>No, I have come to divide people against each other! 52 From now on families will be split apart, three in favor of me, and two against—or two in favor and three against."

This is somewhat oblique to the point you're making, but I find a lot of bible passages totally incomprehensible. What is Jesus saying here? That families will likely be for or against him, and that families will consist of 5 members, and each family will have an uneven split? (2-3 vs 3-2) It seems like a very pedantic and odd way to make the point I believe the author is trying to make. Does this rely on an old colloquialism? Is there some reason it's phrased so strangely? Would it not have sounded strange to contemporary ears?

I actually had a bit of a shock when I finally read old Greek writing: Herodotus, Plato, etc. Everything they write is meant to be clearly an precisely understood. Depending on the translation, the writing feels simple and modern. I had naively expected all old writing to be like the bible: incomprehensible, metaphorical, nonsensical.

> 49 “I have come to bring fire on the earth, and how I wish it were already kindled! 50 But I have a baptism to undergo, and what constraint I am under until it is completed! 51 Do you think I came to bring peace on earth? No, I tell you, but division. 52 From now on there will be five in one family divided against each other, three against two and two against three. 53 They will be divided, father against son and son against father, mother against daughter and daughter against mother, mother-in-law against daughter-in-law and daughter-in-law against mother-in-law.”

To me it feels like this is encouraging cult like behaviours. Support Jesus even if it pits you against your family. Losing your family is bad, but not following Jesus sends you to hell.

Because you are comparing the best and most well known authors of the period to the writings of a crazy underground offshoot of a minority religion. Masters of the craft vs that guy that believes in lizard people.

If you want a fascinating case study, look at what happened with the "book of mormon". It's a hot mess of gobbledygook and plagiarized stories yet to mormons it's the best book ever written.

Meanwhile, you had literary giants like Charles Dickens and Victor Hugo writing time honored classics in the same time period which are still very readable and accessible today.

I’ve been listening to the “secret history of western esotericism” podcast, and some of the writings of those guys is just as incomprehensible as anything in the Bible.

> Exodus 21:16 KJV And he that stealeth a man, and selleth him, or if he be found in his hand, he shall surely be put to death.

The only lawful way to enter slavery was debt. Jews were freed in seven years and non-Jews in at most 40 years. This would actually be indentured servitude. Barbaric by today’s standards, but eminently humane by all other standards until the last 100 years or so.

> Exodus 21:20-21 KJVS [20] And if a man smite his servant, or his maid, with a rod, and he die under his hand; he shall be surely punished. [21] Notwithstanding, if he continue a day or two, he shall not be punished: for he is his money.

The punishment implied here is death (an eye for an eye).

Someone owes you a ton of money. How do you get it from them? Today, large scale professional lenders spread out risk, but that wasn’t always the case. Instead, historically, not paying meant selling them into slavery to recoup what loss you could. Now, how do you ensure you get your money through their labor?

The logic follows. Likewise, if killing your slave risks your own death, it’s not something you’ll take lightly. If you did give out such a beating, you’ll be praying they pull through and are likely to never do it again. This falls into a similar category:

> Exodus 21:18-19 KJVS [18] And if men strive together, and one smite another with a stone, or with his fist, and he die not, but keepeth his bed: [19] If he rise again, and walk abroad upon his staff, then shall he that smote him be quit: only he shall pay for the loss of his time, and shall cause him to be thoroughly healed.

In fact, I don’t think there was a penalty if the slave fought back against such a beating.

Even so much as knocking out a tooth was reason to be forced to free your slave.

> Exodus 21:26-27 KJVS [26] And if a man smite the eye of his servant, or the eye of his maid, that it perish; he shall let him go free for his eye's sake. [27] And if he smite out his manservant's tooth, or his maidservant's tooth; he shall let him go free for his tooth's sake.

Once again, such severe restrictions did not exist anywhere else in all known history. Jesus said that some restrictions (he directly referenced divorce) were less that God really desired because of humanity’s stubbornness. Divinely inspired or not, they were still revolutionary in their morality.

>Barbaric by today’s standards, but eminently humane by all other standards until the last 100 years or so.

Why are we judging the laws of an omnipotent being by the standards of humans thousands of years ago? Why can't we judge his laws by the standards of today? Why can't he have made the societies he ruled better for the poor, women, slaves, etc... He could have told the Israelites that women should be equal to men, why didn't he?

The core tenet of the law as seen by Christians today is justice tempered with mercy because of love and the the death of Jesus in payment for that mercy. If you break a windows, society is out the cost of that window. Justice demands payment by the breaker are the expense of something else they could do with the money. Mercy is when the window owner takes that debt theirselves. The debtor walks away free, but the owner must now still pay the price.

“The borrower is slave to the lender.”

While modern societies hold this to be untrue in name, it is very true in principle. Countries that owe large debts do what they’re told. Companies do the same. Even on an individual level something like student loans follow you forever. Even sin is referred to as an unrepayable debt to God. To take debt without repaying would be theft.

Even today, direct theft or deprivation of property or life is grounds for enslaving people for decades in something called prisons. You’re only complaint here is about what debts to people and society are punishable by slavery.

It’s also worth noting that debtors prison and indentured servitude existed over a half century after slavery was ended and slavery as punishment is still explicitly allowed under the US constitution.

To reiterate, the slavery presented in the Bible as a means of repaying debt is actually what we’d call indentured servitude. In contrast, slavery as practiced in the US was absolutely indefensible according to the Bible. The Bible proclaimed the slave traders as worthy of death. All the massive abuses would have immediately led to slaves being released and more than a few slave owners being executed. Finally, with all slaves being freed every 40 years making multigenerational slavery impossible (don’t forget that freed slaves were also to be provided with a means to sustain themselves —- the oldest source of “40 acres and a mule“).

Has society actually improved on this point? At most we’ve replaced it by stealing from every individual and giving that to pay the debt of others, but a group buying a slave’s freedom also existed with the difference that the money was to be volunteered rather than taken by threat of force.

The Bible clearly says enslavement without cause is injustice worthy of death. Once debt is accrued, someone must pay. The old law gives justice at all costs (forgot to mention, but slavery was a court matter). Jesus differed in teaching that while justice was fair, mercy and the self sacrifice of forgiving debt was better. By the way, this argument is rather similar to the one given by the original abolitionists who were almost universally fundamentalist Christian sects.

Now, the burden of proof is on you. Prove without religion that slavery is immoral and indentured servitude is unjust.

> Divinely inspired or not, they were still revolutionary in their morality.

That's not a game you can play with an all knowing all powerful arbitrator of absolute truth.

It would have been so easy for god to say "Hey, slavery is absolutely wrong and immoral and I don't condone it". So why didn't god? Why didn't god speak out against rape (instead putting a price tag on it and selling the woman to the rapist)? Why did god command genocide? Why did god kill millions? Why didn't god give basic health and hygiene advice? "boil water before drinking it to avoid death"? Why did god mark animals as "unclean" rather than just saying "Hey, you need to cook pork more so you don't get sick".

See, that's the problem with an all knowing being. God can't be fallible or else it's not God. The fact that you and I can come up with what we'd both agree are moral rules not found in the bible is very problematic. Things like "Woman deserve to be treated equally", "Hitting your child is wrong", "It's ok for people of different races and nationalities to marry each other", "Inflicting pain on heretics is wrong". All problems of history easily addressed. Yet instead, god felt the need to talk about not eating shellfish and the right way to trim your beard.