Day two: The Bible Permits Sex Slaves!!!

Day two: The Bible Permits Sex Slaves

Seborgarsen raises this issue:

‘The following passage describes the sickening practice of sex slavery. How can anyone think it is moral to sell your own daughter as a sex slave?”

He quotes this scripture to back up his premise (my emphasis added):

When a man sells his daughter as a slave, she will not be freed at the end of six years as the men are. If she does not please the man who bought her, he may allow her to be bought back again. But he is not allowed to sell her to foreigners, since he is the one who broke the contract with her. And if the slave girl's owner arranges for her to marry his son, he may no longer treat her as a slave girl, but he must treat her as his daughter. If he himself marries her and then takes another wife, he may not reduce her food or clothing or fail to sleep with her as his wife. If he fails in any of these three ways, she may leave as a free woman without making any payment. (Exodus 21:7-11 NLT)

Then he makes this conclusion:

“So these are the Bible family values! A man can buy as many sex slaves as he wants as long as he feeds them, clothes them, and screws them!”

I am glad he feels passionately the immorality of selling one’s child as a sex slave. The US has reeled in horror at a recent possible such case in North Carolina where a five year old girl may have been sold into prostitution by her mother. See: http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=5667820n

Here is a video from CBS on modern day sex slavery: http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2005/02/23/48hours/main675913.shtml 

For more examples of modern day sex slavery see:

http://www.memphisdailynews.com/editorial/Article.aspx?id=46316

http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/AmericanFamily/story?id=2834852&page=1

http://www.humantrafficking.org/updates/10

http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/2760391/Sex-slave-sold-for-3k-on-Londons-Oxford-Street.html

These are horrifying beyond words.

And have nothing to do with the bible passage Seborgarsen quotes.

There are a couple of main reasons people may misunderstand a passage such as this. 1) They haven’t read it carefully enough to see what was actually said, and 2) they do not know/understand the historical context.

To deal with #2: the historical context would necessitate immersion into Ancient Near Eastern history beyond the scope of an article such as this. For those who would like to read a short (54 page) article addressing this issue more completely, please see: http://www.christian-thinktank.com/qnoslave.html

A few outstanding differences between societies now and in the biblical time frame gleaned from his article, follow.

1)    The difficulty of surviving meant that family units had to pull together.

2)    Slaves/servants were very much a part of the household, unlike in our era.

3)    Add those two together, and it meant one had better not anger the slaves/servants. They were an integral part of the family and needed for the survival.

4)    “Debt slavery” encompassed by far the largest share of slaves. A person could sell himself and or family members into slavery in order to work off an unmanageable debt. This automatically ended in the seventh year of the calendar whether the debt was paid off or not.

5)    Debt slavery did away with the problem of starvation and extreme poverty

6)    When a father sold his daughter into “slavery” he procured a bride price while the girl was too young to marry. She would work for the family – everyone in the family worked for the family.

1. The owner was permitted to marry her, or marry her to his son
2. If the second, he was to treat her as a daughter
3. If the first, he was to treat her as his wife – in all ways, and never demote her under any circumstances to less than a wife
4. If neither of those suited the situation, he was permitted to allow another Israelite to redeem her, ie pay the bride price for her and marry her

7)   Slave/servants could have their own property and their own slave/servants.

^“17 A thousand other men from the tribe of Benjamin were with him, including Ziba, the chief servant of the house of Saul, and Ziba’s fifteen sons and twenty servants. They rushed down to the Jordan to meet the king.” (2 Samuel 19:17”

Interestingly, the very passage Seborgarsen feels advocates sex slavery, puts restrictions into place to insure this will not happen. First as we’ve seen, the woman had the rights of a contract of marriage.  Provisions were made for her protection if the “owner” could not fulfill his obligation towards her.

Second: The woman was to have full rights of marriage. If the man took a second wife, scripture did not allow him to reduce her status in anyway. She was to retain the full rights of a wife. “If he himself marries her and then takes another wife, he may not reduce her food or clothing or fail to sleep with her as his wife.” He had to provide for her physical well being, and her marital well being. The Lord knows how he created us and has/had a realistic understanding regarding sex. In the New Testament, He talks about the need for husband and wife to avoid denying sex to one another. Seems He believes women also have desires, not just men.

Add to that, children were very important in that society. A woman’s status to some degree rested on how many children she had.

To conclude: the passage our friend fears promotes sex slavery is actually the total opposite. It contains the regulations to prevent such an abomination.

More later….