There’s a lot of problematic passages in the Old Testament involving women, sex, and slavery as well, so in addition to promoting genocide and ethnic cleansing, I think that, like the Quran, it’s a (sex) slavery/oppression handbook, too.
Here are a few passages from the OT that relate to sex slavery although there are other ones.
Now Sarai, Abram’s wife, bore him no children. She had an Egyptian slave whose name was Hagar, 2 and Sarai said to Abram, “You see that the Lord has prevented me from bearing children; go in to my slave; it may be that I shall obtain children by her.” And Abram listened to the voice of Sarai. 3 So, after Abram had lived ten years in the land of Canaan, Sarai, Abram’s wife, took Hagar the Egyptian, her slave, and gave her to her husband Abram as a wife. 4 He went in to Hagar, and she conceived
before they lay down [to go to sleep for the night], the men of the city, the men of Sodom, both young and old, all the people to the last man, surrounded the house, 5 and they called to Lot, “Where are the men who came to you tonight? Bring them out to us, so that we may know them.” 6 Lot went out of the door to the men, shut the door after him, 7 and said, “I beg you, my brothers, do not act so wickedly. 8 Look, I have two daughters who have not known a man; let me bring them out to you, and do to them as you please; only do nothing to these men, for they have come under the shelter of my roof.”
When a man sells his daughter as a slave, she shall not go out as the male slaves do. 8 If she does not please her master, who 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 dealt unfairly with her. 9 If he designates her for his son, he shall deal with her as with a daughter. 10 If he takes another wife to himself, he shall not diminish the food, clothing, or marital rights of the first wife. 11 And if he does not do these three things for her, she shall go out without debt, without payment of money.
[Moses said:] Now therefore, kill every male among the little ones, and kill every woman who has known a man by sleeping with him. 18 But all the young girls who have not known a man by sleeping with him, keep alive for yourselves
When you go out to war against your enemies and the Lord your God hands them over to you and you take them captive, 11 suppose you see among the captives a beautiful woman whom you desire and want to marry, 12 and so you bring her home to your house: she shall shave her head, pare her nails, 13 discard her captive’s garb, and remain in your house a full month mourning for her father and mother; after that you may go in to her and be her husband, and she shall be your wife. 14 But if you are not satisfied with her, you shall let her go free and certainly not sell her for money. You must not treat her as a slave, since you have dishonored her.
If a man meets a virgin who is not engaged and seizes her and lies with her, and they are discovered, 29 the man who lay with her shall give fifty shekels of silver to the young woman’s father, and she shall become his wife. Because he violated her, he shall not be permitted to divorce her as long as he lives
[the Israelite elders] instructed the Benjaminites, saying, “Go and lie in wait in the vineyards 21 and watch; when the young women of Shiloh come out to dance in the dances, then come out of the vineyards and each of you carry off a wife for himself from the young women of Shiloh and go to the land of Benjamin. 22 Then if their fathers or their brothers come to complain to us, we will say to them, ‘Be generous and allow us to have them, because we did not capture in battle a wife for each man. But neither did you incur guilt by giving your daughters to them.’ ” 23 The Benjaminites did so; they took wives for each of them from the dancers whom they abducted. Then they went and returned to their territory and rebuilt the towns and lived in them.
More general passages on slavery in the Bible are cited in
this post.
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Love dares you to care for
The people on the edge of the night
26 Mar 2025, 5:36 am
