Biblical context

For the record I condemn all forms of slavery but apologists will try to pretend debt slavery was the whole of slavery in the old testament.

Christians: God's word applies to all situations.
Also Christians: It was a different time.

That need to act as if the bible is timeless and united in message also leads to even so called "biblical literalists" taking creative liberties with their interpretations of the text to fit the old testament with the new and the new testament with modern 2020s conservatism.

That's one of my biggest beefs with religion: it's an answer in search of a question. Rather than starting from the position that we don't know, they work backwards from "GAAAAWWWWWWWWWDDDDD" and shoehorn everything into that schema, inconsistencies, contradictions and cognitive dissonance be damned. It's a disgraceful squandering of our capacity for logical, critical, rational thought.