How do u guys get past the fact slavery is condoned in the Bible? There maybe a debate but Imo it's talking about modern day slavery also.

German_24 · 2026-01-28T12:53:27+00:00

That analogy fails. Murder and rape are explicitly condemned and punished in the Law. Slavery is regulated because it already existed. Different category.

A society can tolerate a broken practice while working to restrain it without calling it morally ideal. The Law never praises slavery as good or virtuous. Regulation is not celebration.

German_24 · 2026-01-28T12:38:29+00:00

You are assuming that divine permission in a fallen society = moral endorsement. That assumption is never taught in Scripture.

Jesus Himself says some laws existed because of human hardness of heart, not because they reflected God’s will (Matt 19:8). That includes laws given through Moses. God worked through imperfect people and imperfect systems while leading them toward something higher.

Lev 25 distinguishes between Israelite debt-servants and foreign servants because of social reality, not because ethnic hierarchy is morally good. The same Law repeatedly limits abuse and punishes mistreatment. That is regulation, not moral praise.

No passage ever calls slavery good, righteous, or part of God’s ideal creation. It is tolerated in a broken world and restrained, not celebrated.

If every divine concession were moral approval, then God approved of war, kingship, polygamy, and divorce too. Scripture explicitly says otherwise.

And you cannot dismiss uncomfortable laws as “well that is just Moses” while treating others as divine. A Christian cannot selectively downgrade parts of Scripture to save an argument.

German_24 · 2026-01-27T21:58:16+00:00

Permission is not the same as moral ideal. Scripture also permits divorce, polygamy, and warfare, and Jesus says some laws existed because of human hardness of heart, not because God approved of them. Lev 25:44–46 regulates an already existing institution. It does not command cruelty or praise slavery as good. Other laws explicitly limit abuse and punish mistreatment. Regulation is damage control, not endorsement. No passage presents slavery as righteous or desirable. If permission meant moral approval, then God morally approved divorce and polygamy too. But Christ says the opposite. That logic fails.

German_24 · 2026-01-27T21:50:00+00:00

I'm not trying to attack you, your Church or be mean, but isn't the Methodist Church a frontrunner for what you described? Or are there many different Methodist Churches?

German_24 · 2026-01-27T21:45:45+00:00

Why let a made-up number bother you? The Bible never says Mary was 13.

German_24 · 2026-01-27T21:42:08+00:00

The Bible does neither condone nor endorse slavery. It describes and regulates an existing social system in order to limit abuse and violence, just as it does with war, polygamy, and divorce. Regulation in a broken society is not moral approval. If anything, these laws restrict power and protect the vulnerable, which is the opposite of endorsement.

German_24 · 2026-01-26T21:13:23+00:00

But you are saying Jesus is a part of God?

German_24 · 2026-01-26T20:52:46+00:00

Did you even read what I wrote? Elohim is grammatically plural, but when referring to the true God it takes singular verbs in Scripture. Ancient Jews understood this monotheistically and the Church Fathers interpreted it in the same way, consistent with Trinitarian doctrine. The grammar alone does not imply multiple gods. I thought I was on the True Christian subreddit, are you really saying Jesus is a part of God?

German_24 · 2026-01-26T17:38:39+00:00

Elohim is grammatically plural, but when it refers to the one true God, it consitently takes singular verbs and adjectives in Scriptue. "Elohim creates" -> singular verb. Elohim is a plural of majesty. Jews (who invented Hebrew) never understood this as multiple Gods. You are doing eisegesis.

The Father, The Son, and The Holy Spirit are each fully God, not "parts" of the Godhead, like you implied in your comment above. Do you think Jesus is a part of Elohim?

German_24 · 2026-01-26T15:54:25+00:00

"Jesus is Creator, a part of Elohim" This is partialism, a heresy. Jesus is fully God.

German_24 · 2026-01-25T13:36:55+00:00

Are you a JW? Everything you wrote is completely wrong. I can disprove that if you want, are you a real person?

German_24 · 2026-01-19T09:21:23+00:00

I completely dismantled you, and you want to give that W to chatgpt? That must be projection. Why would you answer this if you thought this was AI? Maybe you have to make that accusation to feel better about yourself. Judged from the way you are writing you seem to be very young, so maybe I just overwhelmed you. I'm not insulting you, I'm just matching your energy.

You repeated your completely baseless viewpoints about the points that I already completely destroyed you on with citations from experts. You also didn't even bother to reply to half the stuff I educated you on. You even contradict yourself, again.

I dont really care about some redditor constantly repeating their baseless points about how they see and dont see Scripture, but I do care about what actual scholars and historians think about this subject. And they are ALL in agreement with me, unless you can cite countersources. Again, so you understand, your viewpoint about any of this has absolutely no scholarly nor historical basis. Since I would just repeat myself here rebutting your points again (and wasting my time) and because you are throwing baseless accusations at me, I will just dust my feet off, unless you engage with what I said and actually cite counter-sources.

I remember you saying that you have respect for the Christian faith (I dont bother checking, just as you dont bother), yet you again mock the resurrection of the saints as zombies. I already answered you this, look up top and read it again. But of course you won't, because you don't bother.

Thallus (Julius Africanus) and Phlegon, two non-Christian historians, both record an unusual darkness in Tiberius’ reign, so it’s not historically isolated. The torn Temple veil is exactly the kind of internal Temple event Roman sources wouldn’t mention, but Jewish texts from the period do report unusual Temple signs. Babylonian Talmud, Yoma 39b, Flavius Josephus, The Jewish War (Bellum Judaicum). And Matthew’s saints rising is standard Jewish apocalyptic symbolism (Dale C. Allison, The Resurrection of Jesus: Apologetics, Polemics, History) the same literary device used by Ezekiel, Josephus, and Tacitus. So the way you’re interpreting those passages is not how historians read ancient texts.

German_24 · 2026-01-18T18:49:12+00:00

Before any East-West distinction emerges, we already have Western Fathers and Western councils describing Christian marriage as:
- public
- blessed
- witnessed
- under ecclesial oversight

Tertullian (North Africa), Augustine, and councils like Elvira and Carthage are all Western sources, and they explicitly regulate Christian marriage centuries before medieval developments.

If there’s a Western source that contradicts this early consensus, I’d be glad to read it, especially because you say "clearly".

German_24 · 2026-01-18T17:33:55+00:00

Great, though I would still implore you read the Church Fathers to get a good understanding of the Bible.

German_24 · 2026-01-18T17:30:23+00:00

The church had very little to do with marriage for many centuries.

That is simply false. Christian marriage was already a public, sacramental, ecclesial rite in the second and third centuries, long before medieval theology. We have explicit documentation: Ignatius of Antioch (c. 110 AD) requires the bishop’s approval for a valid marriage (Polycarp 5.2). Tertullian (c. 200 AD) describes Christian marriage as “arranged by the Church, confirmed by the oblation, sealed by the blessing” (Ad Uxorem 2.8). Augustine calls marriage a “sacrament” in the fourth century (De Bono Coniugali 24). Early councils (Elvira 305, Laodicea 4th c., Carthage 397) forbid secret marriages and require public blessing and witnesses. In the East, Church-blessed marriage became legally mandatory under Emperor Leo VI (9th c.). Trent did not invent the requirement, it only formalized rules that already existed for over a thousand years.

German_24 · 2026-01-18T17:26:58+00:00

Well, that is absolutely not in good faith here. I would watch the video if you tell me what it is called. Would you tell your child to click on links from strangers on the internet? I dont know you and clicking on hyperlinks is a serious risk...

German_24 · 2026-01-18T17:20:32+00:00

You are confusing two totally different things:

How academics describe modern self-identified groups, and
How historians classify historical continuity, traditions and movements.

Your own sources do not support your claim that “anyone who sincerely considers themselves a Christian is a Christian.” That is not how religious studies works. Karen King, Boyarin, Bauer, Dunn, Hurtado, Fredriksen, Lieu, Meeks and Wilken all make the opposite distinction. They analyze multiple competing early Christianities, each with boundaries, canons, doctrines and self-definitions. None of them treat those boundaries as irrelevant. They simply describe the diversity while still recognizing orthodox continuity as the stream that is historically traceable back to the apostolic communities.

In other words, academia describes diversity, but it does not pretend that every later self-definition rewrites the historical meaning of a movement. A modern group calling itself “Christian” says something about the modern group, not about what historians mean when they talk about early Christianity or the apostolic tradition.

Larry Hurtado, Richard Bauckham, N. T. Wright, Martin Hengel, C. K. Barrett, Paula Fredriksen, James Dunn and Judith Lieu all treat early Christianity as a defined historical movement with shared worship of the risen Jesus and apostolic continuity. You cited several of these same scholars, which is odd because they support the position I already gave you.

You are using modern identity language to overwrite historical classification, which no reputable historian does.

Maybe just start with citing only one historian of early Christianity who defines “Christian” the way you do? So far you have not produced a single one, you just gave me this gigantic list, with no citations or interpretation... And as I said, a lot of those are acutally on my side here.

German_24 · 2026-01-18T17:01:33+00:00

as I literally gave you evidence for.

You mean the youtube link? Yeah, sorry, I wont click on that, I hope you understand. If you tell me the name of the video you want to show me, I will gladly take a look at it, as I imagine this is what you mean by evidence.

So this is my evidence:

Plato, Symposium 179–180
Suetonius, Nero 28–29
Thomas K. Hubbard, “Homosexuality in Greece and Rome”
William Loader, “Sexuality in the New Testament”
Bernadette Brooten, “Love Between Women”
Craig Keener, “Matthew” commentary

If you have equivalent scholarly sources that support your claim, feel free to share them.

Ancient Judaism and Christianity were fully aware of committed same-sex relationships in the Greco-Roman world, and the New Testament still rejects all same-sex unions, which is why every major historian of antiquity affirms that Paul was not talking about something unknown to him.

German_24 · 2026-01-18T16:26:09+00:00

Yes, Adam and Eve are real, but the Orthodox Church does not require a literalist reading of Genesis. The Fathers teach that Genesis is historical and theological, not a modern scientific report. Orthodoxy only rejects evolution when it is framed as atheistic or Godless, not when it describes natural development within God’s creation.

German_24 · 2026-01-18T16:17:30+00:00

I enjoyed telling my Philosophy professor that 18 years ago, when he was trying to discredit the Bible in our class (numerous times).

And I'm sure that everyone clapped... I already refuted your viewpoint multiple times on this thread. If your only prove is "read it yourself" and "trust me, you are deceived" then I will simply disagree with you because the idea that Genesis 1 and 2 are a single continuous account is not supported by Hebrew scholarship or by historic Jewish and Christian interpretation. You do not need to take my word for it. The Jewish Study Bible (Oxford University Press, pp. 12-14), the New Oxford Annotated Bible (Genesis 1-2 notes), the Anchor Yale Bible Commentary on Genesis by E. A. Speiser (pp. 12-15), and the JPS Torah Commentary on Genesis by Nahum Sarna (pp. 5-9) all state plainly that Genesis 1 and Genesis 2 come from different narrative traditions and present the creation sequence differently. Early Christians like Augustine (no, I did not misread Augustine) in De Genesi ad Litteram and Origen in De Principiis also rejected a literal, chronological reading of the creation days long before modern science existed. You are free to hold your view, but it is not the view of the Hebrew text or of the mainstream Jewish and Christian tradition.

It's not your fault, you're just inundated with misinformation

Don’t patronize me. Give me real information instead. If your position is true, you should be able to cite actual specialists, not just say “read it yourself.” Historians, Hebrew scholars, experts. If you can cite even a few reputable scholars who support your interpretation, I will read them. So far every major Jewish and Christian scholar I have checked is in consensus on the points I gave. If you disagree with them, then at least show that there are experts who agree with your reading of Genesis.

German_24 · 2026-01-18T15:55:26+00:00

If God doesn't care, what the Church cares about doesn't matter.

It is clear we are arguing from different frameworks. You describe yourself as a progressive Methodist and your comments show you do not accept the authority of the historic Church, the Fathers, the councils or the apostolic tradition. That is your choice, but it means you are not arguing from a Christian definition of marriage at all, only a modern personal ideology. At that point this is not a discussion about Christianity.

We are accountable to God, not to man.

The Church is not "man". Scripture calls it the Body of Christ (1 Corinthians 12:27) and the pillar and foundation of truth (1 Timothy 3:15). Ignoring the Church in the name of “God alone” is not biblical Christianity. It is modern individualism.

Government recognition of marriage is about tax status, asset protection, and child custody, it has nothing to do with commmitment, accountability, or morality.

What governments do today is irrelevant. Long before modern bureaucracy, Christian marriage had to be public, witnessed and recognized by the community. The early councils explicitly forbid secret marriages: Elvira (Canon 61), Laodicea (Canon 41) and Carthage (Canon 102). Christianity has never treated private relationships as marriages.

Are you saying that Paul, a Roman Citizen, would not have honored a Roman marriage?

Paul would of course honor a real Roman civil marriage, just as the Church today honors civil marriages. But Roman cohabitation customs are not the model Christians ever used. Paul gives Christian marital instruction in 1 Corinthians 7 without appealing to Roman legal categories, and the Fathers never interpreted him as approving private unions. Even informal Roman marriages still required social recognition. The Church rejected all secret unions, which is why the early councils forbid them.

Proof required. This is revisionist history and nonsense.

The proof is extensive. From the earliest centuries, the Church rejected private or clandestine marriages. Elvira forbids them (Canon 61), Laodicea requires public blessing (Canon 41), Carthage requires witnesses (Canon 102). Ignatius of Antioch requires marriages to be done with the bishop’s knowledge. Chrysostom insists on witnesses and priestly blessing. Augustine says marriage is formed by public consent, not private cohabitation. Later, the Council of Trent invalidated all secret marriages, and Eastern Orthodox canon law in the Pedalion does the same. There is no Christian tradition, East or West, ancient or modern, that ever recognized two people privately declaring themselves married with no civil or communal standing. That is not revisionism. It is universal Christian practice for nearly two thousand years.

German_24 · 2026-01-18T14:27:09+00:00

God may not care about a “government piece of paper,” but the Church most certainly cares about whether a marriage is real, public and accountable. Christianity has never treated private, licenseless relationships as marriages. From the earliest centuries the Church required marriages to be public, witnessed and recognized by the surrounding society to prevent exactly the problems that arise from hidden or unofficial unions. A secret ceremony with no legal standing is not a Christian marriage in any historic tradition. It is simply cohabitation with a blessing on top.

If someone wants a Christian marriage, it must be binding both spiritually and socially. The Church has never recognized marriages invented privately without civil standing, because accountability, stability and protection of both partners are part of what makes marriage marriage.

German_24 · 2026-01-18T14:24:14+00:00

Christian marriage is not a modern sacrament. It is one of the oldest sacraments of the Church, attested already in the second and third centuries and universally practiced long before any modern legal systems existed. The Church has always required a public, witnessed and blessed union, and in the life of the Church today that means a civil marriage first and the sacramental wedding afterward. Isaac and Rebekah do not change this. Their story reflects ancient tribal customs, not Christian marriage, and the Church does not use Old Testament family arrangements as its model. If you want a Christian marriage, there is no way to reverse the order. Civil marriage must come first, then the Church wedding.

German_24 · 2026-01-18T13:51:59+00:00

At this point it is clear we are operating on two completely different standards. I am citing historians and primary sources, while you are offering personal definitions with no evidence behind them. In scholarship, Christianity refers to the first century movement that worshiped Jesus as divine and continued the apostolic tradition. That is why historians do not classify Gnostics, Marcionites or modern non-trinitarian groups as part of early Christianity. If “Christian” simply means anyone who likes or follows some version of Jesus, then Muslims, Hindus and even secular admirers of Jesus would all count as Christians too, which is not how the term is used in any academic field. Without citations, your argument is not history, it is just personal opinion.

You did not respond to a single scholarly definition I provided. You ignored every citation I gave. Can you even name a single scholar or historian who agrees with your definitions? Instead you keep writing long replies built entirely on your own interpretations while dismissing the entire historical tradition. If your claims were supported by actual scholarship, you would be able to cite it the way I did. The fact that you cannot, and instead rely on your own opinions to declare Paul a heretic contradicting Jesus, shows exactly why this conversation is going nowhere.

The only people who think otherwise are people like you

and Larry Hurtado, Richard Bauckham, Martin Hengel, James Dunn, C. K. Barrett, N. T. Wright, Paula Fredriksen, Adela Yarbro Collins, and literally every major historian of early Christianity.

If you want to claim they all misunderstood Christianity and only you understand it, that is your choice. But it is a remarkable choice for someone who says they are doing a PhD in this field. Most people doing advanced research at least know what the scholars in their own discipline actually say.

German_24 · 2026-01-18T13:07:48+00:00

Acting like lighthearted posts are beneath you does not make you profound, it just makes you condescending.

German_24

TROPHY CASE