Why the Bible Doesn't Condemn Slavery

[Tonus]

The answer is, we don't. It's just not there, beyond the overtly contradicted spin of christians with presuppositions, but their arguments fall flat because of the clear false dichotomy in place. It's even in the article Lek linked to: it's either "get rid of slavery overnight," or "keep slavery." Never does the idea of gradually reducing slavery over time, and replacing it with more reasonable infrastructure, ever occur to them, probably because such a thing, while being the most rational course of action if god thinks of slavery as they describe, does not show up in the bible at all. And it's important to uphold the primacy of the bible, even in the face of obvious, smarter tactics to use, which god would obviously have known about.

I'm not even aware of any reason that cultural norms would have stood in the way. What particular fate would have befallen god's chosen people if they decided not to keep slaves and set everyone free? Would they starve? Their god made it rain food from the sky and caused water to gush from a stone. Would their economy suffer? Their god fished a coin from the mouth of a fish. Would the less liberal among them resist such a command? Their god wiped out 70,000 of them because their king took a census, and killed thousands more on other occasions when they angered him.

What was it that would have happened that was so extreme that even god would have been unable to straighten it out? What was it that was beyond his ability to manage?