Bible vs. Bible

[John Hartwell]

Obviously the Bible used by the Northern folks was superior to that used by the Southern. I just still get confused as to how the content could be so different or differently interpreted.

It is a characteristic of Scripture that it always says what the reader wants it to say -- the parts that don't you just skip over.

 

[Georgia Sixth]

How did each side use the Bible to justify their position and what specific verses did each side site as justification for their cause?

Historian Mark Noll at Wheaton College has researched this subject extensively. You might check out this book by him:

http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the...isis-mark-a-noll/1116819626?ean=9781469621814

And Harry Stout wrote a book that is packed with quotations from widely printed and read sermons on each side, following how clerics on each side found a god that blessed their side....and supported their calls for ever more brutal war. I found much of his research (which was great) to be disgusting. Here's a link to that:

http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/upon-the-altar-of-the-nation-harry-s-stout/1111513879?ean=9780143038764

And Stephen Woodward wrote a book answering the questions you raised from the point of view of the soldiers, not the preachers:

http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/whi...even-e-woodworth/1115033167?ean=9780700612970

 

[matthew mckeon]

"Both sides read the same Bible, prayed to the same God....the prayers of both could not be answered. The prayers of neither have been answered fully. The Almighty had his own purposes."

 

[kepi]

Historian Mark Noll at Wheaton College has researched this subject extensively. You might check out this book by him:

http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the...isis-mark-a-noll/1116819626?ean=9781469621814

And Harry Stout wrote a book that is packed with quotations from widely printed and read sermons on each side, following how clerics on each side found a god that blessed their side....and supported their calls for ever more brutal war. I found much of his research (which was great) to be disgusting. Here's a link to that:

http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/upon-the-altar-of-the-nation-harry-s-stout/1111513879?ean=9780143038764

And Stephen Woodward wrote a book answering the questions you raised from the point of view of the soldiers, not the preachers:

http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/whi...even-e-woodworth/1115033167?ean=9780700612970

Thank you

 

[KansasFreestater]

Unless I am mistaken, the Catholic church did not officially issue a statement against slavery until the 1960s...

Well, you might want to check this out:
The Popes and Slavery: Setting the Record Straight

 

[KansasFreestater]

I can't remember if it was Augustine of Hippo or Thomas Aquinas who said that God had given us two books: the Bible and Nature. The "natural law" is hugely important, and trying to interpret the Bible while ignoring natural law can lead you down all sorts of weird roads. According to a natural-law understanding, each and every human being is an expression of the divine -- i.e., that is our very nature, the essence of our being. Thus, slavery -- and a whole bunch of other things -- are readily seen to be abominations.

 

[Allie]

I can't remember if it was Augustine of Hippo or Thomas Aquinas who said that God had given us two books: the Bible and Nature. The "natural law" is hugely important, and trying to interpret the Bible while ignoring natural law can lead you down all sorts of weird roads. According to a natural-law understanding, each and every human being is an expression of the divine -- i.e., that is our very nature, the essence of our being. Thus, slavery -- and a whole bunch of other things -- are readily seen to be abominations.

People like Reverend Stringfellow saw this the exact opposite way - they considered it a self-evident law of nature that negroes were backwards and servile and needed masters, and considered it a temptation to give in to soft-hearted feelings towards them, in much the same way as a mother might be tempted to give her children candy all the time and not medicine.

I think it's readily seen that making other people into slaves violates the Great Commandment to love others as you would yourself. But they would have argued even that point, and said that being truly loving meant treating people as they needed to be treated, not as they wanted to be treated.

 

[major bill]

Allie do they really believe that loving meant treating people as they needed to be treated or were they attempting to justify what they were doing. Europe still had many areas with backwards people in the early 1800s, but how many Europeans when being reduced to perpetual chattel slavery? Are you trying to convince me that in 1860 most Americans truly believed it perfectly all right to turn backward Irishmen or backward Russians into chattel slaves? Even if the majority of southerners agreed with enslaving backward Europeans, at least a few Southerners would have rejected the concept of enslaving backward Europeans.

 

[Allie]

Allie do they really believe that loving meant treating people as they needed to be treated or were they attempting to justify what they were doing. Europe still had many areas with backwards people in the early 1800s, but how many Europeans when being reduced to perpetual chattel slavery? Are you trying to convince me that in 1860 most Americans truly believed it perfectly all right to turn backward Irishmen or backward Russians into chattel slaves? Even if the majority of southerners agreed with enslaving backward Europeans, at least a few Southerners would have rejected the concept of enslaving backward Europeans.

It's not possible to know, but I believe they were lying to themselves, and the reason is that even when a slaveholder said, "He was the smartest negro I ever saw, just as smart as a white person," he had no trouble holding that smart black person as a slave. In other words, they perfectly well knew that black people weren't really inferior and in need of masters, they just chose to use them anyway.

It's outside the scope of this site, but there's a site on the history of eugenics in America which talks about early beliefs that Irish and Poles, for example, were genetically inferior. There were some crazy ideas put forth about all sorts of people, not just blacks. I think the main reason no one tried enslaving them is that they were more difficult to tell apart.

 

[KansasFreestater]

It's not possible to know, but I believe they were lying to themselves, and the reason is that even when a slaveholder said, "He was the smartest negro I ever saw, just as smart as a white person," he had no trouble holding that smart black person as a slave. In other words, they perfectly well knew that black people weren't really inferior and in need of masters, they just chose to use them anyway.

It's outside the scope of this site, but there's a site on the history of eugenics in America which talks about early beliefs that Irish and Poles, for example, were genetically inferior. There were some crazy ideas put forth about all sorts of people, not just blacks. I think the main reason no one tried enslaving them is that they were more difficult to tell apart.

Over 50,000 Irish actually were enslaved by the British in Barbados in the seventeenth century.

 

[ole]

We frequently see posters being lambasted for examining 19th century mores through 21st century eyes. The Bible has the reverse outlook -- imposing mores much older than 2000 years on the recent past.

 

[dvrmte]

Some of the Scriptures that the slaveholders avoided.

"He who kidnaps a man, whether he sells him or he is found in his possession, shall surely be put to death." (Exodus 21:16)


"You shall not hand over to his master a slave who has escaped from his master to you. (Deuteronomy 23:15)

"If a man strikes his male or female slave with a rod and he dies at his hand, he shall be punished." (Exodus 21:20)

"If a man strikes the eye of his male or female slave, and destroys it, he shall let him go free on account of his eye. "And if he knocks out a tooth of his male or female slave, he shall let him go free on account of his tooth." (Exodus 21:26-27)

First of all, you're quoting from the Old Testament, not the New. The old covenant laws were made obsolete.

Hebrew 8:13
When God speaks of a "new" covenant, it means he has made the first one obsolete. It is now out of date and will soon disappear.

Your first quote would be applicable to the Africans that captured and sold people, and those that transported them. That was considered sinful in the eyes of most Southerners.

Your Deuteronomy quote is explained by the following:

http://biblehub.com/deuteronomy/23-15.htm
Thou shalt not deliver unto his master the servant which has escaped from his master unto thee—evidently a servant of the Canaanites or some of the neighboring people, who was driven by tyrannical oppression, or induced, with a view of embracing the true religion, to take refuge in Israel.

And another explanation of the same:
A slave that had escaped from his master was not to be given up, but allowed to dwell in the land, in whatever part he might choose. The reference is to a foreign slave who had fled from the harsh treatment of his master to seek refuge in Israel, as is evident from the expression, בְאַחַד שְׁעָרֵיך, "in one of thy gates," i.e. in any part of thy land. Onkelos, עֲבִד עַמְמִין, "a slave of the Gentiles." His master; the word used is the plural adonim, masters. The use of this for a human master or lord is peculiar to the Pentateuch.

The last two need no explanation, they were laws made obsolete by Christ.

 

[dvrmte]

Obviously the Bible used by the Northern folks was superior to that used by the Southern. I just still get confused as to how the content could be so different or differently interpreted.

For at least 1,500 years, religion sided with slavery for the most part. Southerners didn't have to 'invent' or 'force' any interpretation, however, the abolitionists were the ones that had to 'force' a new interpretation.

 

[dvrmte]

This is a good philosophical and theological argument in defense of slavery by Thomas R. Dew:

http://www.wwnorton.com/college/history/archive/resources/documents/ch15_03.htm

It is said slavery is wrong, in the abstract at least, and contrary to the spirit of Christianity. To this we answer . . . that any question must be determined by its circumstances, and if, as really is the case, we cannot get rid of slavery without producing a greater injury to both the masters and slaves, there is no rule of conscience or revealed law of God which can condemn us. The physician will not order the spreading cancer to be extirpated although it will eventually cause the death of his patient, because he would thereby hasten the fatal issue.

So, if slavery had commenced even contrary to the laws of God and man, and the sin of its introduction rested upon our heads, and it was even carrying forward the nation by slow degrees to final ruin—yet if it were certain that an attempt to remove it would only hasten and heighten the final catastrophe . . . then we would only be found to attempt the extirpation but we would stand guilty of a high offense in the sight of both God and man if we should rashly made the effort. But the original sin of introduction rest not on our heads, and we shall soon see that all those dreadful calamities which the false prophets of our day are pointing to will never, in all probability, occur

 

[brass napoleon]

For at least 1,500 years, religion sided with slavery for the most part. Southerners didn't have to 'invent' or 'force' any interpretation, however, the abolitionists were the ones that had to 'force' a new interpretation.

Really? How many slaves did Jesus own?

 

[matthew mckeon]

Let's be cool.

 

[matthew mckeon]

As far as Jesus making all the OT "obsolete" well...I hesitate to offer a theological point, but Jesus did mention that he was here to "complete" not overturn the law. But alan polk offered several OT justifications for slavery. You can construct both a proslavery and antislavery argument from the Bible with plenty of backing and sincerity. "Both sides prayed to the same God and invoked His aid against the other."

As far as a bible thumping society being cool with thumping slaves, obviously that's been true for most of human history. The moral challenge to American slavery doesn't come from the Bible, its comes from the Enlightenment, and the nation born in the spirit of the Enlightenment, the United States. "All men are created equal," isn't from the Bible.

 

[matthew mckeon]

The ancient Greeks abhorred slavery, for themselves. They justified slavery, as far as they bothered to, by insisting the the enslaved had the "soul of slaves" that is, were inherently fit to be slaves. Its an argument that any antebellum slave owner would applaud. In contrast the Romans enjoyed the obvious rewards of owning slaves without qualms about its morality. In a society where even the highest had to bow to the emperor, your position in life was a matter of luck and skill.

In the US, and the other Enlightenment societies, the concept of slavery was becoming obnoxious.

 

[ForeverFree]

I have not read this book from cover to cover, but I own it and use it as a reference. Very interesting and comprehensive. It should be available at large libraries.

God's Almost Chosen Peoples: A Religious History of the American Civil War - George Rable

Throughout the Civil War, soldiers and civilians on both sides of the conflict saw the hand of God in the terrible events of the day, but the standard narratives of the period pay scant attention to religion. Now, in God's Almost Chosen Peoples, Lincoln Prize-winning historian George C. Rable offers a groundbreaking account of how Americans of all political and religious persuasions used faith to interpret the course of the war.

Examining a wide range of published and unpublished documents--including sermons, official statements from various churches, denominational papers and periodicals, and letters, diaries, and newspaper articles--Rable illuminates the broad role of religion during the Civil War, giving attention to often-neglected groups such as Mormons, Catholics, blacks, and people from the Trans-Mississippi region. The book underscores religion's presence in the everyday lives of Americans north and south struggling to understand the meaning of the conflict, from the tragedy of individual death to victory and defeat in battle and even the ultimate outcome of the war. Rable shows that themes of providence, sin, and judgment pervaded both public and private writings about the conflict. Perhaps most important, this volume--the only comprehensive religious history of the war--highlights the resilience of religious faith in the face of political and military storms the likes of which Americans had never before endured. George Rable

- Alan

 

[ForeverFree]

This is from C-SPAN: http://www.c-span.org/video/?324110-1/discussion-slavery-religion

Slavery and Religion
Professor Douglas Thompson, Associate Professor Mercer University-Southern Studies Center, talked about religion and its impact on the relationship between slaves and their owners during the Antebellum period. He cited Nat Turner's 1831 slave rebellion and Frederick Douglass' 1845 memoir as examples of how whites and blacks interpreted biblical passages on slavery. This class is from a course called "Biblical Texts and American History."

- Alan