I was just listening to a lecture last night by a renowned professor in the field of Assyriology who was comparing slavery law in the Old Testament to slavery law in other, contemporary portions of the Near East. His view is that the ancient Isrealites practiced slavery, both debt slavery and chattel slavery, in typical fashion for the broader Near Eastern culture they were part of.

Those slavery practices, to us of course, seem abhorrent, but would not have seemed so in the ancient world, including in New Testament times.

So, my point is that this professor got into a sidetrack about how he's had problems with Christian apologists who dispute his academic work, because they insist on a literal interpretation of the Bible that they can't square with their values and theologies. So the work themselves into pretzels denying the plain meaning of the text.

He mentioned in particular a passage that occurs immediately after the Ten Commandments in which the rules are spelled out for a father who sells his daughter as a concubine in order to pay off a debt. Part of the text acknowledges that the daughter's future sale value will be thereafter reduced because she will no longer be a virgin. Therefore, the rules are a bit different from the rules for selling a son into debt slavery.

Anyway, Christian apologists, the sort who insist the Bible is literally true, will not accept that this passage says what it says. The professor has had students withdraw from his class rather than risk being exposed to his expertise in the field.

That says something about Christians who insist on the literal truth of the Bible.