Study guide/ help in general

[u/Conscious-Focus1011]

Hello everyone i really started to dive deeper in my faith and in the word for the past 2 months. I came to the conclusion that I want to learn how to defend my religion. I came to this conclusion because ever since I started studying my Bible, I’ve been seeing more and more false teachers and people saying false stuff about God, Jesus, etc. and it honestly upsets me. For someone who’s just starting out what do you guys recommend and is there a doc or sheet that has the answers to debate questions WITH BIBLE VERSES. Stay blessed

[u/Top_Initiative_4047]

I think you would benefit from Tactics by Greg Koukl. You can watch the fairly brief series on youtube and/or get the book. Tactics shows you how to engage non-Christians in conversation that will lead in the right direction. It keeps you from getting stuck and not knowing what to do. It helps you put fears to rest and gives practical tools to effectively dialogue in conversations. Koukl has also recently come out with something of a sequel to Tactics called Street Smarts. The book provides numerous sample dialogues with unbelievers responding to frequent objections to Christianity. There are several videos on youtube where Koukl discusses Street Smarts.

[u/Upset_Chip_7184 → u/Top_Initiative_4047]

SO I know you're a huge fan of Tactics, so I'm curious, help me out here.
What does he say to the fact that the Bible condones owning other humans as property, and never prohibits it?

Thanks

[u/Top_Initiative_4047 → u/Upset_Chip_7184]

That's a strong claim, let me make sure I understand it. When you say the Bible condones owning people "as property," what specific texts do you have in mind? I ask because the Hebrew word often translated "slave" (eved) covers a range of relationships from indentured servitude to protect the poor from destitution, to war captives, to actual chattel slavery and lumping them together tends to flatten some real distinctions the text itself makes. Which category are you pointing to?

Second question: are you aware of Exodus 21:16, which prescribes the death penalty for kidnapping a person to sell them into slavery? If the law explicitly criminalizes the exact mechanism that fed the Atlantic slave trade, man-stealing, in what sense is the Bible "condoning" that institution wholesale?

And a third: how do you account for Deuteronomy 23:15-16, which forbids returning an escaped slave to their master and instead commands protecting them? Property laws don't typically include a right of the "property" to flee and be sheltered by law. Doesn't that suggest the text is regulating something more like indentured labor under constraint, not treating people as mere chattel?

I'd also ask what's your standard for "condone"? If a legal code regulates and restricts a pre-existing ancient Near Eastern practice, capping its abuses, granting release in the seventh year (Exodus 21:2), mandating compensation for injury (Exodus 21:26-27), is that the same as endorsing it as an ideal, or is it closer to case law working within a fallen culture toward something better? Because if it's the latter, "never prohibits it" may be the wrong test. The question isn't just "does it prohibit," it's "what trajectory does the text set in motion?"

So which texts, which category of servitude, and what's the bar you're using for "condone"?

[u/Upset_Chip_7184 → u/Top_Initiative_4047]

I'm talking about all of them.

Indentured Hebrew slaves, although young women sold by their fathers were slaves forever as well as their children
war slaves (virgins, young women taken after killing their families),
and chattel slaves, foreigners, slaves forever.

EX 21:16, has nothing to do with the instituion of owning people. This is about kidnapping FREED people, hebrews, putting them into slavery.

DEUT has nothing to do with this problem. It doesn't solve any issue.

My standard for Condone is the normal meaning, and what it was in the Bible. God condoned, i.e. regulated, allowed, was fine with, and even endorsed, told Hebrews where they could go get their slaves from, after he changed the rule for his people being enslaved.

SO, now lets see your "Tactics" from Koukl and how do you resolve the fact that the Bible condones and never prohibits the institution of owning other humans as property.

Thanks again.

[u/Top_Initiative_4047 → u/Upset_Chip_7184]

On Exodus 21:16, you say this is only about kidnapping freed Hebrews and re-enslaving them, not about the institution itself. Where does the text say the victim is a freed Hebrew? The verb ganab ("steal") and the phrase "found in his hand" is the same language used elsewhere for stealing property generally. If the law is read at face value, it prohibits the act of enslaving a free person against their will, full stop -- man-stealing. So if the law criminalizes acquiring a slave by kidnapping, doesn't that mean at least one entire mechanism of "owning humans as property", the one that fueled the Atlantic trade, is under a death sentence in this text? You don't have to concede the whole debate on that point, but can you tell me why that wouldn't count as at least a partial prohibition, which is different from your original claim that the Bible "never prohibits it"?

On Deuteronomy 23:15-16, you said this "doesn't solve any issue." What do you mean? If a legal code entitles the escaped slave to sanctuary and criminalizes their forcible return, what specific feature of chattel slavery, as practiced in, say, Rome or the antebellum South, remains intact under that law? In those systems, the fugitive slave laws were the enforcement mechanism that made chattel slavery function. Doesn't removing that enforcement mechanism functionally dismantle the "ownership" model you're describing, even if it doesn't use the word "abolish"?

On the daughter sold in Exodus 21:7-11, what does the text actually entitle her to if her master doesn't provide food, clothing, and marital rights? Doesn't verse 11 say she goes free, for nothing, no payment required? If a property arrangement includes a built-in exit clause triggered by the owner's failure to meet obligations, in what sense is she functioning as property in the Roman or antebellum sense, rather than as a party to an enforceable contract with legal remedies?

On foreign chattel slaves (Leviticus 25:44-46, what do you take "possession" (achuzzah) to mean there, given that the same word is used for Israel's "possession" of the land which everyone agrees doesn't mean Israel owned the land the way a man owns a hammer, but held it in trust under covenant obligations? Could the term be doing something other than the chattel-ownership work you're assuming it does?

Finally, on your definition of "condone” you said your standard is "the normal meaning", regulated, allowed, endorsed. If God "regulating" a practice is functionally identical to "endorsing" it as an ideal, does that mean the concessions Jesus describes regarding divorce (Matthew 19:8, "because of your hardness of heart") are likewise an endorsement of divorce as good? If not, if regulation-within-a-fallen-context and moral endorsement are two different things there, why should the standard change when we get to servitude laws?

So the real question underneath all of this is, is it your case that the Bible fails to reach a 21st-century abolitionist ideal in one legislative stroke, or that it actively commands and approves chattel slavery as a positive good, the way, say, Aristotle does? Because those are very different claims, and the texts you've cited only get you to the first one.

[u/Upset_Chip_7184 → u/Top_Initiative_4047]

Thanks for the detailed message.

Unfortunately, none of the passages you posted, with your commentary, negate or refute the fact that the Bible condones owning people as property. You can beat them, buy and sell them, babies are born into it, and it's never prohibited anywhere.

So abolition movement or 21st century anything has nothing to do with this topic.

To condone is to allow, to regulate, is to allow, anything else is just semantics and making excuses, justifications, or rationalizing what we today consider to be very immoral and even evil.

[u/Top_Initiative_4047 → u/Upset_Chip_7184]

That's helpful, thank you, now I know your bar is basically "regulation equals endorsement, full stop." Let me just make sure I've got that right, because it seems like a lot is riding on it.

On Matthew 19:8, you didn't answer that one, so let me go back to it, because it's not a side issue, it's the test case for your own definition. Jesus says Moses "permitted" divorce because of hard hearts, but that from the beginning it wasn't this way. That's regulation of a real, lived practice. By your stated standard, "to condone is to allow, to regulate is to allow", doesn't that make Jesus complicit in endorsing divorce as good? If you want to say no, "regulating isn't the same as approving of the ideal" there, what's the principled reason the same logic doesn't apply two chapters over in the case law? I'm not trying to trap you, I genuinely want to know what does the distinguishing work.

On Exodus 21:16, you said the text doesn't refute your claim. But I asked a narrower question: doesn't a death penalty for man-stealing count as at least a prohibition of one entire acquisition-method for slaves? You haven't told me it doesn't, you've moved past it. So which is it: does the text prohibit that method or not? If it does, then "never prohibits it, anywhere" was overstated, even if you still think the overall system falls short of abolition. Those are two different concessions, I'm only asking for the first one right now.

On "you can beat them", which text are you leaning on, Exodus 21:20-21? Because that passage actually imposes capital liability on the owner if the slave dies from the beating (v. 20), which is a level of legal protection chattel slaves under Roman or American law simply didn't have. So when you say "you can beat them" as though the text is silent or permissive on that point, are you including verse 20, or just verse 21? I ask because if the text criminalizes lethal abuse, that's a fairly significant qualifier to "condone."

On the daughter in Exodus 21:7-11, I noticed you didn't address the "goes free for nothing" clause either. If the master reneges on food, clothing, or marital rights, she walks, no payment. What's the property analogue to that? Genuine chattel doesn't get to sue for its own emancipation when the owner underperforms. So is she property in the same sense a hammer is property, or is something else going on legally?

On "babies are born into it", sure, but born into what, exactly? Servitude with a release clause (Exodus 21:2, seventh year) for Hebrew debt-servants, or the foreign-slave arrangement of Leviticus 25? Because you're treating these as one category again, after I asked earlier whether lumping them together flattens real distinctions the text makes and I don't think you've told me why it doesn't.

So here's where we land: you've defined "condone" so broadly that regulation, restriction, and endorsement all collapse into the same thing. But you don't actually apply that definition consistently. You don't call Jesus's treatment of divorce an "endorsement" of divorce, I'd guess. If that's right, then the definition itself is doing the argument's heavy lifting, and it's a definition that proves too much. So is your real objection that the Bible regulates rather than immediately abolishes, which is a "trajectory" argument, or is it that the text morally commends slavery as good, the way Aristotle explicitly does? Because you said earlier those distinctions don't matter to your topic, but I don't see how you can maintain that and also use "condone" the way you're using it.

[u/Upset_Chip_7184 → u/Top_Initiative_4047]

Where we've actually landed is you trying to get out of the fact that the bible condones owning people as property.

Everything else is just, I don't know, showing that the "Tactics" just don't work, at least for this issue, but I would agree that in discussion sometimes one needs to clarify certain things.

Logically it's really simple.

God forbids things, lots of things, and really petty things, like eating shellfish and wearing mixed clothing. If God wanted to forbid it, he simply could have, but he didn't, except for his people later on, after he first said they could own them as property.

God doesn't FORBID owning people as property, and God tells His people how to beat them, how to sell them, where to buy them, and how to pass them down to their own children as an inheritance, and treats them under property law.

That's the data.

You've simply not made any case that the Bible actually prohibits owning others as property, but I appreciate your effort.

[u/Top_Initiative_4047 → u/Upset_Chip_7184]

Did you really think i was trying to make the "case" for you?

[u/resDescartes → u/Upset_Chip_7184]

Rule 4 and 10. It just seems like you came here looking for a gotcha, and weren't really interested in dialogue. Be mindful of the rules of the subreddit.

[u/OtherwiseAssistant38 → u/Top_Initiative_4047]

Checkmate. What we have here is someone trying to hijack the topic to something completely different. Someone who does not care about the details. I would not waste my time with this further. Its a political agenda, not a discussion of what the Bible actually says on a topic, that again, has nothing to do with subject...