 The Apostle Paul wrote, obey the government. It was the government that separated Paul's head from his body. The question of the debate is really simple, is biblical slavery immoral? And so for anything, if we're gonna try to determine whether or not it's immoral, first thing is, hey, let's make a statement and say, like for example, do you think generally speaking is a general rule? It's wrong to own people as property and pass them on to your kids because I do and yet the Bible allows for that under some conditions. And I don't think the conditions that the Bible allows for it, in any way, eliminate whether or not it is a morally correct action. Like would either of you be my slave under the rules in Exodus? Well, I think that ends the debate right there. Thanks. I would genuinely love to- It depends, Matt. Okay, it depends. I gotta tell you better. Well, no, but do you think the slaves got to make a choice about whether or not they knew that person better? I mean- We're getting to slave, right? And we're getting to slave servant, evad, doulos. So I'm not worried about the word. We're gonna have to affect all of that before we actually just hop in and- Let's go with it, man. I'm happy to, but I'm talking about the position where someone is owned as property. So for example, if among the people that you potentially could war with, do you think we should enslave the leftovers? Because I don't think that's moral, but what's worse is that the Bible doesn't even advocate merely enslaving the leftovers. The Bible advocates in Deuteronomy 2010 that you should go and make proclaim peace to a tribe or a city that you fight with. And if they agree to peace, then you enslave them. That's versus 1011 of Deuteronomy 20. How is that moral? You have a basic presupposition that I disagree with. And that basic presupposition that you keep on banging on is because the Bible says it, that makes it true. And good and moral. I started out with Matthew 19, guys. And in Matthew 19, Jesus is not saying that divorce is good. Can you connect slavery? Can you connect slavery to Matthew 19? Absolutely. It's a basic principle of interpretation which says just because there are laws in the Pentateuch that communicate, if you're gonna divorce, then you need to give your wife a certificate of divorce. Doesn't make that God's ideal. I didn't know anything about ideal. We're talking about permissivity. We just interrupted who here, Matt. That's fair, but you're repeating the same thing that we've already addressed. We just interrupted who, Matt? I interrupted you. I fully acknowledged that. All right, okay. Go ahead, Matt, you're at the floor. Oh, wait, let me just try and take a side of it. I'm saying that something is immoral. What difference does it make whether or not it was God's ideal? So you're talking about the Suzerain and vassal treaties, right? And so if you think about, for example, Joshua in Joshua chapter 10, where Israel is supposed to, as the Suzerain help out the vassal, the Gideonites, and they end up doing that in a very peaceful, and we know, we can actually even use the word love going back to this vassal Suzerain terminology starts in Genesis with God and man, and then even in regards to Pharaoh, it's used. But then there's another place in scripture outside of Joshua, where the Suzerain being the Israelites don't go and save the Gideonites, and God punishes them for that. And so there's clearly a connection there where God is calling for that loving relationship where you are helping out those who are less than you. Okay, so two things. One, Deuteronomy 20 is very clearly distinguishing, right? Those that are far and those that are in the land of Israel, in Israel proper, right? So those that are far become Corvay labor. If they submit best case scenario for them, right? They become mas, which they return for like tribute Corvay labor, right? So what Solomon does with Israelites and what Solomon does with foreigners, and this is something that you're forced to work, right? I don't think they're, I wouldn't consider them slaves proper according to the definition that I gave earlier, but they're Corvay labor, right? So what you see with the Gideonites also is not like the Gideonites that was in the narrative, the best case scenario for them, they either are standard harem, right? Under the ban and are annihilated or they trick the Israelites and become like these water carriers, right? So their Corvay labor. So, I mean, I think we need to be real honest about what the narrative is saying. This isn't like, we wouldn't do this today. We wouldn't do it. Right, and I see, if this is gonna be the big part of the debate, this is where I agree with you. We are not gonna be operating in the same way that the Israelites, Canaanites, et cetera, operate back then. We do not wanna operate that way. I certainly hope not. But I mean, you brought up Solomon, and when Solomon talks about an Ecclesiastes, for example, Josh, when he had in-home slaves and yet clearly in Ecclesiastes, he says, be wise in how you treat them. Treat them with love and respect, sacrifice for them. I mean, wasn't that pretty unique to that day and age? No. No? That's not humane. Oh, sure, I mean, it's more humane than beating them mercilessly. That's a low bar. But if, yeah, I mean, if you're gonna do that, then you would have to say the law in the antebellum south was humane. We know that it wasn't, right? The law in the antebellum south said, look, you can't murder your slave. Masters can't just murder their slaves. And they can't beat them except for moderate correction. That's the most. If you abuse your slave, if you beat them more than moderate correction, well, I mean, there's serious punishment. If you kill them, it's like murdering a free white man, right? So of course, that's not how it played out, right? There's significant loopholes that the people found in that. But the point is that if we're going laws and laws in comparing those, like, I don't think anybody would wanna make that argument that legal stipulation that's there in the antebellum south, like post-revolutionary antebellum south was somehow, and that's not my area of expertise, I wanna be clear about that. But like, we wouldn't do that, right? And it's, I think we would look back at that and say, but it's the same rationale. It's the same legal rationale that you see in Exodus 21. I have a side question that gets back to basically, Cliff and I are gonna argue back and forth about this whole thing about whether it's God's ideal or whether the Bible condones it. Now, condone means to accept or allow. The United States condones the drinking of alcohol by people over the age of 21. That does not mean the idea, the United States is saying, oh, it's ideal for people to drink. It is talking about what is permissible, what is allowed. And the same thing applies if God or the authors of the Bible or somebody's interpretation of what the authors of the Bible meant or what God meant, whatever, say that you can in fact have slaves, you just can't beat them too much and you have to let them go under certain circumstances. This is, I'm not saying and have never said, the Bible says slavery is God's ideal. That is a ridiculous straw man, but the Bible absolutely condones and it's legalistic notion is condoning slavery within certain limits. And I'm saying what the Bible allows for, we'll call it biblical slavery, biblical servitude, whatever, is in fact immoral and we all agree to that. Like I would think we would all agree that owning someone's property is in fact immoral. In other cases, I stood one day, this won't surprise either one of you, I stood one day at a debate and there were four apologists who I was not debating, but who came to watch. And I won't give you their names although you know some of them. And one of them asked a question about slavery and for the next 20 minutes, all four of them offered four different rationalizations and excuses and understandings and explanations for slavery. And I just looked at him and said, when you guys figure out what the actual right answer is, come back and present that to me because I'd rather debate the one right answer than four views about right answer. But if the Bible says you can have slaves as long as you do it this way, how is that not condoning slavery? The apostle Paul wrote, obey the government. It was the government that separated Paul's head from his body. So when Paul says obey the government, he's not saying, oh, by the way, and what Hitler will do is really good in gassing Jews. No, he's addressing a fallen world. And that's why one of my points was the fall. The Bible addresses the very real existence of evil. Not every government is good. And when governments institute slavery, the Bible is not saying that that's good. And when the government says, decapitate the apostle Paul, that is not good. And when Nero lit his gardens with Christian martyrs on torches, the Bible is not saying that that is good. And when the Bible says that marriage is to be a lifelong commitment between people and then says, okay, because of the hardness of people's hearts, yes, divorce is gonna occur. And Moses permits it there in the Old Testament. And when the Bible communicates that all people have been created in the image of God and all people have equal value and dignity. And then it begins to instruct people about how to control slavery, not approving slavery, but acknowledging that in a fallen, sin-cursed world, slavery occurs, divorce occurs, government cut people's heads off, get ready, Paul, because you're gonna get your head cut off. And yet Paul writes, obey the government. You've got to think through what is going on here. I did. What is the standard? What is the ideal? And what is the evidence that sin has gotten into the mix and really mess things up like slavery? It just sounds like you're saying that the Bible condones things that God and the people knew to be immoral, that are in fact immoral. Because God could just, why isn't there an 11th commandment that says, thou shalt not own another human being as property? If you enjoyed that, especially juicy clip, don't forget to hit subscribe so the algorithm knows what to serve you, moron.