God as a source for objective morality - a proposition

Axiology is a branch of philosophy that studies values. Axiology includes questions about the nature of values, how they are classified, and what things have value. It also includes the study of value judgments, especially in ethics. 

To be meaningful, in an objective sense, axiological statements must have the force of obligating a moral agent to either perform a prescribed action or prohibit him from carrying one out.  If that force is not sufficiently authoritative, by what right may any human impose his personal convictions on other humans? 

If moral obligations aren’t grounded in a sufficiently authoritative way, then we are not justified in making absolute moral pronouncements. We have no warrant to say things like, “striving to eliminate poverty is objectively good” or that “racial oppression has and will always be bad, in all places and for all peoples”. Nor would one have any basis to say that "rape is wrong, or that "torturing babies for fun is morally wrong".

Only a transcendent Person who is rightly authorized in and of himself (since he alone is the author of all created things) to hold us accountable for them is justified in making absolute moral pronouncements. 

Objectively binding moral obligations can’t rightfully be imposed from within the human community, regardless of consensus by any arrangement of individuals in that community. They must come from a source external to the community (i.e. not derived from but independent of the community). That source would have an authoritative claim on the community because it would have constituted the community.

 It would also have an immutable nature, without which moral imperatives are subject to change over time. The only qualified candidate, with no conceivable substitute capable of satisfying the requirements for grounding objective morality, is God. Only his character – his intrinsically good nature – establishes the basis for why all people are properly obligated to be good.

Is there any reason to conclude that a prefect God, who created humans for a purpose, could not provide them a morality that is free from bias, individual perspectives, cultural norms, and societal values - i.e. objective morality?

Objection 1: One can be moral without believing in God. 

Reply: I’m not saying one can’t be a good, moral person unless you believe in God. I’m saying that if you accept the reality of objectively binding moral values, yet you can’t provide a coherent explanation for how to derive them, then your view of the world is incoherent.  

And if you do not accept the reality of objectively binding moral values, if morality is simply the subjective realm of desires and preferences that invariably differ from one individual to the next, then one cannot say anything is right or wrong; good or evil; moral or immoral. 

Objection 2: All morality is subjective

Reply: if you do not accept the reality of objectively binding moral values, if morality is simply the subjective realm of desires and preferences that invariably differ from one individual to the next, then one cannot say anything is right or wrong; good or evil; moral or immoral.  

See also: The Problem of Evil: Solved for Christians; A Major Problem for Atheists

The Resurrection of Jesus Christ Is a Historical Fact

Molly Worthen is an associate professor of history at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She received her BA and PhD from Yale University. 

Lorian Foote, Patricia & Bookman Peters Professor of History at Texas A&M, Ph.D., University of Oklahoma.  

This is a transcript of a talk entitled How a History Professor Changed Her Mind About the Resurrection

Note: This has been slightly edited [ums, ahs, you knows, double words deleted] and links and emphasis added. 

Lorian Foote: So what were kind of the key realizations that you had that that started to to make you think that the resurrection was possible and plausible,

Molly Worthen: The book that was most important for me was N.T. Wright's big book on the resurrection although I had to... it is even for a historian it's really a slog.

So I would constantly have to kind of pause and read a chapter that Tim Keller has in his book Reason for God on the resurrection where he sort of summarizes N.T. Wright's whole argument. So I could remind myself of the forest for the trees. That book is a is a very elaborate kind of layer after layer exploration of the views of the resurrection, and the afterlife, both in the Greco-Roman Pagan context in the first century and the spectrum of Jewish views, and he makes clear that whatever Jesus's disciples were hoping would happen, expecting would happen the end of the gospel story and the resurrection appearances are so far outside the cultural lanes, the sort of range of cultural imaginative options, that one has to really take seriously the possibility that they they did not confect these stories to support their beliefs but rather they develop these beliefs to explain unbelievable things that actually happened.

And part of the power of N.T. Wright's book is that, for me, is that it is such a slog and that there's just this cumulative effect of the depth of detail that he explores that I found really compelling. I guess I had in the past accepted what I now think of as fairly lazy analogies between Jesus and other self-declared messiahs**, other stories of gods, you know, descending and rising again to heaven. And once Wright and other scholars s**ubjected these comparisons for me to more scrupulous analysis I was persuaded that they weren't very good comparisons at all and that, the Jesus case is just incredibly strange.

And this drove me into, I think a new relationship with the gospels. I was reading the gospels over and over, you know, and having a reaction, I'm not, I'm still waiting for the mystical experience that I thought I would get, you know, at some point and nothing like that; the closest I have gotten to that is the experience of seeing for the first time the sheer strangeness of the things Jesus does his interactions with people especially the accounts of healing and the strange details, the way every healing is a little bit different. Jesus meets each person on their own terms and as much as I hate, I think I had a real, sort of allergic reaction to that evangelical theme of, "imagine yourself in the scriptures, put yourself in, in the place of these people", I did start to get tugged into the stories a little bit.

I also, I mean, there's a way in which when you spend a lot of time reading primary sources, you just develop a sort of sixth sense for what a source is, what category it belongs in. And I think this is one change that's happened in the New Testament scholarship.

So, you know following, the famous German scholar, Rudolf Bultmann in the early 20th century there was, I think, a move toward talking about the Gospels really in the category of Mythology. But the consensus has shifted and I think this is fair to say even of non-believing historians. That the appropriate genre for them is really more, Greco-Roman biography, but even then if you go and you read Plutarch’s Parallel Lives or you read, say Philistratus's biography of Apollonius of Tiana who was a traveling, Greek sort of magician, healer, who's in the first century sometimes compared to Jesus, the character of those texts, is so different.

So, the character of those texts is they're very polished. They're deeply embroidered, that the authors have a real commitment to careful theme setting. There is a brutal roughness to the Gospels. Especially Mark. Mark, I'd always kind of dismissed Mark because, like, the short one was sort of boring, least theological, Mark was the one that wrestled me to the ground and it is the grittiness, the sense that this is not, honestly, it is not a great work of literature, it is a desperate author, just trying to get on paper this bananas stuff, that this author was much closer to, than I had realized. And I became persuaded by the work of people ike Richard Bauckham was another one of these Anglicans, who can kind of speak to secular American snobs, that it's not that we need to distinguish between some sort of vague idea of oral tradition passing from community, to community and getting garbled along the way and oral history. And that there are, there are clues in the text that create a, not an airtight, but an awfully interesting and persuasive case that the Gospel authors were quite close to the events they were describing and, and possibly should be dated earlier than I had kind of come to believe. And so all of that, I mean, this was so imoprtant, I did not have to treat the Gospels as inerrant. All I had to start to do was to treat them with the same methods and the same kind of respect and questions as I would treat other historical sources. But for that to be possible, for me, they had to be sort of de-familiarized.

Lorian Foote: Interesting. Yeah, you know it's as a professional historian what you described is, how I feel about the Gospels. Because when I bring the techniques that we have in our profession to them, you know, I was telling Molly earlier, it drives me crazy. When I just hear somebody casually say, "well there's so many things that don't exactly match across the four Gospels. And so that's why it shows that that didn't really happen" and I'm like, okay. So then clearly we don't know that anything in history happened because as historians we know, when there's accounts of events....

So like I'm a civil war historian, there is not a single newspaper article and a single eyewitness to the Battle of Gettysburg that agree on the details of what happened at the battle. None of us questioned the battle we have to piece together a rough estimation of what we think happened based on accounts that don't add up.

And so to me I think as a historian I came to some things on my own that scholars, who are much better than me at the New Testament, come to do as part of their apologetics. But it was just striking to me that, in one gospel that there's two thieves are both making both making fun of Jesus and another gospel, one of them eventually turns to him, and that's what I witnessed. They both have on either side of Jesus, different witnesses are remembering different things that they saw that to me, made it more plausible and made it read as you said more like a true attempt to write a biography than a formalized document and and little things like the gospels record that women were first there.

And that women are there and women are the key eyewitnesses in a culture that discounts the testimony of women. As a historian when I would read a document like that, I would say, okay now, wait a minute, why are they having, if they're wanting to convince people of something that isn't true, would they put these witnesses, as their first class. Look, these women were the witnesses, so just lots of questions, the way that I methodologically go through and ask questions of the source. If I do the same thing to the gospels, I've always found them to be very compelling as historical documents

Molly Worthen: And the women, their role is one part of the broader absolute humiliating scandal of the whole end of the gospels. And this is what N.T. Wright's picture of Jewish theology and culture, really drove home to me in a way that I just had not assimilated before that no other movement that had believed in a self-declared Messiah had then seen that Messiah killed and declared him God. I mean, you could run away, right? Because the whole idea of the role of the Messiah in Jewish thought, was that this would be the individual who would lead Israel to worldly victory, and then Resurrection would kind of follow in the in for everybody, in the context of that victory.

And so I think this helped me see how I thought as a historian, it always been really an important part of my self-understanding that I approached people in the past with respect and a sense of humility.

But I think that there was a way in which that first task, that we're called to as historians to just really respect the chasm between them and me. It can easily slide into a kind of condescension. Because you you forget, you in your quest to distance yourself from your subjects, you can dehumanize them a little bit and maybe reduce the complexity of their worldviews.

So worldviews in the first century were, of course, very different from ours, but no less complicated. And so there were clear ideas for these people about what was and was not possible. And they were not, they were not fools. Who would just sort of believe any crazy thing, They were clear on on dead people, remaining dead, right?

And I think I had just not fully grappled with the radicalism of the Gospel claims in the first century, forget about now for me, the big hurdle and I think this is true of many scholars who spend their careers on this subject. If you don't already allow for the possibility of an open universe. If you are committed to an anti-supernaturalist understanding of reality than any possible explanation of the empty tomb and Jesus's appearances to his followers is preferable to the Christian explanation, no matter how Baroque and elaborate and I had to come to grips with my own deep anti-super-naturalist bias, I could always sort of thought of myself as open to the claims of Christianity.

But I had just, mean, my whole existence was in this one epistemological groove and this one kind of lane of approach and there are good reasons why in the modern research university in a secular university certain questions are just ones we set aside and we focus on other questions. But there's a way in which in doing that one can just get so used to setting aside those questions that you forget about the presuppositions that are involved in ruling those questions out and you can begin to think in the subconscious way that those questions are just foolish questions. Because your tools that you use in your teaching and research are not aimed directly at them.

I think also, I had a kind of "all or nothing" view of the historical method. If we define the historical method as drawing our ability to draw analogies between our own experience of cause and effect in our own life and the way cause and effect works in the past.

And we Define a miracle as Divine intervention Interruption In the normal order, normal relationship between cause and effect. Then yes, it's true that at the sort of Singularity of the miracle, the historical, method fails. So you can't prove as you couldn't a lab or or even you know, to the extent that that historians can prove things, you can't prove the resurrection.

However, there's all sorts of context. And you can bring the historical method to bear and all kinds of really fruitful ways to the textual record, the archaeological record. You don't have to make the perfect the enemy of the good. And if you're willing to suspend your disbelief in the Supernatural, then then you can be, you can begin to investigate the historical context of Christians claims about the empty tomb and the appearances of Christ that then get you to the point where you are, you're still faced with a leap of faith, but it's no longer a wild leap in the dark; it's a well-researched, reasonable leap. And then you start to realize that you were always making a bit of a leap and you just weren't acknowledging it. This was from true for me, anyway, that I had paid, I think lip service to the idea that, yes, as a secular agnostic person I had unproofable presuppositions because we all do, no view from nowhere blah, blah, blah.

But I had never. I'd never truly like looked that in the face and and and wrestled with it.

[End of Talk]

Key take aways:

1) If we treat the Gospels as we do other ancient documents they are clearly historical and reliable.

2) Accounts that "don't add up" are common in historical documents

3) In the first century people were not fools and knew that dead people stayed dead. so to conclude, even from the evidence, that Jesus rose was radical.

4) It's only a bias for an anti-supernaturalist understanding of reality that is the stumbling block for accepting the ressurection of Jesus Christ as a historocal fact.

Two agreed upon historical facts

1) We know that Jesus died a torturous death by crucifixion; this is attested to in every gospel, but it is also confirmed by several non-Christian sources. - Josephus, Tacitus, Lucian, and the Jewish Talmud.

2) The empty tomb. Something happened to the body. Both the Jewish and Roman authorities had plenty of motivation to produce a body, bring it to downtown Jerusalem and dump it on the street. Especially after His post-mortem appearances and empty tomb were first publicly proclaimed in Jerusalem. This is ezpecially true since the Jewish authorities asked the Romans to guard the tomb. 

The alternative explanations...

The Swoon Theory does not take seriously what we know about the scourging and torture associated with crucifixion. A nearly dead man, in need of serious medical attention, could hardly serve as the foundation for the disciples’ belief in the resurrection, and that he was a conqueror of death and the grave.

Second, Roman soldiers were professional executioners, and knew everything about the torture and crucifixion of people, making this theory highly improbable.

Third, are we to think that the Jewish and Roman authorities sealed and guarded the tomb without verifying the Jesus was dead in it? Another highly improbable assumption.

The disciples stole the body - this was the charge by Jewish authorities; Jesus’ followers stole the body unbeknownst to anyone and lied about the resurrection appearances.

First, this theory does not explain why the disciples would invent women as the primary witnesses to the empty tomb - the were not considered to be reliable witnesses. This is not the way one gets a conspiracy theory off the ground.

Second, this also doesn’t explain how the disciples actually stole the body that was 1) sealed by a heavy stone, and 2) guarded by Romans.

Third, there was no expectation by first century Jews of a suffering-servant Messiah who would be shamefully executed by Gentiles as a criminal only to rise again bodily before the final resurrection at the end of time: “As Wright nicely puts it, if your favorite Messiah got himself crucified, then you either went home or else you got yourself a new Messiah. But the idea of stealing Jesus’ corpse and saying that God had raised him from the dead is hardly one that would have entered the minds of the disciples.” [Craig (citing N.T. Wright), Reasonable Faith, p372.]

Fourth, this theory cannot account for the conversion of skeptics like Paul, a devout Jew and persecutor of Christians, who also testified to having seen the risen Lord and willing suffered and died for his belief in the resurrection.

Every source we have indicates that the practice in Israel, especially in the vicinity of Jerusalem, in peacetime, was to bury the executed before nightfall. This was a practice that Roman authority permitted. source  This gave the disciple little time to come up with a "steal the body" plot, especially given their emotional state. 

The disciples experienced hallucinations.

First, the testimony of Paul along with the Gospel writers is that the appearances of Jesus were physical, bodily appearances. In fact, this is the unanimous agreement of the Gospels.

Second, hallucinations are private experiences as opposed to group experiences. Therefore, hallucinations cannot explain the group appearances attested to in 1 Cor. 15, the Gospel narratives, and the book of Acts.

Finally, hallucinations cannot explain such facts as the empty tomb, why the Roman and Jewish authorities didn't produce the body, and the conversions of skeptics like Paul

The only real obstacle to resurrection as a plausible explanation is an anti-supernatural bias. But as I've argued the belief that nature is all that exists is logically self-refuting and thus cannot be true if reason, critical thinking, and knowledge are part of our reality

Objection A - Right in that last bit she says that "you can't prove the resurrection"!

Reply: That is in the context of the historical method which, like the scientific method, assumes an unproofable presupposition, i.e. an anti-super-naturalist bias. So please provide your proof or argument that "physical only view of the reality" is correct.

We have good reasons to think that "physical only view of the reality" is logically incoherent

I have had many atheists and critics say that they do not ascribe to a "physical only view of the reality"; so what then given the above is the issue with the conclusion that the ressurection of Jesus Christ as a historical fact?

Objection B - If we treat the Gospels as we treat every other historical document, then we could never conclude that an actual resurrection occurred as a historical event.

This is the thing that Christian apologists are never honest about: historians, scholars, and us skeptics and atheists don't accept the resurrection story not because we aren't giving it a fair chance; it's because WE are the ones treating the Gospels the exact same as every other historical text that exists.

Reply: Yes, you are using the same anti-supernatural bias that you look at everything. But that lens is faulty. Thus, I am under no obligation to view reality through your faulty lens especially when this unsupported assumption that has been pointed out time and again, with no defense ever offered for it.  This is even touched on in the OP

Objection C - Why is the "best explanation" here something that we know to be impossible and not "people lied?"

Reply: First it’s only "impossible" if one assumes Philosophical Naturalism, but we have good reasons to think that is a false idea. Secondly, it's not part of the historical method to assume that the writer of a document lied or the poeple quoted in the text lied; that would have to be proven.

Objection D They got the wrong tomb. Josephus said he buried the body and didn't.

Reply: Are we to believe that the Jewish and Roman authorities, the latter posting a gaurd at behest of the former, wouldn't have checked to see that the body was there prior?

Objection E - You need to reproduce your proof

Reply: We do not prove historical events by reprodcuing them. Do we prove World War 2 by "reproducing" the proof? No. 

Obkection F -  The writers consisting of what is now called the new testament constructed a resurrection account based on various old testament expectations.  Paul, undeniably preached a Jesus pulled from Old testament scripture and practiced Judaic Pesher

Reply: Why then didn't the Jewish or Roman authorities dump the body Jesus in the town square while somebody was preching the jesus has rose from the dead? That's why they put guards on the tomb. to prevent these stories from happening. Did they just forget? Was it suddenly not important to them? Or, most likely, they didn't have the body...

Related post 

Was The Resurrection of Jesus Christ a Mythological Development?

The resurrection of Jesus is not historical - a rebuttal

The atheist Euthyphro Dilemma

 The Euthyphro Dilemma is usually formulated against Christians as:

1) Does God choose what is good because it is good,

2) or does God chose what is good?

For the Christian, neither choice is acceptable.

To affirm that God choose what is good because it is good is to establish an autonomous moral principle that has authority over Him

To affirm what is good is whatever God has said it is to render morality arbitrary

The solution for the Christian is a 3rd option: God is Good itself. Since God is simultaneously the source and the measure of all goodness, the dilemma disappears.

But the atheist has an Euthyphro Dilemma of their own concerning the source of their morality:

A common atheist view of morality is that human instinct/society has decided that human well-being [Or harm mitigation] as the root of morality. Both atheistic views of morality often require people to act against their interests.

However:

The Marquis de Sade an atheist philosopher, concluded that Nature teaches us the principle that the strong ought to rule over and therefore exploit the weak.

Friedrich Nietzsche atheist philosopher, said a healthy society does not exist for its own sake, but exists for the sake of a higher type of person.

Both philosophers chose instincts such as the desire to dominate and cruelty, which are the antithesis of the "human well-being/harm mitigation" morality. The question therefore arises: why should we choose a "well-being or harm mitigation" morality over those of the Marquis de Sade and Nietzsche?

To argue that our morality’s source is human instinct/society means that we have no reason to prefer a "well-being or harm mitigation" morality over the Marquis de Sade and Nietzsche’s, since their moralities are derived from the same human understanding as today's atheists who should be aware of the fact that there are humans who do not have the same instinct for compassion as they do. So why prefer one morality over another?

Why should the human instinct/society be the arbiter of what is good? We look to history to see that it has been wrong in the past: Abolitionists held the minority view during most of human history, yet their anti-slavery philosophy is now almost universally accepted, except for the minority who continue to enslave people today.

If, as atheists assert, human instinct/society is the source of their "well-being or no harm mitigation" morality, a Euthyphro-style Dilemma arises.

The atheist Euthyphro-style Dilemma is this:

1) is a "well-being or no harm/harm mitigation morality" good because human instinct/society says so, or

2) is it morally good because it is a good?

If they say it is morally good because human instinct/society says so, then they run into the problem of those who feel/operate according to different instincts - aka Nietzsche and the Marquis de Sade. Why well-being or no harm/harm mitigation morality" over Nietzsche and the Marquis de Sade?

If we say it is morally good because it is good or benevolent, then we admit a morality is external to us.

Whereas theists argue that morality’s external source is God, atheists who wish to adhere to an external morality have the burden of demonstrating this morality’s external source.

I suppose that a 3rd option would be that which best helps humans survive as a species, but why humans? What makes us special? Why not cockroaches or rats or the tardigrade? If it's about well-being or harm mitigation, those 3 probably caused less harm than humans combined...

God of the Gaps fallacy

Arguments from ignorance [which is what a GOTG is] occurs when evidence against one proposition is offered as the sole grounds for accepting an alternative. Thus, they have the following form:

Premise: Cause A cannot produce or explain evidence C.

Conclusion: Therefore, cause B produced or explains C.

It's easy it is to identify this type of fallacy, and how unreasonable it would be to use such thinking to try to prove any conclusion. Atheists and other skeptics often claim that the argument for God’s existence based on intelligent design is guilty of this type of illogical thought. How can the theist who is using the design argument show that it is not a God-of-the-gaps argument from ignorance?  

To depict proponents of the theory of intelligent design as committing the GOTG fallacy, critics must misrepresent the case for it. This misrepresentation of the design argument looks like this:

Premise: Material causes cannot produce or explain specified information.

Conclusion: Therefore, an intelligent cause produced the specified information in life.”

If this were how the design argument actually worked, there would be serious problems with it, and the skeptic would be right to challenge it as false. However, that this misrepresentation of the design argument leaves out a very important premise. The design argument includes the positive evidence that it implies:

Premise One: Despite a thorough search, no materialistic causes have been discovered with the power to produce large amounts of specified information necessary to produce the first cell.

Premise Two: Intelligent causes have demonstrated the power to produce large amounts of specified information.

Premise Three: Intelligent design constitutes the best, most causally adequate explanation for the origin of the specified information in the cell.”

Notice that there is no gap in the properly stated form of the design argument. 

1) We have been doing scientific research for hundreds of years. 

2) We have discovered that intelligence is the only entity capable of producing large amounts of specified information. 

3) We see large amounts of specified information in cells. 

4) Therefore, we are forced by what we know about intelligence from centuries of scientific research to conclude that the specified information in cells is the product of an intelligent Creator. 

On the other hand, we also know enough about how matter behaves to conclude that it is impossible to get the specified information from materialistic causes. Origin-of-life experiments have been done for decades that have shown how matter does and does not behave. In every single experiment done to date, we have seen that natural processes not only do not produce life, but they cannot produce life. This is not a gap in our knowledge. The argument for design is based on what we know to be scientifically valid in every instance.

Why, then, are so many skeptics convinced that the design argument is a God-of-the-gaps logical fallacy?

The reason for this is a prior commitment to naturalism - the idea that only the physical exists. If a person begins by assuming that there has to be a naturalistic process that brought about life, then that person is forced to see a gap in our current knowledge, since no naturalistic processes have ever (in any experiment under any circumstances) even come close to producing a living cell. 

What chemical [or other natural] process first produced life? Since no such chemical process has been discovered, we are told this is simply a gap in our current knowledge that will be filled in the future. 

Nevertheless, our present lack of knowledge of any such chemical process entails a “gap” in our knowledge of the actual process by which life arose, only if some materialistic chemical evolutionary process actually did produce the first life. Yet if life did not evolve via a strictly materialistic process but was, for example, intelligently designed, then our absence of knowledge of a materialistic process does not represent “a gap” in knowledge of an actual process. Stephen C. Meyer (2021), Return of the God Hypothesis: Three Scientific Discoveries that Reveal the Mind Behind the Universe pp 424

An illustration that a “gap” only exists if a person begins by assuming that all scientific explanations must be materialistic:

Imagine someone mistakenly enters an art gallery expecting to find croissants for sale. That is, he thinks the gallery is actually a fancy bakery. Observing the absence of pastries and rolls, such a person may think that he has encountered a gap in the services provided by the gallery. He may even think that he has encountered a gap in the staff’s knowledge of what must definitely be present somewhere in the gallery. Based on his assumptions, the visitor may stubbornly cling to his perception of a gap, badgering the gallery staff to “bring out the croissants already,” until with exasperation they show him the exit. Ibid., p. 424.

The moral of the story? The gallery visitor’s perception of a gap in service or in knowledge of the location of the croissants derives from a false assumption about the nature of this establishment or about art galleries in general and what they typically offer to visitors.

There is only a gap if a person will not accept what we know scientifically to be true. We “do have extensive experience of intelligent agents producing finely tuned systems such as Swiss watches, fine recipes, integrated circuits, written texts, and computer programs.” Furthermore, “intelligence or mind or what philosophers call ‘agent causation’ now stands as the only known cause capable of generating large amounts of specified information.” And “it takes a mind to generate specified or functional information, whether in ordinary experience, computer simulations, origin-of-life simulation experiments, the production of new forms of life, or, as we now see, in modeling the design of the universe.” Ibid., pp 338, 187, 385

Conclusion

The design argument for the existence of God is not an argument from what we do not know, or we do not understand about the Universe and life in it, but instead is an argument based on the aspects of nature that we have reasons to conclude to be true. As John Lennox has stated, “I see God not in the bits of the Universe that I don’t understand, but in the bits that I do.” 

cod3man Defends Unsupported Presumptions, and Claims No Need to Defend the Idea that the Old Testament Condoned Chattel Slavery

Who is cod3man? A Reddit poster, and moderator of three two anti-Christian Subreddits r/DebateReligion, r/DebateAnAtheist, & r/askanatheist.  [I don't see cod3man listed as a mod for DebateReligion even though it's listed on cod3man's profile page......] 

Note: cod3man tried to preemptively bar me from critiquing his views here. Quote: you do not have my permission to reproduce my comment or any portion on your blog. 

Fortunately, there is the fair use doctrine which can be summarized as under the fair use doctrine of the US copyright statute it is permissible to use limited portions of a work including quotes for purposes such as commentary criticism news reporting and scholarly reports [emphasis mine]. I'm clearly critiquing his comments, so I’m on the solid ground. Apparently, cod3man only wants to discuss on Reddit, where opposing views can be suppressed by downvotes.

cod3man makes this statement, "Lichtenstein is a successful country without any military spending". And this statement "Lichtenstein exists". cod3man claims that statement one needs to be defended, and the other does not. Then cod3man boldly makes this statement: we don't need to defend the Old Testament condones chattel slavery.

I'll add statement 4: the Old Testament exists since it is analogous to "Lichtenstein exists".

cod3man's logic is that statement 1 "Lichtenstein/no defense spending" needs to be defended and two "Lichtenstein exists" does not.  If that's true, then the "Old Testament condones chattel slavery" and the  does and "the Old Testament exists" does not.

Why? Because "Lichtenstein/no defense spending" is the core idea, as is Old Testament condones chattel slavery. The author is supposed to focus upon the key or fundamental idea, as it's the reason the subject matter is in discussion.  So it must be defended. 

cod3man states a premise being taken as obvious doesn't mean you can't challenge it. 

How does one do this? By critically examining the data and proposing a better explanation. Which is what I've done with all my post about the Old Testament and slavery. cod3man obviously disagrees with my conclusions, but one should argue from the data, not assert that your view is "obviously" true and needs no defense. That's irrational, unreasonable and illogical. 

So why does cod3man have a problem when I do this if the Old Testament/chattel slavery idea can be challenged? Why not argue from that data instead of asserting that it's obvious that the Old Testament condones chattel slavery? cod3man might be correct, but that needs to be shown via the data and not just asserted

It doesn't make any sense on one hand to say it can be challenged, on the other hand say it needs no defense. If something is challenged, then there is a need for it to be defended.

cod3man it is obvious that the Old Testament condones chattel slavery anyone who reads it plainly comes to that conclusion. 

One of the many problems is that we assume our own frame of reference for the text and assume that what makes sense to us from our own cultural, social, religious context is what the text itself means to say. Like when critics see the word "slavery" they immediately think "chattel slavery",  but that isn't supported by the text nor the historical/social context. 

If cod3man thinks that the context shows that Channel slavery is the best understanding of the ntext, then it needs to be argued for that from the data from the start. Why go through the rigmarole of saying it's "self-evident" or "obvious" when you know you have to argue from the data?

My guess is that it's a bluff. Either critics are too indolent to do the work, or they have done the work and know the argument can't be made. So they try to bluff and bluster....

cod3man: All the scholars who study the OT say that [the OT condones chattel slavery]

First that's incorrect:

There is Paul Copan. 

There's Kushner, The d'rash commentary, edited by Harold Kushner in Etz Hayim: Torah and Commentary p457 -  Rather, slavery in antiquity among the Israelites was closer to what would later be called indentured servitude.

There's this entry from HANEL, Page 1007: "A slave could also be freed by running away. According to Deuteronomy, a runaway slave is not to be returned to his master. He should be sheltered if he wishes or allowed to go free, and he must not be taken advantage of. This provision is strikingly different from the laws of slavery in the surrounding nations, and is explained as due to Israel's own history as slaves. It would have the effect of turning slavery into a voluntary institution.

I could go on, but it doesn't matter, this isn't a "count the scholars on your side, and who has the most wins" - it what's the best explanation from the data. What's the argument from the data, cod3man?

cod3man: The only people who deny it are people like you, who have strong external motivation to do so.

First, to assume that those who say the Old Testament equals chattel slavery do not have strong external motivation is simply false as everybody has biases including experts, including scholars, including atheists. They do not have some sort of innate ability that frees them from all bias.

Are we to think cod3man an avowed atheist, moderating 2 discussion boards promoting/defending atheism is not biased against God or Christianity? 

Second, it doesn't matter; it's what the data says but what we can infer as the best explanation of the data. I know that I've said this over and over, but it's true. What is the best explanation of the data

Let's look at the argument from an atheist scholar who has argued that Exodus 21:16 concerned only Hebrew slaves. Let's not assume that this expert is correct just because he's an expert. Let's examine his argument. 

Joshua Bowen wrote the book that alot of atheists and other critics reference. 

The full argument can be found here: Bowen's Argument Concerning Exodus 21:16 Examined

Bowen's first question, "is this passage describing a Hebrew slave or foreign slave"? [113] then looks at verses 1 through 6 to show that the passages begin with laws regarding Hebrew slaves. Bowen attempts to make a connection between the word "eved ivri" (Hebrew slave) and similarities between the word "habiru/hapiru" that was used to describe groups of outsiders or outlaws and other Ancient Near East texts [114]. He reaches his conclusion: "the passage is speaking about the laws concerning slavery of the Israelite". [115]

So, Bowen's argument is that the use of "eved ivri" [Hebrew slave] in Ex 21:1 means that Ex 21:16 is about Hebrew slaves.

The first problem is that "eved ivri" is not found in vs 16. In fact, after being used in verse 1, it's not used again in all of Exodus 21.

Bowen wants us to think that all the following verses pertain to laws regarding Hebrew slaves. I will grant that the context to verse 11 seems to be in regard to Hebrew slaves.

However, starting in verse 12 we get four verses starting with "whoever", then ten starting "when men" or "when a man does x" versus. [There is one "when an ox", and one "when a fire" verse] Following Bowen's logic are these speaking of a Hebrew ox and a Hebrew fire? 

This strongly suggests that Exodus 21 switch gears in verse 12 to another topic that extends to all persons - personal injuries, manslaughter, murder, theft, etc

So to think that verse 16 is about a Hebrew slave based on the use of "eved ivri" in verse ONE seems to fall apart.... given the multitude of "whoever" and "when a man" verses.

Secondly, the writer who chose to use "eved ivri", chose not to use that term, and instead a different identifier - the terms translated "whoever and "when a man". And in verses 20 and 22 the writer uses ebed (slave)- not "eved ivri" (Hebrew slave)

Given Bowen's argument relies on specific words being used in verse 1, the fact they are not used elsewhere, this strongly indicates that we are no longer talking about Hebrew slaves exclusively in Exodus 21.

Are we to think that laws in verses 12 to 36 about personal injury, manslaughter, murder, theft etc only concern Hebrew slaves but not the general population? If there are specific laws for free Hebrews concerning these matters, where are they? 

No, The best explanation is that verse 12 tacked off onto other topics that included all Hebrews.

As I said, give me an argument from the data, not what a scholar says, or what the "consensus" is

Why don't you just reply on Reddit?

Has My "Seven Facts About Biblical Slavery Prove that It Was Not Chattel Slavery" Been Debunked?

My Seven Facts About Biblical Slavery Prove that It Was Not Chattel Slavery is my second most viewed post.

It also seems to be very popular among atheists and other anti-Christian critics. Popular in that they like try to slam, condemn, denounce, excoriate, disparage, lambaste the post. Unfortunately there isn't a good deal of actual analysis. But I want to respond to my critics and give their criticism the justice it deserves.  

The Hitchen's Razor variety: The critics that have non-effort criticism. 

Most of it is not very intellectual, just rants that say that it's been rebutted, full of fallacies, errors, yet zero effort given to show it or make their case. 

For example: 

"corrected/rebutted/rebuked very thoroughly"

"thoroughly got taken down point by point"

"It just get's crushed by scholarship"

"they are not willing to entertain the idea they are wrong"

The assertion is the extent of the "analysis" - i.e. none; it's just make an assertion that it's been debunked, and hope that people conclude that the assertion is true.

I call these Hitchen's Razor variety criticisms since comments like these one can, and should, apply Hitchens's razor: "what can be asserted without evidence can also be dismissed without evidence"

So I just lop those off and don't worry about them, and neither should you. This dismissal is the justice such criticism deserves.

But now we come to a different category of critism...

The Some Effort Criticism - 

My original statements will be underlined

Debunk attempt : will be noted as such - with bold to indicate key points

My response to the "debunking" will be in red  

Debunk attempt one - Did God in the Old Testament specify that a Hebrew may purchase a person from the foreigners and keep him as property for the lifetime of the person purchased? The answer is yes, the purchased person is chattel by definition, thus chattel slavery. No amount of obfuscations and red herrings alters that fact.

What this seems to have missed is that, the main lynch pin of my argument. The Anti-Kidnap law - and the Anti-Return law. As I sated in my argument:

These laws very explicitly outlaw chattel slavery. With the anti-kidnap law, one could not take anyone against their will, sell or possess them, nor could they be returned if they left. LV25:44-46 is the main verse critics use to argue for chattel slavery, but given these two laws, it's reasonable to read that passage through the lens of indentured servitude.

Regrettably the criticism doesn't take this key points into considereation. 

Given the above, what Lev 25: 44-46 is saying is, peoples from other nations were going to volunteer themselves into the hands of the Israelites - it was permissible to only "purchase" men and women who voluntarily sold themselves into indentured service, which is a big difference from being held against one’s own free will. Voluntary service doesn't equal chattel slavery. And remember, any bond-servant purchased from the Gentiles had the right to flee their master.

It is very difficult to think that the Bible endorses or supports chattel slavery with the Anti-Kidnap and the Anti-return laws in mind.  This is why they need to ignore it. 

Debunk attempt two: 

This alone is enough to dismiss your entire post [Lv 25] and to exemplify the issues in your approach. This passage is the most direct and explicit statement of chattel slavery in the Bible - but you only offer a paper-thin response to it, none of which actually addresses the substance of the passage. You also mysteriously leave out the extremely relevant first half of this passage; here is the full thing: Lev 25:39-46

This makes the same fatal flaw as the one above: ignoring  point 4 - Anti-Kidnap  anti-return laws. Ironically this rock solid foundation is called "paper-thin".   

Debunk attempt three: 

First, one would have to ignore points 1-7 above to reach that conclusion - in reference to LV 25:44-46: says you can buy a foreign slave, and you can bequeath them to your children

Let's break down your response: By itself this is a naked assertion and it's not clear how many of your 7 points would even relate to this. You do argue two specifically though, presumably the two you thought were most relevant, so I'll assume this is just teeing that up.

Calling my entire argument a "naked assertion" is low effort enough to warrant Hitchen's Razor

Debunk attempt four: 

One must assume, without any rational basis, that “ebed” must mean “chattel slave”. But as argued above the passage can mean, and most likely does mean "servants".

This is just completely absurd. No, one does not need to assume that "ebed" must mean "chattel slave" in order to find chattel slavery in this verse. We don't think this verse refers to chatter slavery just because it says "ebed"! We think that because of all the very explicit details of chattel slavery here - 

Perhaps I wasn't clear enough in my argument; if one is simply using the word "slavery" or "ebed" to say that means chattel slavery an argument without any rational basis. However, I did say that "whether "ebed" mean indentured servant, chattel slave, or something else would have to be determined by the context."

Debunk attempt five:

these people are your property, you can buy and sell them, you can leave them as inheritance, they remain owned for life. We also think it because of the extreme contrast between the two halves of this passage, which immediately clarifies what the meaning of "ebed" is here. The first passage describes indentured servitude of Israelites, and the second passage is written in direct contrast to it and clarifies very strongly that this is not the same indentured servitude slavery discussed in the first half. By your interpretation, 25:39 would be forbidding indentured servitude of Israelites, which is obviously inconsistent with everything you have said and also with the dozens of laws about how to treat Hebrew "ebed"s.

Once again this makes the EXACT same fatal flaw as the one above: ignoring the Anti-Kidnap/anti-returns laws. Ignoreing key points in an arument is NOT the path to debunking it. 

Debunk attempt six:

As Stuart notes [fact 7 above] "buy" means financial transaction related to a contract.

Yes, "buy" relates to transactions. Are you trying to say that the fact this verse uses "buy" is evidence it's not talking about chattel slavery? Even if you want to argue that this word can sometimes be used for other things, you know it's primarily used for buying property, right? This is not a counter to the verse!

Once again the EXACT same fatal flaw as above: ignoring the Anti-Kidnap/anti-returns laws.

Asking, "Are you trying to say that the fact this verse uses "buy" is evidence it's not talking about chattel slavery?" No,  I'm saying that Anti-Kidnap/Anti-Returns laws is evidence it's not talking about chattel slavery.  One must read it in the context of those laws.

Debunk attempt seven:

And note that vs 45 and 46 say that they may be your property and bequeath them to your sons. It doesn’t say must or will, it wasn't required or nor could it be imposed by force.

This is by far the most mind-boggling part of your defense. It says you may take them as property, not that you have to, so there's no chattel slavery here????? If I said "you may murder people if you want" would you read that to have no murder in it????

Sigh. So all this person has is, let's ignore the actual argument and attack a strawman version of it. 

How can they I'd just say go back and [read the response to objection F](https://deconstructingchristiandeconstruction.blogspot.com/2024/02/seven-facts-about-biblical-slavery.html) that answers this.

Debunk attempt eight:

This is very explicitly allowing you to do these things - to engage in chattel slavery. It sets out a legal way to own another person, to buy and sell them, to treat them as property. This passage could not possibly be more explicit about that. It takes care to give multiple redundant examples of property rights, to clarify things multiple ways, to contrast it with indentured servitude so that you can't possibly confuse it with that. This unambiguously says "you may engage in chattel slavery" and your response was "well it says 'may', not 'must', so that means the Bible outlaws chattel slavery".

Only if one ignores the Anti-Kidnap/anti-returns laws, then they could see that this was speaking of indentured servsants and "owning" their services. And these servants, upon the death of the master could be bequethed to the children until their contract runs out. Or they may choose to stay forever, 

Debunk attempt nine:

So to recap all you've said is: "Ebed" doesn't necessarily always mean slave; "Buy" refers to financial transactions;  This only says you "may" buy people as property, not "must"

All three of these are true! And none of them respond in the slightest to the objection that this verse describes chattel slavery clearly and obviously.

But the hat Anti-Kidnap/Anti-Returns laws do!

Debunk attempt ten:

There's so much else wrong here: your brazen mistreatment of slave-beating law which also ignores Exodus 21:28-32, 

Exodus 21:28-32 deals with a bull goring a man or woman. Furthermore corparate punishment was normal in the ANE, even free men could be beaten. So, this has nothing to do with slavery. 

Debunk attempt eleven:

Your attempt to preempt academic criticism because you know this is a fringe view that nearly every serious commentator in the last 2000 years would have found laughable while you yourself lean heavily on a scholar's authority, 

How am I "preempting academic criticism"?

Majority opinion isn't a test for truth.

Debunk attempt twelve:

your reading of a person who "desires" a woman captured in war and so "takes" her and makes her his wife who is not free to go unless he "doesn't delight in her" as just her buddy hanging out with her with no indication of rape,

The law stipulated that a rapist was to be killed by stoning, see Deuteronomy 22:25.

Debunk attempt thirteen :

The complete lack of any discussion of the enslavement of Israelites in Egypt which would counter like half your claims about the meanings of "ebed" and the state of slavery in the ANE, 

First I never said that "ebed" couldn't mean chattel slavery; I said that "whether ebed means indentured servant, chattel slave, or something else would have to be determined by the context.

Debunk attempt fourteen:

your absolutely BONKERS response to objection B that for your sake I'm going to let you reexamine and blame on the person you quoted, 

Calling my response "bomkers" is low effort enough to warrant Hitchen's Razor

Debunk attempt fifteen:

So to recap all you've said is: "Ebed" doesn't necessarily always mean slave, "Buy" refers to financial transactions. This only says you "may" buy people as property, not "must"

You missed the most important part of my argument: the Anti-Kidnap law & Anti-Return law - These laws very explicitly outlaw chattel slavery. With the anti-kidnap law, one could not take anyone against their will, sell or possess them, nor could they be returned. Given that, it's reasonable to read LV25:44-46 through that lens. As I wrote earlier, one would have to ignore points 1-7 above [especially 4 & 5] to reach the chattel slave conclusion; sadly, this seems to be the case of most of the critical replies.

Debunk attempt sixteen:

The first passage describes indentured servitude of Israelites, and the second passage is written in direct contrast to it and clarifies very strongly that this is not the same indentured servitude slavery discussed in the first half.

It's right there in the verse: They are to be treated as hired workers...; the contrast isn't between indentured servitude and chattel slavery, but between indentured servitude and hired workers

Debunk attempt seventeen

By your interpretation, 25:39 would be forbidding indentured servitude of Israelites

Correct, They are to be treated as hired workers... which is different from an indentured servant.

"buying" slaves - The verb acquire [qanah] in Leviticus 25:39–51 need not involve selling or purchasing foreign servants. For example, the same word appears in Genesis 4:1 Eve’s having “gotten a manchild and 14:19 - God is the “Possessor of heaven and earth” Later, Boaz “acquired” Ruth as a wife (Ruth 4:10). So you are trying to force a narrow definition onto the word. And as noted earlier, "buy" can refer to financial transactions, as in "work for x amount of time for x amount of debt to be paid off".

Debunk attempt eighteen

these people are your property, you can buy and sell them, you can leave them as inheritance, they remain owned for life.

Nope, you've ignored the anti-kidnap law and the anti-return law. Under penalty of death they could not be bought or sold, or possessed against their will, and they always had the opportunity of escape without the fear of being returned. Again, one would have to ignore points 1-7 above [especially 4 & 5] to reach the chattel slave conclusion.

For an example of "ebed" escaping: But Nabal responded to David’s servants, “Who is David, and who is this son of Jesse? This is a time when many servants are breaking away from their masters! 1 Sam 25:10; Also 1 Kings 2:39 - Three years later, two of Shimei’s servants ran away to King Achish son of Maacah of Gath

Debunk attempt nineteen

It says you may take them as property

They were not considered property in the same sense as an ox or coat because escaped slaves were not to be returned (Deut. 23:15-16) but an ox or coat was to be returned (Exodus 23:4; Deut. 22:1–4). Since they were not considered strict property nor chattel slaves, it must be that the work these inherited slaves produced was considered the property of the master.

Leviticus 25:47 states that the strangers living within Israel could “become rich.” In other words, a foreign slave could eventually get out of poverty, become self-sustaining, and thus wouldn’t have to be a slave anymore. While foreigners in Israel could serve for life, serving multiple generations if they wanted (just like an Israelite slave could), the Torah didn’t require that. Third, except for automatic debt cancellation in the seventh year, foreign slaves were afforded the same protections and benefits as Israelite slaves, including protection if they decided to leave at any time.

There's so much else that you got wrong here, there's really no point addressing any more of your responses, until you figure out how you will deal with the Anti-Kidnap law & Anti-Return law which is the very foundation of my argument.

Debunk attempt  twenty

You read the anti-kidnapping and anti-return laws a certain way, take that as authoritative, and then say 'what the rest of the entire slavery code says is inconsistent with that, so we should read it some other way.' Not due to any internal reason within the text, but because it doesn't match your reading of these other two laws.

No, I do not say that the rest of the entire slavery code says is inconsistent with the anti-kidnapping and anti-return laws. I say that they are completely consistent with the rest of the entire slavery code if one understand that it talks abut voluntary servitiude. 

Debunk attempt  twenty-one

The verb acquire [qanah] in Leviticus 25:39–51 need not involve selling or purchasing foreign servants.

Are you planning to give any evidence for this, or are you just going to assert it? Saying the word has multiple meanings won't cut it! I agreed with you that the word refers to financial transactions. So what? You're concluding from that "and therefore this does not refer to the purchase of property." Why?????

You agree that acquire [qanah] refers to financial transactions; all I'm saying that based on that alone it doesn't necessarily mean  purchasing chattel slaves.  It could mean, just as easily, purchanse the services of someone. 

Debunk attempt twenty-two

You mention the "anti kidnap law" a lot. If there is a law that says "thou shalt not steal a car", is that the same thing as a law that says "thou shall not own a car"?

Slavery apologetics is just bizarre to me.

In order to aquire a slave one must take another person against their will - i.e. kidnap them. Which is vasly different than purchasing another's services. 

Differentiating between chattel slavery and voluntary servitude us foolish and absurd? I think it's wish to understand something before you judge it 

Debunk attempt twenty-three

Genocidal and slaving societies aren’t known for the consistency in their laws and action. Your whole argument seems to be on the level of denying Israelites ever killed anyone because it clearly says in the bible that killing is wrong so they can’t possibly have committed genocide.

I'm not saying that chattel slavery didn't happen in the ANE or in Israel, I'm saying that if it did it went against the law. Just like Israel had laws against muder, rape, robbery tht doesn't mean those things didn't happen.  those who did that broke the law as did those who partook in chattle slavery. 

Debunk attempt twenty-four

and they always had the opportunity of escape without the fear of being returned.

Slavery was a major social institution, and obviously allowing slaves to run away whenever they pleased would break a whole bunch of stuff. 

I agree, that slavery was a major social institution. I put multiple quotes showing that slavery was poverty based social institution. You accept one but not the other. Why?

For example, enslavement was used as a punishment for some crimes; a thief who can't afford his fine is sold as a slave (Exodus 22:2-4). 

Thanks, that's another example of debt slavery 

You would have us believe they can get up and walk away the next day if they don't feel like serving out their sentence.

Oh, please. You ncan't see the difference between one who voluntarily goes into indentured servitude and another who is sentenced to serve as slave to pay for crime?   

Creditors could take children as slaves to pay the debts of their dead fathers (2 Kings 4:1-7) - you would have us believe they could high-five the creditor and go back home.

Do you realize that Ancient Israel was an honor-shame society, where honor was a cultural value that could grant people power and status? And that walking away from a debt could seriously harm the entire family group? One's family's honor becomes your own and vise versa, as does the reputation of your hometown. That is why genealogies are so important. You can earn honor by doing something worthy or noble. And lose it by doing something unworthy or dishonorable. So to walk away isn't something that was taken lightly 

Debunk attempt twenty-five

Again, you rest your entire case (as you admit) on this plainly wrong reading of the return law. Here, let me quote a Talmudic commentator who says the exact opposite thing that you do and even quotes Deuteronomy 22 as support for returning escaped slaves: The Gemara states that verse is referring to a slave who escaped from outside of Eretz Yisrael to Eretz Yisrael, 

The Gemara, a part of the Talmud, was written around 500 AD by scholars in Babylonia. The Gemara is a commentary on the Mishnah, a written version of the Oral Torah that was completed around 200 AD.

Deuteronomy was written around 630 BC; what was this interpreation based on? From something in the text?  What would that be? Show me where you getr that idea from the text: 

DT 23:14-16 Because the Lord your God walks in the midst of your camp, to deliver you and to give up your enemies before you, therefore your camp must be holy, so that he may not see anything indecent among you and turn away from you.15 “You shall not give up to his master a slave who has escaped from his master to you. 16 He shall dwell with you, in your midst, in the place that he shall choose within one of your towns, wherever it suits him. You shall not wrong him.

This  law applies to ALL slaves who have escaped from their masters

a. The decisive factor is that the text itself does not limit the law to foreign slaves  

b. This law would put pressure on the system of slavery in Israel to be of such a nature that it would be beneficial/tolerable to the slave. Though it could be abused, it would place strong pressure on Israelite society for justice in this area which would be in line with Anti-Oppression laws - 

“When a stranger sojourns with you in your land, you shall not do him wrong. 34 You shall treat the stranger who sojourns with you as the native among you, and you shall love him as yourself, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt: I am the Lord your God. [Leviticus 19:33-34]

You shall not oppress a sojourner. You know the heart of a sojourner, for you were sojourners in the land of Egypt [Exodus 23:9]

The fact is Israel was not free to treat foreigners wrongly or oppress them; and were, in fact to, commanded to love them.

c. The fact that ANE cultures had both treaties that dealt with foreign runaway slaves and laws that dealt with internal runaway slaves may favor seeing this law as dealing with both.

Not a single one proposes an interpretation remotely similar to yours. Why do you think that is?

Incorrect. Two who do are Matthew Poole, see English Annotations on the Holy Bible and Christopher J.H. Wright in New International Biblical Commentary: Deuteronomy And of course the  one I cited in the original Seven Facts about Slavery article: 

HANEL Page 1007: "A slave could also be freed by running away. According to Deuteronomy, a runaway slave is not to be returned to his master. He should be sheltered if he wishes or allowed to go free, and he must not be taken advantage of. This provision is strikingly different from the laws of slavery in the surrounding nations, and is explained as due to Israel's own history as slaves. It would have the effect of turning slavery into a voluntary institution.

Debunk attempt twenty-six

Leviticus 25:47 states that the strangers living within Israel could “become rich.” In other words, a foreign slave could eventually get out of poverty, become self-sustaining, and thus wouldn’t have to be a slave anymore.

Your reading here is completely and absurdly wrong,... let me point out the obvious: Leviticus 25:47 speaks about foreigners. Foreigners, obviously, were not all slaves!

But neither does it exclude them; once out of indentured servitude they could become a hired worker - they already have the knowledge and skills - and thus work to become self-sustaining

Debunk attempt twenty-seven

Almost every protection for Israelite slaves specifically states it's for Israelites, not for slaves in general. I know of exactly two protections for foreign slaves - no murder (Exodus 21:20-21) and free them if you disfigure them

I cited the Anti-Oppression laws “When a stranger sojourns with you in your land, you shall not do him wrong. 34 You shall treat the stranger who sojourns with you as the native among you, and you shall love him as yourself, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt: I am the Lord your God. [Leviticus 19:33-34]

You shall not oppress a sojourner. You know the heart of a sojourner, for you were sojourners in the land of Egypt [Exodus 23:9]

In Leviticus 19:34 and Deuteronomy 10:19, God charges all Israelites to love aliens  who reside in their midst, that is, the foreign members of their households, like they do themselves and to treat these outsiders with the same respect they show their ethnic countrymen. Israel's memory of her own experience as slaves in Egypt should have provided motivation for compassionate treatment of her sservants. But Deuteronomy 10:18 adds that the Israelites were to look to God himself as the paradigm for treating the economically and socially vulnerable persons in their communities.

Debunk attempt twenty-eight

You are wrong when you said chattel slavery is explicitly outlawed by an anti-kidnapping law. Saying you can't kidnap people is not the same thing as saying you can't own people as property. They are two different things, 

In order to own people as property, it must be against their will, so yes the Anti-Kidnap law does apply, since there are no Slave codes that legalize chattel slavery in Israel. The verses that people cite that say "buy" and "property" must be read in light of the anti-kidnap,  anti-oppression laws and voluntary servitude. 

Debunk attempt twenty-nine

To maintain your argument you were forced to claim that the Old Testament forbids indentured servitude of Israelites. The reason for this is that Leviticus 25:39-46 very explicitly and unambiguously draws a distinction between Israelite indentured slaves and foreign chattel slaves:

You want to deny chattel slavery and make the second half of this passage about indentured slaves instead. But this passage could not possibly be more clear that the first half is in contrast to the second, so that means the first half can't be about indentured slaves - so you claim that there were no Israelite indentured slaves and that they were all hired workers:

First, given my argument I reject your presumption that foreigners were chattel slaves

Second, there is a distinction between Israelite and foreign "ebeds", but it's not what you think.

Ellicott's Commentary says this about LV 25:39-40 - Under these circumstances he is not to be treated like heathen slaves who are either purchased or captured, and made to do the menial service which these Gentile slaves have to perform. The authorities during the second Temple adduce the following as degrading work which the Israelite bondman is not to be put to: He must not attend his master at his bath, nor tie up or undo the latchets of his sandals, etc.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible...but a brother, an Israelite, sold to another through extreme poverty, was not to be put to any low, mean, base, and disgraceful service, by which it would be known that he was a servant, as Jarchi notes; such as to carry his master's vessels or instruments after him to the bath, or to unloose his shoes; but, as the same writer observes, he was to be employed in the business of the farm, or in some handicraft work, and was to be kindly and gently used, rather as a brother than a servant, and to be freed in the year of jubilee.

Israelite and foreign could both be indentured servant, but only foreigners could do the work above. 

The good effort critism - These I actually appreciate this kind of critism, since an intelligent, in-depth conversation is hard to find on the internet. Not shockingly these are rare.

Debunk attempt thirty

You are wrong on ebed, the Hebrew word is actually abad

You are correct; abad, whose primary meaning is "to work, serve" is used 3x in Lev 25 and ebed whose primary meaning is "slave, servant" is used 8x; I don't see the meaning changing much, and certainly not to mean chattel slave.

I'll rework my argument to incorporate this into it. 

Note: This will be an ongoing post as I field other critisms and examine them to see if they have any merit. So far, nothing that would justify any significant changes