And there is still the very problematic question of who is the aggressor in war, or whether the “aggressor” or “defender” is just, and who decides.

And how, if the purchaser knows, or ought to know, that the merchandise was stolen? Law suits have been determined against the receiving of stolen goods on the basis that the obtainer SHOULD and reasonable COULD have known that they were stolen. How much more if they were obtained KNOWING they were stolen? We’re talking about a Biblical ethic here, not merely a secular determination. I can’t believe John Newton really believed the slaves he was transporting were war criminals. It never occurred to him to ask for a legal determination in the cases of all those men, not to mention the women and children, as to their status? They were, after all, human beings, not coffee beans.

As an aside, Scripture has no interest in examining the culpability or guilt in the case of the Mideonites because they are incidental to the point of the story. This is often the case in Scripture.

There are some confusions in #12. The “Holy War” was supposed to involve extermination exclusively; the deal with the Gibeonites was unintentional, though honored. Enslavement was not commanded in that connection. As Bahnsen pointed out, the Holy War was positive command, not standing. However, the principle of redeeming one’s life at the option of the party having the right to it appears to be a moral and universal principle — indeed, intuitively obvious once understood. If I have the right to demand someone’s life as recompense for his offense, then a fortiori I can accept a lower penalty. Jordan discusses this somewhere. So, if someone is captured with murderous intent, certainly he can be enslaved in lieu of execution — so it seems to me anyway. To argue this in more detail would probably call for a whole post.

There are many ways to become a slave lawfully under the biblical ethic — selling oneself, being sold by one’s parents, by right of creditor, and in lieu of life-forfeiting penalty.

In the history of humanity, slavery is pretty “normal.” It is just one more station of life one can be born into like many others, some high, some low.

Meanwhile, a merchant that intentionally pawns “hot” merchandise is guilty of theft, but one who inadvertently passes such merchandise is not. The same principle would apply in the slave trade. No one ever mentions the Mideonites as the guilty party when they bought Joseph from his brothers while passing through.

Actually Dabney did address that argument in a section buried deep in the Defense, on pp. 288-292.

I would add: The vast majority of slaves historically did not enter into that state by being kidnapped, but as taken captive in war. No doubt a few were kidnapped; just like a few things for sale at the store might have been stolen. In a way, the situation is analogous to buying things in a non-commodity market, say antiques. Some antiques are undoubtedly stolen; but normally one “trusts the system” in entering an antique store, and does not launch an investigation before buying an antique. And at some point, even if a piece were one day much later discovered to have been stolen and pawned off to the shop, eventually the claim passes out of existence.

This is why if someone shows up at your door and says, “this land was bequeathed to my great-great grandfather by Chief Winnebago, and thus it passes to me” you can pretty much shrug your shoulders and say, “not according to the County Clerk.”