehension Once More:

A more fruitful method is to read whole books, from the A to the Z and recall that, when it comes to the proverbial [“a” verse] strawman, all such content is in fact a slice of a much larger, wider, narrative and hence the terms of Metanarrative and of sub-narrative arrive. All sub-narratives are from the get-go unable to outreach or out-define the definitions of the far wider Metanarrative. Without the right *metanarrative* the verse which such fallacies are quoting actually cannot “say” anything at all.

Scripture’s [~Pro-ABC Metanarrative~] cannot – by simple force of logic with respect to round squares – contain any [~Anti-ABC content~]. Think “sub-narratives” and “metanarrative”.

One more time:

That is NOT a Christian apologetic but is, simply, the affairs of basic reading comprehension. An example of such in one particular context, which holds – by simple force of logic with respect to round squares – through all contexts:

“And my point from the beginning has been that only a person who did not understand the Bible as a whole, including all the background information of the Law, could use the verses that way. No honest English reader could read the Bible as a whole and come up with their interpretation. The verse says what it says as part of a specific narrative, not as some kind of stand-alone fortune cookie. It’s not my apologetic. I didn’t make up the rules of reading comprehension.” (by A.H.)

Brief Snapshots From The 1800’s Pro-Slavery & Abolition Discussions

The following is borrowed from Bradly Mason https://alsoacarpenter.com/ It is an outline with 1800’s enslavers’ claims ((each titled “Claim”)) followed by 1800’s Abolitionists’ answers/replies ((each is “lettered”)) in the following:

Begin Excerpt:

Claim: “Abraham owned slaves”

We do not know the exact character of this “slavery.”
The actions of the saints recorded are not prima facie normative.
God often allowed for actions and institutions which were contrary to His own moral Law and natural law, though He regulated them with the end to (1) diminish their abuses, then (2) eliminate the practices altogether (see marriage/divorce in OT vs. Jesus in NT; “because of the hardness of their hearts, Moses allowed it…”).

Claim: “Israel was allowed to own slaves and the Law of Moses sanctioned it.”

All indenture among Hebrews was to be temporary, primarily for the sake of paying debts, injury was prohibited, breaking up families prohibited, diminishing resources prohibited, the poor of all classes were to be relieved, etc.
Permanent slavery was solely to be in lieu of war and as the only alternative to death. Only the nations of Canaan were under the “ban” and therefore to be conquered. War, beyond this redemptive historic commission, was ONLY to be defensive. (Many examples given.)
Thus, “slaves” were temporary indentures among Israel, permanent only among those “under the ban” in one-time commissioned warfare, or those spared their life when unjustly attacking Israel.
Further, as Israel kept the Law and trusted in the promises of God, each of these categories would become increasingly unnecessary, ultimately eliminating the institution altogether.
Israel began to enslave even their own brethren, through fraud and violation of God’s commandments, in part leading to Israel’s punishment and exile to be “slaves” yet again for a time in a foreign land.
In short, Israel was once enslaved, slavery is bad, redemption would eliminate both war and slavery.

Claim: “Neither Christ nor the Apostles condemned slavery”

The coming of Christ, His death, resurrection, and ascension obliterated the wall of separation, thereby forever abolishing the distinction between Israel and the Nations. Hence the only allowable permanent slavery in the Old Covenant is forever abolished. As redeemer, He ended slavery, as was the intent from the beginning.
The Apostle Paul did not desire for a small group of people, within a vast empire that sanctioned slavery, to attempt to subvert the social order by force, but rather to destroy the institution through gospel and ideology.
Thus, he declared no difference between Master and Slave before God, all are one in Christ, that Masters were slaves to Christ, and Slaves freeman in Christ; he encouraged Philemon to release Onesimus and called out his hypocrisy; he told Christians to get their freedom if they could; he said that no one owned by Christ should be owned by men; etc. All of which did in fact destroy the institution among Christians.

Claim: “Modern enslavers are no different than Abraham, etc.”

The new African Slavery little resembles OT slavery or even Roman slavery.
Slavery is not natural to any “race” or people group; all are equal by birth.
Manstealing warrants death.
Those who buy, sell, or harbor stolen human property are guilty of manstealing.
The current institution violates nearly EVERY SINGLE commandment and is a “National Sin” which will lead to God’s hot judgment.
The Scripture, the arc of redemptive history, the laws of nature, the Gospel, and the command to “do unto others as you’d have them do unto you” condemn the institution and all Christian men everywhere ought to oppose it.
Some, not all: Those suffering under the institution can by right rebel and revolt, since, being contrary to both God and Nature, Masters and Governors have no right to enforce. (“To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world,” *wink, wink*)
The West is destroying Africa, turning peoples against each other, filling them with alcohol, corrupting them with greed, and pilfering and exploiting both their resources and people, all due to unrestrained, unchristian, avarice.

End Excerpt. ((Brad comments, “Yes, it’s a rough summary. But maybe it’s time to get familiar with 200 year old arguments for why we know it’s wrong to own people?”))

Recall from earlier the historical content linked through “The Abolition Project” at http://abolition.e2bn.org/index.php

The following is also borrowed from Bradly Mason:

Begin Excerpt:

A taste of how Christian Abolitionists dealt with enslavers’ appeals to the Apostle Paul, from, “An Essay on Slavery Proving from Scripture its Inconsistency with Humanity and Religion” by Granville Sharp

“If I have vindicated the law of Moses, much easier can I vindicate the benevolent apostle Paul, from Mr. Thompson’s insinuations, with respect to slavery; for he did not entreat Philemon to take back his servant Onesimus, in his former capacity, as Mr. Thompson has asserted, in order to render bondage consistent with the principles of revealed religion,—but St. Paul said expressly, ‘not now as a servant, but, above a servant, a brother beloved, &c.’ So that Mr. Thompson has notoriously wrested St. Paul’s words. IN the other texts where St. Paul recommends submission to Servants, for conscience-sake, he at the same time enjoins the master to entertain such a measure of brotherly love towards his servants, as must be entirely subversive of the African trade, and West-Indian slavery. And though St. Paul, recommends Christian patience under servitude, yet, at the same time, he plainly insinuates, that it is inconsistent with Christianity, and the dignity of Christ’s kingdom, that a Christian brother should be a Slave. ‘Can’st thou be made free? (says he to the Christian servants) choose it rather, for he that is called of the Lord, being a servant, is the freeman of the Lord; and, in like manner, he that is called, being free, is the servant of Christ, —Ye are bought with a price; BE NOT THEREFORE THE SERVANTS OF MEN.’

The apostle, indeed, had just before recommended to his disciples to abide in the same calling, wherein they were called, and, ‘being servants, not to care for it:’ That is, not to grieve on account of their temporal state; (for if, instead of thus enjoining submission, he had absolutely declared the iniquity of SLAVERY, tho’ established and authorized by the laws of temporal governments, he would have occasioned more tumult than reformation among the multitude of SLAVES, more striving for temporal than spiritual happiness); yet it plainly appears, by the insinuations, which immediately follow, that he thought it derogatory to the honor of Christianity, that men, who are bought, with the inestimable price of Christ’s blood, should be esteemed servants; that is, the Slaves, and private property of other men; and had Christianity been established by temporal authority, in those countries where Paul preached, as it is at present in these kingdoms, we need not doubt but that he would have urged, nay, compelled the masters, as he did Philemon, by the most pressing arguments, to treat their quondam slaves, NOT NOW AS SERVANTS, BUT ABOVE SERVANTS—AS BRETHREN BELOVED.”

(Granville Sharp as well as others did in fact effectively deal with the Old Testament quite well, as he indicates at the beginning, without denying the inspiration and authority of the Scripture.)

End Excerpt/Quote.

The following is borrowed from Bradly Mason https://alsoacarpenter.com/

Quote/Excerpt:

“…Thomas Aquinas’ answer to, “Is Christ the Head of all mankind?”, Summa III, q. 8, a. 3, is also very important to developing a proper social doctrine. His answer is, of course, yes, Christ is the Head of ALL humanity, not just some. He presumes, to begin with, that Christ is incarnate for ALL mankind, which is unquestionably true according to the ecumenical Creed’s and council’s of the Church. Assuming this premise, Thomas can rightly argue to Christ’s headship of all mankind. In sum, by bearing the substance of man, the human nature, Christ was made like all men—whether predestined to glory or not—in every respect, save sin. As such, all men in this life are potentially His brethren, being of like nature with Him. Just as we all have shared the like nature of the first Adam, so Christ has become the “Second Adam” and the “Last Adam” by assuming the same nature into His own person. As all men share in the self-same human nature that Christ even now bears, so all men are capable of union with Him and thus are all potentially so, should they only receive and believe His gospel. While only those predestined will ultimately be united to Christ by faith and love unto glory (reducing the natural potentiality to mystical actuality), the fact that Christ has borne the flesh of all mankind unites the whole of humanity around the new and perfect man, the Head of all creation, our Lord Jesus Christ. So, what does this have to do with social doctrine? It means that all mankind, whether in Christ mystically or not, are united with Christ and under His headship according to their very humanity—that is, according to the human nature that all men share with Jesus. As such, ALL HUMANS also share equally in the dignity of His human nature, fully displayed in His Incarnation, death, and resurrection. The Gospel does not destroy the unified image of God in man. Rather, the Gospel brings this image to its ultimate end, viz., our Lord Jesus Christ. And even as our incarnate God now bears the human nature itself, so He bears the nature of the Jew, the Greek, the African, the European, and any other category of Adam’s offspring we care to construct, WHETHER IN OR OUT OF THE CHURCH. As Christians, we must therefore share the same ethic of our Savior toward all men, whether Christian or not. He who “loved the world” and therefore “gave His only begotten Son” to bear the nature of every tribe, nation, and tongue in turn explicitly requires the same self-sacrificial love of us: “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven. For he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust. For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? And if you greet only your brothers, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same? You therefore must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.” (Matt. 5:43-48). To be sure, if we limit the scope of Christ’s person and work to the Church and the already redeemed, we are likely to limit the scope of His common grace to all mankind. As He has borne the flesh of all, He has thereby dignified the nature of all, making every member of the human race not only a fit object of His redemption, but also a fit object of every Christian’s reconciliatory affections and energies…”

End Quote/Excerpt.

A Brief Look Into Genocide? Canaanites? And A Bit More:

A few paragraphs down from here this is looked at more but it is worth inserting here a brief look at the obvious:

Total Destruction: There is the obvious case of God using the same language of Total Destruction with Israel first as a condition should they fall into sins (etc.) and then as the fulfillment of that promise.

Israel is, like the “Cancer” too, totally destroyed.

In-Genocide-Like-Fashion-Utterly-Destroyed-By-God and so on. In fact THAT did happen and THAT Promise WAS kept in that God DID “utterly destroy” Israel and such was vis-à-vis that proverbial Exile. Israel is absorbed into other nations, alive and well, overcome, conquered, retaining their identity in many senses, losing it in many senses. Neither the facts of history, nor the actual metanarrative, nor ancient biblical and extra-biblical “linguistics” support any sort of “Full-Stop” appeal to “Genocide” (which is what God would have done to Israel).

For added context the following is an excerpt from God Sending Lying And Evil Spirits? Abraham And Isaac? Cyrus And Isaiah 45:7? The Greater Good Fallacy? — at https://metachristianity.com/god-sending-lying-spirits-god-n-sending-evil-spirits-n-abraham-n-isaac/ and the specific part is at the bolded/labeled “Part 9 Genocide? Amalekites? Canaanites? Marry One’s Rapist? Etc.?

Begin Part 9 Excerpt:

We’ll start with a brief look at some excerpts from the following three which cover a wider range of topics but have several segues here:

Begin Excerpt:

Even in the little section on the Amalekites, the description of the situation doesn’t even come close to what we consider ‘genocide’ today. Most (but not all) things considered genocide today involve groups internal to the country in question, and they were either killed outright by their own government (sometimes slowly through torture and abuse) or deported to a place of sure-to-kill-them environment. Academic definitions of genocide exclude combat deaths and noncombatants that die as a by-product of military action. It generally denotes the deliberate killing of someone solely because of their indelible group membership (indelible is the term used for race, ethnicity, nationality etc.–that characteristics that are ‘indelible’). [For one of the major authorities on this subject, see the work of R.J. Rummel at www2.hawaii.edu/~rummel.]

Consider some of the better-known cases:

The government of the Ottoman Empire deported two-thirds or more of its estimated 1-1.8M Armenian citizens during WWI. They were forced into the deserts of present-day Syria, and most died due slowly to starvation and dehydration. This was an internal groupthat was forced out of the country into the desert to die.
The Nazi genocidal actions against the Jews, the Roma, etc. were also initially targeted at internal people.
During WW2, the government of Croatia killed an estimated 200-350K of its internal Serbian citizens.
Pol Pot’s Khmer Rouge regime in Cambodia killed 31% of its own population, apprx 2 million people (although some of this would be considered ‘democide’ and based on ‘delible’ characteristics such as political alignment, instead of ‘genocide’ proper).
In Rwanda, between 500k-1M of the Tutsi ethnic group (all internal) were killed by the Hutu ethnic group (fighting had been going on between them for some time).

Notice how extremely different these are from the case of the Amalekites:

They are NOT an internal group
They are NOT a minority group
Amalekites are NOT targeted because of their Amalekite-ness (since they were welcome as immigrants in Israel)
They are never under the government control of Israel.
They are not pursed and hunted in other countries for extermination.

…..What this means–although it would not bear on the main ethical sensitivity here–is that it is historically inaccurate to label this military action as ‘genocidal’. (This is still the case, EVEN IF one ONLY is talking about the killing of the families of the warriors. There are none of the defining elements of genocide–as the term is used by experts–present in the accounts of this initiative.) Let’s be clear on this–I am not exploring how to “justify a genocide”, because in the first place, it is NOT genocide. [Interestingly, the only case we have in the bible of something approaching genocide is in the book of Esther. Haman, a prominent official, develops a plot in which the internal people will be allowed to attack, kill, and plunder the internal Jews in the nation. This is very close to genocide, and it is quite ironic that Haman is called an Agagite, and said to be an Amalekite by Josephus in Ant. 11.209.]

End Part 9 Excerpt.

R. Rauser has “The Bible depicts God commanding moral atrocities. Should we believe it?” at https://randalrauser.com/2018/06/the-bible-depicts-god-commanding-moral-atrocities-should-we-believe-it/#comment-3958500420

With respect to what Scripture defines as evil he seems to agree with the OT and NT in defining all murder and all rape and so on as evil. That’s fine as far as it goes. However, one cannot read, say, Винни-Пух and apply the same premises when one is reading, say, Война и мир ~ After all, if “Winnie The Pooh” equates to “Tolstoy” well then…. But that’s silly. Instead, there’s the oh-so-obvious contours of real, actual humanity and real, actual evil and real, actual “necessary means” if we are going to talk either about love’s egalitarian form or about the necessary means v. the perfection of being and so on, as those just are the proverbial Christian Narrative.

Recall: “GM” offers context and it’s really not that complicated. The “range” or the “degrees of change” from what many term “The Edenic” to that of the “New Creation” is far, far wider than any one-verse or one-chapter “slice” of “Sinai” (or any other X). As mentioned already, all “definitions” begin and end in the egalitarian topography of the Trinitarian Life.

Quote:

“This is part of the problem of this whole conversation. One half is to accurately describe what was going on in the Old Testament…. and one is the moral vision of the Old Testament as a whole. It’s absolutely vital to understand that the Mosaic law was not God’s ideal, it was God working with a certain people group in a certain cultural context to fulfill the Abrahamic covenant of bringing a certain kind of blessing to the world (a savior and kingdom of God). That the law was not God’s ideal is apparent in the narrative of the development of the law, God explicitly saying so through Jeremiah and Jesus himself saying that they were granted laws, not because they are good in of themselves, but were accommodations to the hardness of their hearts, and asking more of them would have been futile. And so on. The perfectly egalitarian human relationships of Genesis 2 is the ideal moral paradigm of the Old Testament….. ……the overarching argument involves the necessity to point out that none of this is representative of God’s ideal. You make a huge jump from tolerance to endorsement from God’s perspective that doesn’t take into account the moral vision of the biblical narrative……. the job of the critic is to demonstrate the premise of God’s future-oriented, creation repairing agenda as a falsehood, and that the Sinai covenant represents His ideal for all mankind, forever. Until the critic does that, trying to force “endorse” into the key hole of temporary, forward looking tolerance [of things we’re told He hates] is dialectical wishful thinking……” (by GM)

End Quote.

R. Rauser has The Lost World of the Israelite Conquest: A Review at https://randalrauser.com/2018/06/the-lost-world-of-the-israelite-conquest-a-review and if we are careful we find that the book corrects one error and then commits the same error. It corrects the error of expunging all context from a box labeled [one phrase] which is [“kill all that breathes”] so that the [LITERAL FULL STOP] box is rightly shown to be ridiculous. Then the book unfortunately commits that SAME error as it expunges all context from its own [one word] box which is [“Heram”] so that then that [LITERAL FULL STOP] box is left as the New Ridiculous. Therein the book’s premises get a bit muddied.

Cultural mindsets certainly don’t define reality. At least on the Christian Metaphysic. Basic example: Sinai is X, but X isn’t the Beginning & End of The Good & The True. The inverse error is to claim that regardless of our particular cerebral and moral ceilings God simply never transposes anything regarding The Good & The True. The Trinitarian Life finds not only Being pressing in as we are created to be the living Imago Dei but more specifically the fact that The Adamic was/is created off of the Blueprint of Being as Timeless Reciprocity & Ceaseless Self-Giving.

That of course feeds definitions into all possible frames and, therefore, the key to the meaning of any verse comes from the paragraph, not just from the individual words, and then the key to the meaning of any paragraph comes from the chapter, not just from the individual paragraphs, and then the key to the meaning of any chapter comes from the specific book, not just from the individual chapters, and then the key to the meaning of any individual book in Scripture comes from the Whole Metanarrative that is [Scripture] and not just from the individual books, and then the key to the meaning of the Metanarrative comes from logical lucidity vis-à-vis ontological referents in a specific Metaphysic, not just from [The-Bible], and then the key to the meaning of the Map that is the Metaphysic comes from the Terrain that is the Trinitarian Life and not just from the Metaphysic, and that Terrain sums to Timeless Reciprocity & Ceaseless Self-Giving vis-à-vis Processions vis-a-vis the Trinitarian Life even as robust explanatory power on all fronts teaches us that just as it is incoherent to say “Physics” somehow “Comes-From” that physics book over there on the shelf, so too it is incoherent to say that Metaphysical Naturalism or that the Christian Metaphysic either does or “can in principle” somehow “Come-From” ANY-thing that reduces to a World-Contingent Explanatory Terminus.

As we navigate “linguistics” a brief observation ~ the notion that [burning kids alive] and various other sins — and so on — were A. ignored by God for several hundred years and were B. in fact NOT a part of the causal architecture behind the forced regime changes in Caanan are both false. And in fact it is one “category” within the narrative which demonstrates that with respect to both – as follows:

First, God did intervene and then tore down that landscape (…Israel displaces Canaanites Etc…) and, also, sins/evil were not the Whole Reason behind the forced change, but that they were a key part of the causal architecture behind the forced regime change is obvious and it is the following category of scriptures, which houses many examples like the following, which demonstrates both:

“….It is because of the wickedness of these nations that the Lord your God is driving them out before you…..” (Deut. 9:5)

And so on. Then to the topic of linguistics and literary construction, the following is from https://www.str.org/w/the-canaanites-genocide-or-judgment-#.XOCBPhYpDDs

Begin STR Excerpt:

“…God gave the directives, to be sure (the Jews hadn’t thought this up on their own), but one must accurately understand God’s intention before he can accurately assess God’s commands.

First, the wording should be understood in the context of ancient Near Eastern military narrative, the argument goes. Ancient writings commonly traded in hyperbole—exaggeration for the sake of emphasis—especially when it came to military conquest. The practice is evident throughout battle reports of the time. “Joshua’s conventional warfare rhetoric,” Copan writes, “was common in many other ancient Near Eastern military accounts in the second and first millennia B.C.”

Therefore, phrases like “utterly destroy” (haram), or “put to death men and women, children, and infants”—as well as other “obliteration language”—were stock “stereotypical” idioms used even when women or children were not present. It decreed total victory (much like your favorite sports team “wiping out” the opposition), not complete annihilation.

Second, Copan argues, women and children probably weren’t targets since the attacks were directed at smaller military outposts characteristically holding soldiers, not noncombatants (who generally lived in outlying rural areas). “All the archaeological evidence indicates that no civilian populations existed at Jericho, Ai, and other cities mentioned in Joshua.”

Third, on Copan’s view the main purpose of the conquest was not annihilation, but expulsion—driving the inhabitants out—and cleansing the land of idolatry by destroying every vestige of the evil Canaanite religion[8] (e.g., “You shall tear down their altars, and smash their sacred pillars, and hew down their Asherim, and burn their graven images with fire.” Deut. 7:1–5).

Further, this process would be gradual, taking place over time:

“…The Lord your God will clear away these nations before you little by little. You will not be able to put an end to them quickly, for the wild beasts would grow too numerous for you…” (Deut. 7:22).

Finally, the record shows that Joshua fully obeyed the Lord’s command:

“….Thus Joshua struck all the land, the hill country and the Negev and the lowland and the slopes and all their kings. He left no survivor, but he utterly destroyed all who breathed, just as the Lord, the God of Israel, had commanded…. He left nothing undone of all that the Lord had commanded Moses….” (Josh. 10:40, 11:15)

Still, at the end of Joshua’s life it was clear that many Canaanites continued to live in the land, left to be driven out gradually by the next generation (Josh. 23:12–13, Judges 1:21, 27–28). According to Copan, if Joshua did all that was expected of him, yet multitudes of Canaanites remained alive, then clearly the command to destroy all who breathed was not to be taken literally, but hyperbolically.

If these arguments go through—if God did not command the utter and indiscriminate destruction of men, women, and children by Joshua’s armies, but simply authorized an appropriate cleansing military action to drive out Israel’s (and God’s) enemies—then the critic’s challenge is largely resolved, it seems….”

End STR Excerpt.

Additionally the following from M. Flannagan:

“….A similar phenomenon occurs with the case of the Amalekites, the Babylonian invasions, and the sacking of the Jebusite city of Jerusalem. In each case a battle is narrated in totalistic terms of complete destruction of all the people, yet later narration goes on to assume matter-of-factly that it did not literally occur. The fact that this happens on multiple occasions in different books rapidly diminishes the probability that these features are coincidental or careless errors. Why is it that almost every time a narration of “genocide” occurs, it is followed by an account that presupposes it did not happen? These facts significantly raise the probability that this is a deliberate literary construction by the authors….” (Matthew Flannagan)

And so on. As alluded to earlier, in the book “The Lost World of the Israelite Conquest” there are various references to syntax of something akin to “…like a cancer…” but they do not make sense if left standing in mid-air given the following fact, quoted from another source:

“….Israel’s own occupation of the land was conditional; Israel too would be “..utterly destroyed..” if it engaged in the defiling practices of the Canaanites (Lev. 18: 25– 28 ). Indeed, later the Israelites would be judged— removed from the land through exile— because they violated the terms of the covenant….”

And yet notice that Israel is not “the-proverbial cancer” and, also, still again Israel is not “In-Genocide-Like-Fashion-Utterly-Destroyed-By-God” in that “exile”. But what about “Utterly Destroyed?” That happened to Israel? Well yes. “THAT” did happen and that Promise WAS kept in that God DID “utterly destroy” Israel and such was vis-à-vis that proverbial Exile. Israel is absorbed into other nations, alive and well, overcome, conquered, retaining their identity in many senses, losing it in many senses. Neither the facts of history, nor the actual metanarrative, nor ancient biblical and extra-biblical “linguistics” support any sort of “Full-Stop” appeal to “….like a cancer…” nor to any “Full-Stop” appeal to what any of us mean by “genocide” because, again, Israel gets the SAME PROMISE of “utterly destroyed” carried out ON THEM as they practice their Faith under their various rulers and have their various cities and so on all under their various rulers. That is why/how Canaanite populations and interactions are still in the later narratives of the Old Testament long after these earlier narratives. History, Scripture, and Fact affirm what modernity describes as “Regime Change” and not what modernity describes as “Genocide”. Regarding the “why/how” behind the fact that all such violence, even Justified War, is defined by Scripture as Ugly/Bad see www.BibleViolence.com which goes to Deficiency Of Being, Old Testament Violence, The Metaphysic Of Privation, And Christ Crucified https://metachristianity.com/old-testament-violence-the-metaphysic-of-privation-and-christ-crucified/

Covenant Theology finds Canaanites and proverbial outsiders in Shechem within Joshua chap. 8 vis-à-vis the covenant renewal ceremony, which mirror’s Israel’s own future experience in Israel’s exile. No identity is ever “Utterly Destroyed” nor can we find any supposed Outsider/Insider missing from that seamless Stream of Ancestry within Christ. We find there that the two notions of a. “Sin was all up in the whole show as the reason for all of Israel taking over Canaan….” and of b. “Sin had nothing to do with any of it” are both leaving out definitive chunks of Narrative, as, all over again:

“….The point here is this: God doesn’t play favorites. God said that he raised up Israel in part to judge the Canaanites for their sins. (Deuteronomy 9:5) But then God turned around and judged Judah when they did the same thing by letting other nations conquer them. (2 Kings 21:10-16)

That is from the essay “Killing the Canaanites: Why can’t atheists like Richard Dawkins tell the difference between genocide and justified capital punishment?”

Similar observations are from “God of Violence Yesterday, God of Love Today? Wrestling honestly with the Old Testament” by Helen Paynter:

“In contrast to other ancient Near Eastern deities, the God of Israel does not support whatever battle the leader picks. Similarly, there are surprising themes of God not being on Israel’s side and of God favoring Canaanites and condemning Israelites.”

Similarly, Actual War was not All-Or-None with respect to our own “Modernity’s Old English Literalism” as the deliberate literary constructions used (…and which Modernity’s Old English Literalism muddies up…) are neither “spooky” nor “just-da-bible” but are historically defined in both Biblical and Extra-Biblical manuscripts.

Question: “…don’t you believe in literal interpretation…”

Answer: I think you mean to affirm a non-literal interpretation, yes? If you believe that “All That Breathes” is a bit of syntax that is mysteriously immune to the facts of history then you believe that we are to read about a fiction (…God commanded the killing of all that breathes…). But we know better. So it’s not clear what you mean by “literal”. That word isn’t supposed to mean “historically-uninformed”.

Slavery & Violence & Discussion Hall #1 & Discussion Hall #2 https://randalrauser.com/2019/08/four-pitfalls-for-apologists-defending-biblical-violence/#comment-4578894509

More segues into the fact of Non-Genocide in the book “Jesus Loves Canaanites” https://randalrauser.com/book/jesus-loves-canaanites/ and also reviewed at https://strangenotions.com/did-god-command-genocide-in-the-old-testament/

The text is either in the Genre of Modernity’s News Reports and is historically accurate “in that sense” and so we find that scores of cities & peoples survived the so called “genocide” – in which case there was no genocide – or – the text is in a different Genre where the author’s intents and literary devices take over. Most agree that what we find is that the “Genocide” within Joshua is Historical Fiction and the authors all knew that just as they knew the “sense” in which they wrote and the authors all had different literary constructions/devices throughout history and so our job is to extricate and apply those constructions/devices.

In Closing:

Recall that “Sub-Narratives” never can “become” “Meta-Narrative”. The key to the meaning of any verse comes from the paragraph, not just from the individual words, and then the key to the meaning of any paragraph comes from the chapter, not just from the individual paragraphs, and then the key to the meaning of any chapter comes from the specific book, not just from the individual chapters, and then the key to the meaning of any individual book in Scripture comes from the Whole Metanarrative that is [Scripture] and not just from the individual books, and then the key to the meaning of the Metanarrative comes from logical lucidity vis-à-vis ontological referents in a specific Metaphysic, not just from [The-Bible], and then the key to the meaning of the Map that is the Metaphysic comes from the Terrain that is the Trinitarian Life and not just from the Metaphysic, and that Terrain sums to Timeless Reciprocity & Ceaseless Self-Giving vis-a-vis Processions vis-a-vis the Trinitarian Life even as robust explanatory power on all fronts teaches us that just as it is incoherent to say “Physics” somehow “Comes-From” that physics book over there on the shelf, so too it is incoherent to say that Metaphysical Naturalism or that the Christian Metaphysic either does or “can in principle” somehow “Come-From” ANY-thing that reduces to a World-Contingent Explanatory Terminus.

With some of that in mind the following are a few vectors I put together in 2014 which are a bit esoteric but, well, it has to be okay to have SOME sort of FUN every now and then with one’s writing (etc.) ~

Begin Esoteric-ish Copy/Paste:

Slavery’s Only Absolute – Ceaseless – Antithesis: Trinity

Absurdity:

Deep in the mire of unrecallable eons metaphysical naturalism finds her faceless god named Blind Indifference relentlessly falling forward, nurturing, rearing any potpourri of molecular happenstance worthy of yet one more step of genomic multiplication. The hodgepodge arrays of irrationally conditioned reflexes summing into the psychedelic inclinations we call “slavery” across various insect speciations is found ever worthy, highly favored and therein declared part of god’s fitted kingdom. Kaleidoscopic cascades falling forward ever outward, ever wider across fitted eras carried the kingdom’s self-serving heartlessness into yet other, even more successful species – effervescing into the ever irrationally conditioned psychic phosphorescence within the skulls of a more recent biped arrival. The bipeds immersed in their many and varied conditional – arbitrary – delusions each declare with fists raised that their own particular conditioned – arbitrary – delusion is the fact of the matter an all others are the “real” delusion. In a world of neurons awash in an ocean of blind molecular reflex antirealism’s ontological pluralism sits at god’s right hand – his expressionless name being Absurdity and god is his A and his Z. The bipeds are unaware that these too – these varied notions of trueness – are yet other crafty bits of stealth which god has laced deep into his array of reflexive feedback loops ever lurking beneath the surface compelling her mechanistic genomic duplications to spit out yet again. She always wins, eventually, across the eons as her beloved psychotics adrift in their ocean of conditioned – arbitrary – delusions ever shuffle this way and that way feverishly sprinting towards inevitable extinction there in what is the moral landscape of god’s kingdom.

Sanity:

Our brutally repeatable moral experiences intellectually and existentially coincides with Scripture’s Meta-Narrative – each affirming that Slavery is in all possible worlds – at every conceivable juncture – that which is – in existence’s full and final essence – the Ought-Not, the Outside, the Dark, the Ugly, such that once the universe’s fateful reorganization within its quantum change-of-states (energy’s absurd infinite regress) fluxes yet again and evolutionary morality is non-entity, there will yet be – still left standing – that immutable Objective Moral Object inside of love’s volitional grain amid personhood – still left standing – in all that is love’s I-You / Self-Other there as the final mediator, Actuality’s ceaseless envoi. The inescapable – unending – value of, beauty of, worthiness of Person, of Other there – we will see how – ends all regression – ad infinitum. This meta-narrative is the fact of the matter, is the state of affairs on the issue at hand – slavery – and that in all possible worlds, therefore – it is self-evident – we must look beyond both methodological and metaphysical naturalism’s inseparable identities with the kaleidoscopic fluidity of the arbitrary, the phantasmagoric, the amoral, the indifferent for in that hopelessly indifferent paradigm ontological pluralism wrapped up inside of antirealism’s variegated oscillations awaits all lines and while in such absurdity all may be the stuff of psychosis adrift in an ocean of irrationally conditioned delusion, all assertions just are an impossible case in such a world of delusion-laden psychosis. Naturalism as a metaphysics – not as a methodology of the study of the created order – accumulates here ever more hemorrhaging in what ends in fatality, and, in this issue now at hand, leaves SLAVERY ever intact as just one more bit of The-Real in that endless chain of bits within quantum indeterminism’s absurd infinite regress that just is energy’s change-of-state – that just is atheism’s god.

Spying Freedom:

Once out of metaphysical naturalism’s nihilism we find that Mind’s I-exist is declared actually intact – free of enslavement’s absurdity – where logic’s A in fact is not logic’s B as logic’s finger outreaches the edges of the natural universe and man’s own mind, his own living-i-am there awakes within an ocean of ontological contours which all begin to fuse as we move into the arena of our brutally repeatable experiences, into all that is logic, into all that is the beloved, into all that is love. We find at the end of these many lines all that is personhood’s necessarily triune real estate of the I’s motions amid all that just is the milieu of Self-Other-Us and there mind’s living-i-am’s perceive yet farther. In all these junctures that same triune real estate of personhood, of the I’s motions, is found seamlessly fluid in His Image, that ontological – moral – landscape that is the ceaseless reciprocity within the immutable love of the Necessary Being, there – in God – in Trinity.

Emancipation:

God – Immutable Love – Trinity – articulates, “Let Us make man in Our Image” and Genesis’ Actuality is the OT’s Actuality, is the NT’s Actuality, as Actuality finds Man in the lap of Personhood’s inescapably triune milieu of Self-Other-Us within the ceaseless reciprocity of the immutable love of the Necessary Being. Therein – in Trinity – love’s timeless Sacrifice, pouring out, of all which we call Self – amid and among the timeless Filling of all which we call the Beloved/Other forever begets within such living waters all which just is the singular Us – and this ad infinitum void of what we call First, void of what we call Last, void of what we call Thirst. Such triune contours within the immutable love of the Necessary Being bring us to the ends of what Man can call sight as he peers into He Who first precedes, then endures, and finally outreaches, outdistances, all possible worlds. The exegesis of filiation, of the eternally begotten as a proper and orthodox semantic paradigm is there forever housed within the Triune, that is to say, within those motions which both the intellectual and existential affirm as comprising love, Who Scripture affirms is Himself God. A key that unlocks: Man is by necessity the Contingent Self, fashioned in His Image – in God’s, the Triune’s, Image – and therein Man’s Means and Man’s Ends just are those motions found within Trinity by which all his (man’s) hope – all his (man’s) means and ends – are reduced to one word: Other.

Slavery’s End:

The geography amid Contingency and Necessity never changes as all that is the state of affairs of the contingent self’s volition amid self/other finds him in motion and such unpacks the affairs of volition’s delight, of volition’s trust within love’s many embraces and we find that should such motion be into the contingent’s own self he will there find – necessarily – insufficiency, lack, want, and this ad infinitum in the un-free permanence of the un-whole. Whereas, that same business of volition – of motion – into what just is Immutable Love finds the non-free of the non-whole fading into non-entity as – ad infinitum – He fills us full with our true and final felicity. All the OT’s assessment of means and ends across all those millennia just always were those same means and ends assessed in the NT which all these millennia just always have been all these affairs of His Love enunciating across all that just is the history of man that it is the case that in fact – actually, finally – no person shall need to be taught of love by man ever again – as it will be Immutable Love Himself Who fills us, Who we spy face to face. The Necessary Means here becomes the Necessary Being Himself as – it is self-evident – nothing less houses the reach required to tie up all such metaphysical ends in Actuality’s Paradigm. All-Sufficiency emerges as what must be the contingent’s hope: God Himself pouring Himself out for – pouring Himself into – we the contingent in all that just is the affairs of Amalgamation, all that just is Timelessness/Time, Immaterial/Material, Incorporeal/Corporeal, Word/Flesh, in all that just is the affairs of God-In-Man, of Man-In-God – of incarnation. By such All-Sufficient Means an unspeakable liberty will emerge in our Ends as wherever we shall there freely motion within Actuality’s Triune, whether into what lay beneath our feet, or into what sails above our heads, or into those possible worlds within our chests, we will find that beautiful freedom called Permanence.

End Esoteric-ish Copy/Paste ((…from https://www.thinkingchristian.net/posts/2014/08/ten-reasons-the-bible-has-it-right-on-slavery/#comment-104642 …))

Slavery: The Christian Metanarrative Defines Slavery As A Swath Of Privation’s Many Pains Therefore The Christian Metanarrative Cannot Have A “Pro-Slavery” Verse Much Less A “Pro-Slavery” Any-Thing. That’s the bottom line. As per the following:

http://www.Slavery.Bible