DIKAIOS

Carl W. Conrad cwconrad at artsci.wustl.edu
Sun Oct 17 08:04:20 EDT 1999


At 6:38 AM -0500 10/17/99, Steven Craig Miller wrote:
>To: Carl W. Conrad,
>
>Michael Abernathy wrote: << Paul Dixon said porneia "cannot be adultery or
>prostitution, since the lawful punishment for such is death by stoning."
>You might want to reconsider this argument.  There is substantial evidence
>that during the New Testament period divorce, not stoning, was the usual
>consequence of adultery (See. Markus Bockmuehl's article "Matthew 5.32;
>19.9 in the Light of Pre-Rabinnic Halakhah" New Testament Studies vol. 35,
>1989, pp. 291-295).  Also consider Joseph's planned divorce of Mary upon
>finding that she was pregnant. >>
>
>CWC: << Ah ..., but that was because he was a DIKAIOS ANHR!  >>
>
>My favorite translation for DIKAIOS is "civilized" (see LSJM); and I
>supposed if one translated DIKAIOS ANHR here as "civilized man," and
>anachronistically gave Joseph 20th century values, you would have a point.
>On the other hand, it would seem almost anti-Semitic to assume that every
>"righteous man" would be more lenient than what the Jewish law requires,
>while only one less than a "righteous man" would uphold the Jewish law.
>Surely you don't mean to suggest that, yes?
>
>IMO, it would be a fallacy to assume that 1st century Torah observant Jews
>always followed the letter of their law, when there is evidence that 1st
>century Jewish jurisprudence held that one could fulfill the command to
>"purge the evil from your midst" (cf. Deut 22:20-21) through divorce.

I have asked that participants in the discussion of PORNEIA and the Matthew
text move it off-list.

As for DIKAIOS, the word must be understood in the context of Matthew's
gospel as a recurrent and important theme word to be considered in all of
its applications, as in Jesus' statement to John the Baptist who didn't
want to baptize him, AFES ARTI, hOUTWS GAR PREPON hHMIN PLHRWSAI PASAN
DIKAIOSUNHN and the "hard" saying in the Sermon on the Mount (5:20): EAN MH
PERISSEUSHi hUMWN hH DIKAIOSUNH PLEION TWN GRAMMATEWN KAI FARISAIWN, OU MH
EISELQHTE EIS THN BASILEIAN TWN OURANWN. This conception of DIKAIOSUNH
transcends observance of the law, but it is clearly no simple matter but
something to "hunger and thirst after."


Carl W. Conrad
Department of Classics/Washington University
One Brookings Drive/St. Louis, MO, USA 63130/(314) 935-4018
Home: 7222 Colgate Ave./St. Louis, MO 63130/(314) 726-5649
cwconrad at artsci.wustl.edu
WWW: http://www.artsci.wustl.edu/~cwconrad/
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: not available
Type: text/enriched
Size: 2491 bytes
Desc: not available
Url : http://lists.ibiblio.org/pipermail/b-greek/attachments/19991017/179e1471/attachment.bin 


More information about the B-Greek mailing list