The Apostle Paul on Slavery
Paul’s letter to a slaveholder outlines the case for abolition which started a revolution in thought.
I’ve spent some time reading and listening to debates on the issue of slavery in the Bible. To be honest, I understand why some people think the Bible is morally ambiguous towards slavery at best. I think it was Sam Harris who wondered why it just doesn’t simply state that “Thous shall not keep slaves.” That’s a good question.
But what I learned reading about Paul is that there is an entire book in the New Testament that is an argument for abolition based on Christian ideals. The weirdest thing to me is that Bible supporters, that I have seen, never make that point.
Understanding Western Civilization
As I’ve gathered and read books with the central aim of understanding this thing we call Western civilization, I keep ending up at the Bible. Many of the books I have read are older books written by historians several decades ago and they talk about the Biblical origin of Western civilization in passing as if it’s just a given. It’s only more modern writers that seem to think of it as ambiguous or questionable.
And when it comes to Paul, like modern historian Tom Holland describes in this clip, you cannot…
