Matthew 19:9
Michael Abernathy
mabernat at cub.kcnet.org
Thu Oct 14 23:56:19 EDT 1999
While I am interested in the discussion of how to interpret the Matthean passage on divorce, I feel that the recent discussions have overlooked some possibilities. Most of us are acquainted with the two most common interpretations:
1. Jesus forbids remarriage after divorce for any reason.
2. Jesus forbids remarriage after divorce for any reason except porneia with porneia being equated either with adultery or some form of marriage that would be illegal according to Jewish law.
A less common interpretation was suggested by Tom Bivins in a recent posting.
3. Jesus was not forbidding divorce and remarriage but the abominable practise of sending away a wife without benefit of divorce.
(While this interpretation has some problems, it does harmonize with the Aramaic translation of Mt. 5:32 & Lk. 16:18 where the woman is not divorced but merely sent away. [For those who don't know Aramaic, see Lamsa's translation of the Four Gospels.] It would also harmonize with the Caesarean and Western variants of Mark 10:12 which describes the woman as one who has left but not divorced her husband.)
4. Jesus was forbidding divorce for the purpose of remarriage.
Brad Young argues that the force of the Hebrew would have linked the divorce and remarriage together in one continuous motion thus, translating, "Everyone who divorces his wife [in order] to marry another commits adultery." ( See Jesus the Jewish Theologian p. 115).
5. Jesus was that divorce and remarriage were not a part of God's ideal plan for mankind. Therefore, all divorce and remarriage falls short of perfection, but God because of His love and grace recognized man's fallen condition and allowed for both divorce and remarriage. Thus, divorce and remarriage are allowed but they are not encouraged. (See David Daube, "Concessions to Sinfulness in Jewish Law," The Journal of Jewish Studies vol 10, no 1-2 (1959).
Let me know if I have missed any major interpetations. Personally, I lean to a combination of 4 and 5. 4 fits the context of the Jewish leaders testing Jesus in the same area where John the Baptist was arrested for denouncing the illegal divorce and marriage of Herodias.
Michael Abernathy
Lock Haven, PA
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://lists.ibiblio.org/pipermail/b-greek/attachments/19991014/37881a6b/attachment.html
More information about the B-Greek
mailing list