Bret Devereaux

To be clear, slavery was bad. It was bad in 'Biblical times' (I really hate that phrase - it implies that Biblical events occurred in some mystical legendary time, rather than mostly happening within the historical period), it was bad in antiquity, it was always bad.https://twitter.com/DavidLarter/status/1389316195359281169 …

Just to fill in the 'Biblical times' bit - avoiding the historical accuracy question, by the book of Joshua we're clearly reading events at least *set* in the historical period (c. 1300, during the Late Bronze Age Collapse, probably), though written much later.

Like, this stuff is old, but not 'mists of myth and legends' old. King Hezekiah (from 2nd kings and 2nd chronicles) would have been a near-contemporary of Greek author Hesiod and younger than Homer. The Kingdom of Judah fell during the time of the Athenian politician Solon.

And to be clear, written history goes *further* back in the Levant than in Greece or Rome. Like, WAY further back. We have a decent sense of the political situation in the Levant from the early 2000s BC onward, centuries *before* Exodus would have been set.

And of course the New Testament is set during the period of the Roman Empire. So don't say 'Biblical times,' say 'Iron Age Levant' if you mean the most of the Old Testament, say 'Hellenistic Period' if you mean Maccabees and 'Roman period' if you mean the New Testament.