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Slavery and the bible essay
Slavery and the bible essay
Treatment of slaves in the Old Testament
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The Bible is the best-selling book of all time, and with good reason. For the stories written in it have changed the way many think and even believe when it comes to the power greater than this world. The Bible holds very specific opinions on things such as slavery, who humans should treat each other, and ultimately social justice. It has been one of the most important foundations for allowing social reform to occur in modern day history as well as the history of the whole world. However, it is forgotten in history class how prominent the ancient texts have changed the people. When looking at the history, it is discovered to be the strength of great people who have used its wisdom to bring about a change for those who could not do it on their own. Through the examination of the Bible as well as other assigned readings the focus will be on how slavery and the Bible are related. It is related to the dominion over men as well as the enslavement of one’s own soul. The goal is to accurately show how the Bible has been used throughout our history as part of the defense for the oppressed to achieve their justice and philosophically to free one’s own soul. Ideas that will be taken into consideration will be origins of movement, how slavery was dealt with in the Bible, how it has impacted the biblical worldview, and how across time it has changed things cultural. The importance of why slavery and the Bible are connected is to look at how it is part of social justice.
In order to grasp the relation, the origins of movement have to be brought to light for all to understand. It is known by most that slavery exists in the Bible, but that it justifies the act is not correct. In fact it has the opposite effect. The stories found in exodu...
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... It is possibly acknowledging the freeing of one’s soul to God from the chains of their spiritual slavery from within themselves instead infliction of other people. The two concepts more clearly being the first, slavery of people by people, and the second, slavery people may have on themselves by not surrendering to God’s love. Just as it was done here people have contemplated the texts for years creating either a negative or positive outlook of what they truly mean.
Works Cited
Cahill, Thomas. The Gifts of the Jews: How a Tribe of Desert Nomads Changed the Way Everyone Thinks and Feels. New York: Nan A. Talese, 1998. Print.
Anderson, Bernhard W. The Unfolding Drama of the Bible. Philadelphia: Fortress, 1988. Print.
Coogan, Michael D., ed. The New Oxford Annotated Bible New Revised Standard Version with the Apocrypha. 4th ed. New York: Oxford UP, 2010. Print.
Carson, D. A. New Bible Commentary: 21st Century Edition. 4th ed. Leicester, England; Downers Grove, IL: Inter-Varsity Press, 1994.
What is presented to the slaves as a religious tenet is merely propaganda used to quell rebellious behavior. They fear a society in which they no longer serve to benefit from slave labor, and so they fear rebellion, they fear objection, they fear events like the Nat Turner Insurrection. The system the slaveholders strive so ardently to protect begins to affect even them, those in power, negatively. They begin to cope with their fear the only way they know how, by projecting it upon the slaves.
The novel Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, published in 1845, provides Americans with a firsthand look into slavery prior to the Civil War. Douglass, born a slave early into the nineteenth century, encounters and survives the task of living as a slave. Within the ninth chapter of his life, an argument arises that claims Southern Christianity differs immensely from its Northern counterpart. A majority of Christians in non-slaveholding states at the time believed that Christian slaveholders were kinder after they converted, Douglass worked to invalidate this claim. In chapter nine, the ingenious use of dispassionate tone and allusion throughout the passages support the claim that a simple conversion to Christianity only gives justification to cruel southern slaveholders.
In alignment with what the Bible told them, abolitionist understood that each man represented one of God’s creations and that men were part of God’s plan. If slavery was allowed to exist, then man was interrupting God’s de...
...yne A. The HarperCollins Study Bible New Revised Standard Edition . New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 1993. 1645-1722. Print.
Because it offers them the possibility of community and identity, many slaves find themselves strongly attached to religion. They cannot build a family structure and they cannot be identified by family name, but through the church, they can build a community and identify themselves as Christians. This comfort becomes virtually non-existent for it too is controlled by the slaveowners who “came to the conclusion that it would be well to give the slaves enough of religious instruction to keep them from murdering their masters” (57). The fact that one person could have the ability to control the amount of religion another person has and his purpose for having it diminishes any sense of community or identity that it may have initially provided.
Douglass continues to describe the severity of the manipulation of Christianity. Slave owners use generations of slavery and mental control to convert slaves to the belief God sanctions and supports slavery. They teach that, “ man may properly be a slave; that the relation of master and slave is ordained by God” (Douglass 13). In order to justify their own wrongdoings, slaveowners convert the slaves themselves to Christianity, either by force or gentle coercion over generations. The slaves are therefore under the impression that slavery is a necessary evil. With no other source of information other than their slave owners, and no other supernatural explanation for the horrors they face other than the ones provided by Christianity, generations of slaves cannot escape from under the canopy of Christianity. Christianity molded so deeply to the ideals of slavery that it becomes a postmark of America and a shield of steel for American slave owners. Douglass exposes the blatant misuse of the religion. By using Christianity as a vessel of exploitation, they forever modify the connotations of Christianity to that of tyrannical rule and
The controversies surrounding slavery have been established in many societies worldwide for centuries. In past generations, although slavery did exists and was tolerated, it was certainly very questionable,” ethically“. Today, the morality of such an act would not only be unimaginable, but would also be morally wrong. As things change over the course of history we seek to not only explain why things happen, but as well to understand why they do. For this reason, we will look further into how slavery has evolved throughout History in American society, as well as the impacts that it has had.
The English Standard Version Bible: Containing the Old and New Testaments with Apocrypha. New York: Oxford UP, 2009. Print.
... middle of paper ... ... The third and final point of the essay seeks to affirm and bolster Equiano’s moral instruction, through the backing of biblical passages. In these three varying ways, the reader observes how Equiano uses Christianity to showcase that worth in regards to the African slaves had a meaning outside of the monetary connotation prevalent at that time in history.
The slave owners accepted and rationalized slavery through the Holy Bible. The Bible mentions slavery on numerous occasions, and yet none of these passages condemn it. Timothy 6:1-2 states, “Let slaves regard th...
Slave-owners forced a perverse form of Christianity, one that condoned slavery, upon slaves. According to this false Christianity the enslavement of “black Africans is justified because they are the descendants of Ham, one of Noah's sons; in one Biblical story, Noah cursed Ham's descendants to be slaves” (Tolson 272). Slavery was further validated by the numerous examples of it within the bible. It was reasoned that these examples were confirmation that God condoned slavery. Douglass’s master...
In Frederick Douglass’ Narrative, Christianity is a prominent feature of both slave and slave-owners’ lives. However, Douglass highlights the discrepancies between the religions of these two groups, finding the Christianity of slave holders to be false, malicious and hypocritical. Though he makes clear he is not irreligious himself, Douglass condemns the insincere ideology of slave owning America.
Wenham, G.J., Moyter, J.A., Carson, D.A. and France, R.T., eds. New Bible Commentary. Downers Grove: Intervarsity Press, 1998.
Thiselton, A.C. (2005). Can the Bible mean whatever we want it to mean? Chester, U.K.: Chester Acadamic Press, 10-11.