(The River Raisin, Monroe County, MI)
For any who are interested in the subject of biblical authority, I strongly recommend Craig Blomberg's Can We Still Believe the Bible? An Evangelical Engagement with Contemporary Questions.
Here's Blomberg on the matter of the Bible and slavery, for example.
"Many people with only superficial or secondhand familiarity with the Bible’s contents wrongly believe, for example, that the Bible promotes slavery. It is true that some Christians in later centuries supported their defense of slavery from Scripture, but the Bible has been twisted and distorted to support countless bizarre beliefs throughout history. The most important matter is what it actually says, and there is not a single text anywhere in the Bible that commands slavery. God allowed it in Old Testament times, as it was universal among the people groups of the ancient Near East. He enacted legislation, however, to make it more humane than in any other ancient context, often more akin to what might better be called indentured servanthood. In Israel it was primarily an institution for enabling individuals to work themselves out of debt and return to free status. In the New Testament even more countercultural teaching appears, with numerous seeds that would eventually germinate into its abolition altogether—abolition that was disproportionately spearheaded by Christians." (P. 2)
