Atheists do not make a distinction between Jews who could become indentured servants for six years then freed the seventh year, and pagans who could be enslaved for a life time.
This skeptic claimed that a man could sell his daughter as a sex slave according to the Book of Exodus. Exodus 21:7-8 does speak of a father who might sell his daughter as a “maid servant” to a prosperous man to be his wife or to be his son’s wife. If she was to be the son’s wife, the master was to treat her as a daughter. These laws protected the girl from sexual exploitation, and gave her the opportunity to improve her station in life.
The atheist also objected to the passage in Exodus 21 where if a man beats his servant to death, the master is to be punished with death; however, if the servant survives a day or two the master shall not be punished because the servant is his property. I suppose that the assumption is that if the servant survives for a few days it was not the master’s intent to murder but to discipline. So it is enough punishment to the master that he has lost valuable property.
Slavery was not part of God’s original plan for man; but when man sold himself to the slavery of sin and idolatry, God used chattel slavery as a form of judgment. Men can forfeit their right to freedom through sin. God’s man, Moses, was the greatest slave emancipator of history. Slavery is only a sin if it goes beyond God’s regulations of the institution. The Bible is not written primarily to promote outward social change. It promotes change from within by motivating men to love their fellows, even their enemies.
Critics of the Bible’s position on slavery are usually statists, who would make us all slaves of the socialist state. They sell out their own freedom; because they do not want to take on the responsibility of providing their own food, clothing, shelter, and health care. Slaves living under Biblical regulations, compared to the slaves of pagans like the Egyptians and Romans, were treated relatively well. They may well have had better provisions than many freemen.
Statists prefer the promises of the security under socialism over the high risks involved in freedom. Many Americans are forfeiting their freedom by their refusal to govern themselves in the light of “the laws of Nature and Nature’s God.” Such people are not truly American; they tend to be internationalists, like Master Obama.
Most of college students have no appreciation of freedom. They have freedom confused with license. They would make us all slaves of Master Obama. Personally, I do not care to become a part of Obama’s Plantation with it social planners (overseers) from the Democratic Party.
