How (Not) to Read the Bible: Making Sense of the Anti-women, Anti-science, Pro-violence, Pro-slavery and Other Crazy-Sounding Parts of Scripture

by Dan Kimball

God Gave Regulations to an Existing Condition People Created According to both the Old Testament and the New Testament, slavery is wrong. This is very important to pay attention to. We see in Exodus 21:16 a clear condemnation of anyone who steals someone to make them a slave: “Anyone who kidnaps someone is to be put to death, whether the victim has been sold or is still in the kidnapper’s possession.” And in the New Testament, in 1 Timothy 1:9–10, it says, “The law is made not for the righteous but for lawbreakers . . . for slave traders and liars and perjurers—and for whatever else is contrary to the sound doctrine.”