Aorist vs. present infinitive in Matt 5:32
Jeff Smelser
jeffsmelser at ntgreek.net
Sat Oct 19 00:13:10 EDT 2002
Hi Mark,
You wrote,
> This may be a technicality, but in this passage the woman is not
> adulterated by the next man; she is adulterated by the first man/husband.
>
> What does happen is that the next man becomes adulterated when he
> marries the woman (who has already been adulterated by the divorce).
I think perhaps you are beginning with the premise that divorce (in and of
itself) = adultery. (Please correct me if I assume incorrectly.)
Though there have been various attempts to establish that, and for various
reasons, (e.g., John J. Kilgallen, "To what are the Matthean Exception -
Texts (5,32 and 19,9) an Exception?" Biblica 61 (1980): 102.), I don't buy
it, and I don't think this context requires it.
If she were adulterated by the husband, why the verb of causality? I take
POIEI + inf. here as similar to Mk. 1:17 POIHSW hUMAS GENESQAI = "I will
make you to become," and Lk. 5:34, POIHSAI NHSTEUSAI = "to cause
to fast." Jesus said "he ~causes~ her to be adulterated." How does he
cause her to be adulterated? By sending her out with a document that
claims she is free to be joined to another when in fact she is not. The
husband does something by putting her way, but what he does is not
adultery. If it were, the text could simply say that he commits adultery,
MOICATAI (as is said of the 2nd man in the last part of the verse), but
it doesn't. Rather what Jesus said he does is that he ~causes~ her to do
something. What does he cause her to do? To be adulterated. By whom
is she adulterated? By the man who takes the writing of divorcement at
face value and accordingly marries her and has intercourse with her.
Because Jesus regards the writing of divorcement as ineffectual and
the woman as yet belonging to the first man, he says the second man
adulterates her just as he would adulterate any married woman by having
intercourse with her.
Could a man be said to cause a woman to be adulterated by adulterating her
himself? Yes. But the context of Mt. 5 makes it clear to me that Jesus
wasn't saying that. I see Jesus calling attention to what the husband
brings about in setting up the subsequent union as opposed to
what he ~thinks~ he brings about. There's a contrast throughout the context
between what the Pharisees regarded as righteous (5:20) and the higher
standard of righteousness taught by Jesus. The typical Jewish man thought
himself righteous if, when he tired of his wife, he gave her a writing of
divorcement thus making it possible for her to find another husband. He
supposed he was looking out for her interest. Jesus' higher standard was
that a man should not put away his wife. Now comes the application of the
contrast: Jesus further said the man who thought he was making his wife
able to remarry was not. Rather he was setting her up to be adulterated
by another. In the immediate context, where the issue is the inefficacy of
the document intended to enable her to be joined to another man, it seems
natural to me that the phrase "He causes her to be adulterated" has
reference to her sexual union with another man.
Jeff Smelser
jeffsmelser at ntgreek.net
www.ntgreek.net
www.centrevillechurchofchrist.org
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