"Does God support the practice of slavery?"

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"Does God support the practice of slavery?"

Exodus 21:1-11 Now these are the rules that you shall set before them. When you buy a Hebrew slave he shall serve six years, and in the seventh he shall go out free, for nothing. If he comes in single, he shall go out single; if he comes in married, then his wife shall go out with him. If his master gives him a wife and she bears him sons or daughters, the wife and her children shall be her master's, and he shall go out alone. But if the slave plainly says, ‘I love my master, my wife, and my children; I will not go out free,’ then his master shall bring him to God, and he shall bring him to the door or the doorpost. And his master shall bore his ear through with an awl, and he shall be his slave forever.

When a man sells his daughter as a slave, she shall not go out as the male slaves do. If she does not please her master, who has designated her for himself, then he shall let her be redeemed. He shall have no right to sell her to a foreign people, since he has broken faith with her. If he designates her for his son, he shall deal with her as with a daughter. If he takes another wife to himself, he shall not diminish her food, her clothing, or her marital rights. And if he does not do these three things for her, she shall go out for nothing, without payment of money.

Exodus 21:20-21 When a man strikes his slave, male or female, with a rod and the slave dies under his hand, he shall be avenged. But if the slave survives a day or two, he is not to be avenged, for the slave is his money.

In Exodus 20, God hands down his 10 commandments to Moses and the Israelites. This would seem like a good time to address the practice of slavery, something that has cropped up in previous chapters; however, slavery is not mentioned in the 10 commandments (though in some translations the 10th commandment states that you should not covet a neighbor's slaves, while other translations say servants - both cases being equated with property). Even more distressing is the fact that in the chapter that immediately follows, God hands down laws regarding the treatment of slaves. This includes specifics about how to hold a married slave's wife and children hostage in order to retain ownership over them indefinitely and how to force a slave woman into marriage with yourself or one of your sons. Are we to assume that God supports the practice of slavery under these specifications? Obviously Christians today would not support the described practices. What better opportunity to reject the practice than when God handed down the laws that his chosen people should follow? The Israelites were literally escaping their own enslavement, why then would God allow the practice to continue, and not only allow it, but give explicit instructions for how it should be carried out? Why not abolish it entirely and unequivocally? If God is all-knowing and all-seeing, wouldn't he have been aware that many of these verses would later be used to justify slavery?

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"Were the Hebrews actually held as slaves in ancient Egypt?"

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"Were the Hebrews actually held as slaves in ancient Egypt?"
Exodus 5:1-2 Afterward Moses and Aaron went and said to Pharaoh, “Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel, ‘Let my people go, that they may hold a feast to me in the wilderness.’” But Pharaoh said, “Who is the Lord, that I should obey his voice and let Israel go? I do not know the Lord, and moreover, I will not let Israel go.”

The book of Exodus is named specifically for the exodus of the Hebrews from Egypt, but how certain are we that this actually took place? This is a very specific historical claim about an ancient civilization that we have learned a great deal about through archeology. What historical evidence do we have that the Hebrews were held as slaves by the Egyptians? Are the population figures described in the Book of Numbers reliable or reasonable?

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"Why did God want to kill Moses?"

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"Why did God want to kill Moses?"
Exodus 4:24-26 At a lodging place on the way the Lord met him and sought to put him to death. Then Zipporah took a flint and cut off her son's foreskin and touched Moses' feet with it and said, “Surely you are a bridegroom of blood to me!” So he let him alone.

Up to this point in Exodus God has chosen Moses to lead the Israelites out of Egypt, enabled him to perform miracles, and has given him clear instructions as to how he will use Moses to free his people. Why would God suddenly want Moses dead? The only insight we have is that Moses' son was uncircumcised. Are we to believe that this is an offense punishable by death? If God killed Moses for this offense, what would have happened to the Israelites? Would they have continued to toil under the yoke of Egyptian oppression simply because Moses' son was uncircumcised?

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"Why did God take the form of a burning bush to speak with Moses?"

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"Why did God take the form of a burning bush to speak with Moses?"
Exodus 3:1-5 Now Moses was keeping the flock of his father-in-law, Jethro, the priest of Midian, and he led his flock to the west side of the wilderness and came to Horeb, the mountain of God. And the angel of the Lord appeared to him in a flame of fire out of the midst of a bush. He looked, and behold, the bush was burning, yet it was not consumed. And Moses said, “I will turn aside to see this great sight, why the bush is not burned.” When the Lord saw that he turned aside to see, God called to him out of the bush, “Moses, Moses!” And he said, “Here I am.”

In this well-known passage God communicates directly with Moses, and chooses to do so by taking the form of a burning bush. The question is why? Why a burning bush? Would a burning rock have worked just as well? Why did the bush need to be burning? Is there a natural explanation for this phenomenon? There's also some confusion in the passage as to who is actually speaking to Moses. Initially we are told "an angel of God" is speaking, but then soon after we are told it is God himself. Which is it?

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"Why did God kill all of Egypt's firstborn?"

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"Why did God kill all of Egypt's firstborn?"
Exodus 12:29-30 At midnight the Lord struck down all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, from the firstborn of Pharaoh who sat on his throne to the firstborn of the captive who was in the dungeon, and all the firstborn of the livestock. And Pharaoh rose up in the night, he and all his servants and all the Egyptians. And there was a great cry in Egypt, for there was not a house where someone was not dead.

This is a particularly difficult passage to stomach. The bible tells us that the ultimate punishment Egypt will face for their enslavement of the Israelites is the death of every first-born child in Egypt. The only way for Pharaoh to prevent this is to release the Israelites from bondage. However, God has made it clear that he already knows what Pharaoh will choose to do, as God himself has "hardened Pharaoh's heart". It would appear that there was never any choice to be made. The pain and suffering inflicted upon Egypt would seem to serve no purpose, as Pharaoh couldn't have made another choice even if he wanted to. Is this fair? Untold numbers of children were killed by God, for a crime they did not commit, and the only person that could have prevented their deaths (Pharaoh) was stopped from doing so by God himself. Is this a just punishment?

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"Did God forget about his covenant with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob?"

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"Did God forget about his covenant with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob?"
Exodus 2:23-24 During those many days the king of Egypt died, and the people of Israel groaned because of their slavery and cried out for help. Their cry for rescue from slavery came up to God. And God heard their groaning, and God remembered his covenant with Abraham, with Isaac, and with Jacob.

The wording of this passage leads one to believe that God was somehow unaware of the suffering of Israel, and that he had to be reminded through prayer.  Is God only aware of things when we pray about them? Why did he have to be reminded?  If God had been paying closer attention, could he have saved the Israelites from years of slavery?

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"Why did Moses kill the Egyptian?"

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"Why did Moses kill the Egyptian?"
Exodus 2:11-12 One day, when Moses had grown up, he went out to his people and looked on their burdens, and he saw an Egyptian beating a Hebrew, one of his people. He looked this way and that, and seeing no one, he struck down the Egyptian and hid him in the sand.

This passage is our first look at Moses as an adult. His first action (from our perspective) is to murder an Egyptian. Our only context for this act is that the Egyptian was beating an Israelite. While this is clearly wrong, was murder a justified response? The israelites were enslaved by the Egyptians, wouldn't this have been a common sight for Moses? Why is this incident different than the innumerable others he probably witnessed growing up? Why, after this act, does God proceed to bless Moses above all others, and choose him as the leader of the Israelites? Does this not contradict the "Thou shall not kill" commandment Moses receives from God? Why doesn't God punish moses for murdering the egyptian, or even mention it?

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"Why does God allow people to be disabled?"

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"Why does God allow people to be disabled?"

Exodus 4:11 Then the Lord said to him, “Who has made man's mouth? Who makes him mute, or deaf, or seeing, or blind? Is it not I, the Lord?"

In Chapter 4 of Exodus God takes responsibility for making people deaf, dumb, or blind. If God intended them to be disabled, why do we attempt to heal them with our modern treatments. Does this subvert his purpose? Why would God want to make someone disabled in the first place? If disabilities are a result of Original Sin, why are some people disproportionately affected, even from birth, with terrible disabilities? If God is good and can control who is sticken with disabilities, why doesn't he ever heal them? Some claim that God does heal the sick and disabled, not just in the past, but still to this day through the power of prayer. If that is the case, why are there some types of disability that have seemingly never been miraculously healed? For instance, why doesn't God heal amputees?

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"How were the Pharaoh's sorcerers able to replicate God's miracle with Aaron's rod?"

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Exodus 7:8-12 Then the Lord said to Moses and Aaron, “When Pharaoh says to you, ‘Prove yourselves by working a miracle,’ then you shall say to Aaron, ‘Take your staff and cast it down before Pharaoh, that it may become a serpent.’” So Moses and Aaron went to Pharaoh and did just as the Lord commanded. Aaron cast down his staff before Pharaoh and his servants, and it became a serpent. Then Pharaoh summoned the wise men and the sorcerers, and they, the magicians of Egypt, also did the same by their secret arts. For each man cast down his staff, and they became serpents. But Aaron's staff swallowed up their staffs.

These verses specifically refer to the rod turning into a serpent as a miracle, but somehow the Pharaoh's sorcerers were able to recreate this miracle with their "secret arts". What were their secret arts? How did these magicians have powers comparable to God? If it was God's intent to convince the Pharaoh of Moses' divine authority, why wouldn't he begin with an example that could not be replicated (or seemingly replicated) by any man, angel, or demon?

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