Abraham had 318 slaves...
14 And when Abram heard that his brother was taken captive, he armed his trained [servants], born in his own house, three hundred and eighteen, and pursued [them] unto Dan. (KJV)
15 And he divided himself against them, he and his servants, by night, and smote them, and pursued them unto Hobah, which [is] on the left hand of Damascus. (KJV)
14 Thus Abram got to hear that his brother had been taken captive. With that he mustered his trained men, 318 slaves born in his household, and went in pursuit up to Dan. (NWT)
15 And by night he resorted to dividing his forces, he and his slaves, against them, and thus he defeated them and kept in pursuit of them up to Hobah, which is north of Damascus. (NWT)
14 And when Abram heard that his brother was captured, even then he led out his trained men, born of his household, three hundred and eighteen. And they pursued as far as Dan. (GLT)
15 And he divided against them by night, he and his slaves, and he struck them, and pursued them as far as Hobah, which [is] on the left of Damascus. (GLT)
14 And Abram heareth that his brother hath been taken captive, and he draweth out his trained domestics, three hundred and eighteen, and pursueth unto Dan. (YLT)
15 And he divideth himself against them by night, he and his servants, and smiteth them, and pursueth them unto Hobah, which {is} at the left of Damascus; (YLT)
14 And when Abram heard that his brother was taken captive, he led out his trained men, born in his house, three hundred and eighteen of them and pursued as far as Dan. (MLV)
15 And he divided himself against them by night, he and his servants and killed them and pursued them to Hobah, which is on the left hand of Damascus. (MLV)
So Abraham had 318 slaves/servants/domestics/trained men born in his household. But Genesis14 is set before Isaac his son was born. There were only two way that one could be born in house in those days. Either one was a child of the Patriarch, or one was a slave of the patriarch. Freemen had their own house. Slaves made children for their owner. This can be seen from Genesis17...
27 And all the men of his household, anyone born in the house and anyone purchased with money from a foreigner, got circumcised with him. (Genesis 17 NWT)
27 And all the men of his house, born in the house or bought with silver from a son of a foreigner, were circumcised with him.
(Genesis 17 GLT)
So if one condemns slavery then one condemns Abraham. But Abraham is the father of the 3 great Monotheistic religions, Judaism, Christianity and Islam. So one condemns everyone is all 3 major religions as son by genetics or by faith covenant of a slave owner.
20 and they must say to the older men of his city,
'This son of ours is stubborn and rebellious; he is not listening to our voice,
being a glutton and a drunkard.' (NWT)
21 Then all the men of his city must pelt him with stones,
and he must die. So you must clear away what is bad from your midst, and all Israel will hear and indeed become afraid. (Deuteronomy 21 NWT)
So a Jew under Moses was permitted to beat his slave to within an inch of his life with impunity.
That plainly could and no doubt did lead to horrendous abuse of slaves by some people. But there is a very positive side to it as well.
A large number of slave owners, although having the power to discipline their slaves to within an inch of their lives, would have learned not to do that and to love them. They would have gained experience of not abusing power over their brother.
If you look at the world today - sure there is very little slavery in the West (some in the middle east and Africa). But the public sector has never been more abusive with its power. In the UK the government and the local councils have abused the NHS, Education, the environment, the private sector, private transport, parking law, retail, hospitality etc. to the point where these are all but destroyed. They have beaten them all to within an inch of their lives.
As a society with our heartless woke internet assassins, we destroy people's jobs and livelihoods in a heart beat. If you ask a man would he prefer to be beaten or lose his job, lose the NHS, lose private transport, or lose the planet. The answer is not so simple.
Today, if one cannot earn enough money to survive, one goes to social services and gets a government handout. But what happened before there was a welfare state?
People would seek charity from their family and friends. But if that failed they would sell themselves as slaves for a period of time in order not to starve to death.
Slavery was a privatised form of social services of last resort. Although if a slave master treated his slaves very well it may not have been the last resort for people who fell upon hard times,
Slavery would have saved many many more lives (from starvation and homelessness etc) than it cost (through abuse). That being the case, if you condemn it (in the absence of any other form of social services) then you constitute yourself a mass murderer of your ancestors.
200 years ago there were no social services. There was only slavery.
So slavery encouraged personal charity to one's fellowman, rather than the government doing that for us and screwing it all up. And slavery gave people experience of power individually over their brothers. Rather than concentring all that power in the hands of the unaccountable public sector, who ultimately destroy everything they get power over.
It was not immoral to be a slave owner. It was immoral to force someone into slavery against their will (through wars etc.) and it was immoral to abuse slaves. We should make that distinction before judging all of our ancestors by the yardstick of today's unsustainable morality. Which is worse - to abuse a slave to within an inch of his life, or to abuse the planet to within an inch of all our lives?
Many slave owners were not abusive, and provided a better, more loving, and more personal form of social services than we have today. It is therefore a malicious and arrogant and ignorant over simplification to condemn all slave owners.
Abraham had 318 slaves, born in his house but not of his loins (Genesis 14:14, Genesis 17:27). Sarah, his wife, had Hagar, her Egyptian, slave Girl. The Virgin Mary described her self as the Lord's slave girl in Luke 1:38. The entire race of Jews were slaves of Africans in Egypt for centuries. Jesus cured the slave of the Centurion of Luke 7 who was about to die. He did not free him from slavery, he freed him from death. Paul, who proudly declared himself to be a slave of Jesus Christ in Romans 1:1, advised slaves to be obedient to their masters in Ephesians 6:5. He did not advise them to seek liberation or reparations.
So if you cancel slave owners, you cancel Abraham, St. Paul. Jesus Christ and God himself. You also fail to understand that there was no dole office and no social security benefit in those days. Slavery was an early form of privatised Social services. God was not opposed to it. But he was opposed to abuses of slavery which is why he released his people from Egypt, when the Egyptians started killing their children.
God cancels nobody and creation recycles everything. It is man that created the throw away society, which has advanced from plastic containers to human beings in its callousness..
The North African Barbary Slave trade took 1.5 million British and European slaves back to North Africa and captured 466 British vessels in the 7 years from from 1609 to 1615. The part of that slave trade against Americans by North Africans was ended by Thomas Jefferson in 1812 (after his presidency ended- things took a while in those days). Well that shoots the BLM narrative out of the water. North African Guilt? White Americans fighting a war to end Africans taking them as slaves. Thanks so much for your comment. As often is the case - more informative than the article itself - https://face2faceafrica.com/article/the-shocking-history-of-enslavement-of-1-5-million-white-europeans-in-north-africa-in-the-16th-century