The Bible's views On Slavery & Subjugation of Women

again, the bible was written in olden times and things were different back that, which is why you should take the bible litterally...there are 2 different types of christians, those who believe the bible is the word of god and those who believe that the bible was written by man about how they saw god and the life of jesus, mainly basing their writtings on their own beliefs.

as you will have noticed in the bible and other scriptures,they were written by MEN,whom tend to be untrustworthy,selfish and selfopionated,so is it any wonder these men that wrote the bible,allow themselfs to what they feel is rightfully theirs.xx

Although the Bible includes great wisdom and has been a positive source of guidance throughout the centuries, it also has passages that have been responsible for the subjugation and degradation of women. And yes you are right there are so many versus I mean why do they have to discriminate a being from the others when they have the same properties,potential and literally everything If you see a pretty woman among your captives and would like her for a wife, then bring her home and "go in unto her." Later, if you decide you don't like her, you can simply "let her go." (Deuteronomy 21:11-14) Isnt it really sick?

Slaves were a reality then, so the Bible was made applicable to all men. Jesus was available to the highest of kings and the lowest of slaves. The point is that whatever role you have, fulfill it to the best of your ability. As for the Ephesians verse, I'm not sure what's the trouble with it. It says for wives to submit to their husbands, and also says for husbands to respect their wives (not enough was pasted).

A good question. Please note the comments mentioned on Bible should not be taken literally. Every quotation/comments are made according to that particular context, culture and situation. So it differs according to context.

Christian is only about 30% of the world.. the other 70% of the world population believe in something else, or nothing else. Please see the pie chart I added.The point is that whatever role you have, fulfill it to the best of your ability. The Chinese suffered a similar fate later in the century, though not so severe. And the churches back then misquoted the scriptures to give mandate to that dastardly act. On to women: The Bible (not just the Ephesians text) gives man the position of headship and women were to be subject to that headship - be it subjecting to a husband if she has one, or subjecting to the elders if in a congregation.

The point to remember is that the Bible was written not only a long time ago but over a span of several millenia. The idea of women voting and being treated as equals was even unthinkable only a few centuries ago, and slavery was a prolific and respectable practice a couple of centuries ago as well. This type of reference is inevitable in the Bible, unless the whole thing is totally rewritten as a modern version that would invalidate most of it. Nevertheless, I like the examples that you quote and the Ephesians 5 vs 22 to 24 will prove very useful for annoying people with.

the bible supports slavery and inequality between men and women. yes, it was written in a different time period, but that does not justify such atrocious acts.

With the bible one must take two things into account. Now when I say all this please realize I was raised Roman Catholic. First, as my one teacher who was a priest stated, the bible was written by men under Roman law. So realize that many things stated in there were by what was acceptable by Rome at the time. The men that wrote the bible were upsetting the laws enough by preaching about One God over many. They weren't going to risk even more by saying the laws about women, slaves etc needed to be changed. The second is that the bible was written over 2,000 years ago and then translated and copied for years. The parts of it that we read are the approved writings that the church and others could agree on. Who knows how it has been changed or altered, let alone what might have been left out. We know some of the parts because of the Apocrypha but there were 12 apostles and yet we don't have writings from all of them. That alone should make you wonder. Overall I'd say not worry about the parts that you find conflicting with your moral conscious about women and slaves. Most of these were designed to support the laws and beliefs of the times, either Roman or later during the acceptance period.

hey bible was a book written by any godly figure... it was created and edited by men like us,who wanted some kind of reassurance tht thr was god...so they come up wid this boook and say tht its the ultimate truth... and everyone knows tht men were chauvinists(those days and today!) they just wanted to suppress everyone else while uplifting themselves... thts all this is abt... total nonsense

first of all, before trying to interpret biblical scriptures, one must first study what is the context of the scriptures. and second you should consider the time this was written, and what culture is intwined in this scriptures. in the old testament, or in the olden times for that matter, slavery was common and is not a breach of human rights. God favored his people, the israelites, who worship Him. now in the new testament, especially after the splitting of the covers of the Holy of Holies (research on this one), the new testament gospels and epistles preached kindness to all of man, to treat every man like you would have him treat you. you see that the context is different from the old testament. the new testament is a big factor in developing what we now call human rights. so before you dismiss the scriptures as false, or inhuman, please study it first.

Wives are under the authority of the husband, that's what the Bible says. As the church is the bride and Christ is the head and the church submits to Christ. In the olden times, slaves are property and therefore could be bought and/or sold. In fact Joseph was sold in Egypt and became a slave. A slave as a property could not do what he wants - he has to follow the owner, the one who bought him. This is why servants of God are called slaves of Christ - they must obey because Christ bought them with a price and not just ordinary because the price is His blood. In our time now, there are practically no more slaves. People are no longer considered as commodities to be sold or disposed of at the pleasure of the owner. BUT I am a slave - a slave of Christ. I hope this could help to elucidate matters. May God bless you. SEN

The point is that whatever role you have, fulfill it to the best of your ability.So the bible says you can have slaves, but not race-based slaves.. how does that work? You can only have a slave of your same race?

With the coming of Christ so many things changed. Freedom was brought to life. It is always so important to look at Scripture in context and see why it was written. Obviously the words for the Ephesiens, as they must have had a problem with this and this is why Paul is writing this to them. At the end of the day, God is a God of order and therefore there are different positions in life. It is not to say that women is slaves to their husbands but they have more responibilites when it comes to marriage. They must be the head of the family and should have the last say if it is of course not against God's will that is.Women should not see this as being slaves and I think if you love each other then it wont be seen as this and if you base your marriage on Christian life and principles and together always look for His will then you will not see it as slavery. We all belong to Christ and He loves us all. Women should be glad to sometimes dwell on the decisions of their husbands and know that the husband must one day answer to his decisions in life. In all each verse must be read in context and see who it was written to and for what reason. Men is however the head of the family as Christ is the head of the church but the man must submit himself to the Lord in everything he does as well. It does not only go one way but both ways. You will know if your husband is seeking the will of the Lord before he makes a decision..... Hope I could help in some of your questions?

I think that the only quotation amongst them which can or should be used is: 1 Peter 2:13 Submit yourselves for the Lord’s sake to every authority instituted among men. Jesus said: "Render unto Caesar that which is Caesars and unto God, that which is God's" The other passages were written interpreting the same injunction as it applied to circumstances at the time. Today (in Europe and the USA) our official culture dictates that to pretend to 'own' another man or woman as a slave infringes human rights and that women have equal rights to men both in the home and out of it. Unfortunately, this is frequently not borne out in practice and slavery is sometimes effectual, if not actual, and many men (and women) still feel that the wife should subjugate herself to the husband.

the bible was written a very long time ago when the society was male dominated.it still is today in many countries,like in the islamic world.so one cannot realy fault the bible for preaching what sounded right back then.of course if some preacher preaches what you have ssaid above thats different.that person should be made to realise that the world has changed.there are a lot of people in today's world that still stick to the old dogma of man rules over everything even women. but many people are being educated and this is slowly changing.but also there are some countries where the women are treated as mere chattel,like in pakistan.but even in pakistan,there are some welcome changes like the changes to the infamous rape law! what you have mentioned above is/was practised not only by christianity but many other religions all over the world and some still do it to this day. remember the burkah! http://atheism.about.com/od/womenandreligion/Women_and_Religion_News_on_Women_Sexism_and_Feminism_in_Religion.htm http://www.womensenews.org/article.cfm?aid=2399 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=12178911&dopt=Abstract

Good discussion. That is exactly what I like on the bible. Slavery, Bigotry, Genocides (sodoma). Mainly the fundamentalists will claim that the holy ghost inspires them to what to believe literally or not, at least in public. In private some of them may tend to take ALL literally and in what condition a wife of such a man will be.

We can question everything about the bible because we have different interpretations. I myself is skeptical about this. But we must respect others beliefs.

useful info on bible. check out my info on bible. According to the Online Etymology Dictionary the word bible[3] is from Anglo-Latin biblia, traced from the same word through Medieval Latin and Late Latin, as used in the phrase biblia sacra ("holy books"). This then stemmed from the term (Greek: t? ß?ß??a t? ???a ta biblia ta hagia, "the holy books"), which derived from biblion ("paper" or "scroll", the ordinary word for "book"), which was originally a diminutive of byblos ("Egyptian papyrus"), possibly so called from the name of the Phoenician port from which Egyptian papyrus was exported to Greece. Biblical scholar Mark Hamilton states that the Greek phrase ta biblia ("the books") was "an expression Hellenistic Jews used to describe their sacred books several centuries before the time of Jesus[4]," and would have referred to the Septuagint[5]. The Online Etymology Dictionary states, "The Christian scripture was referred to in [Greek] as Ta Biblia as early as c.223." The Online Etymology Dictionary continues ststing that the word "Bible" replaced Old English biblioðece ("the Scriptures") from the Greek bibliotheke (lit. "book-repository" from biblion + theke, meaning "case, chest, or sheath"), used by Jerome and the common Latin word for it until Biblia began to displace it 9c. Use of the word in a figurative sense, as in "any authoritative book," is from 1804.