Aorist vs. present infinitive in Matt 5:32
B. Ward Powers
bwpowers at optusnet.com.au
Sat Oct 19 11:31:46 EDT 2002
B-greekers all:
I want to disagree quite strongly (but, I trust, in all due courtesy) with
what some contributors have said about Mt 5:32. In my judgement the Greek
has a different significance from a commonly-held view.
This is not an academic issue we are discussing - we are dealing with a
question of meaning (ultimately, the meaning of the Greek) which is of
profound significance for the lives and happiness of lots of real people in
pain, who have had a marital break-up.
It is important for us to come to terms with what Jesus actually said (and
didn't say) in Matthew's account.
Jesus says that a husband makes a woman who has not been guilty of sexual
misconduct to be an adulteress by divorcing her. The wife who HAS been
guilty of sexual misconduct is explicitly excluded by Jesus's exceptive
clause from his comment: because she has made HERSELF to be an adulteress -
it is not the husband's doing in such a case.
Jesus's comment is a trenchant criticism of the husband. He is putting his
wife in the position of an adulteress by the act and fact of divorcing her.
That is why the tense of MOICEUESQAI is aorist. Putting her into that
position is effected by divorcing her. If (as many seem to think) it was a
subsequent remarriage which would make her an adulteress (and of course
under that interpretation she would continue to be an adulteress throughout
that subsequent marriage), then we could expect the use of the present
tense, as Dale Noonan rightly says in raising the issue.
And Waldo Slusher cuts to the issue when he points out that "it is the
divorce itself that brings about the completion of the MOICEUW". Those who
attribute this description of the woman as an "adulteress" to a subsequent
remarriage are introducing an idea which the text DOES NOT SAY.
Do the facts justify an interpretation which makes Jesus say that EVERY
woman divorced by her husband is forced into either actual immorality or
remarriage? (The passage says "Whoever..." and "everyone ...") Why should
such a woman not be capable of living independently? Why indeed should she
be more constrained to remarry than a widow would be? (If she received back
her dowry - usual unless divorced for adultery - she could be as well off
as a widow.)
And other possibilities would frequently be open: living in the household
of a married brother; returning to her parents' home; and so on. Leviticus
22:13 expressly refers to a daughter who after divorce "returns to live in
her father's house as in her youth".
And there is this tacit assumption built into this interpretation: that
every such woman would not only want to remarry but would promptly be able
to find a man ready and willing to oblige. This interpretation is
unrealistic to say the least.
Additionally, this interpretation makes the "exceptive clause" pointless,
because (on this view) every divorced woman is an adulteress through
subsequent remarriage, and no statement of an exception is needed.
Perhaps some divorced women would be forced to seek an opportunity for
remarriage, but the other options which were open hardly make justifiable
the general statement applying to ALL such women. Suppose a divorced wife
follows the lead of Leviticus 22:13 and returns to her father's house and
never remarries: is SHE made an adulteress? According to the reasoning of
those who see the adultery as occurring in the remarriage, she is not.
Jeff Smelser writes, "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."
George Somsel says, "It is the cohabitation with another partner which is
the adultery, not the divorce. The point of the saying is that the woman
is expected to commit adultery by entering into
another relationship ..."
But Jesus says that she IS made an adulteress - he expressly says that his
comment applies to everyone who is divorced by her husband in such
circumstances. This discrepancy is enough to show that this interpretation
is contrary to the facts, and wrong.
Mark Wilson, in responding to Jeff Smelser's first posting, is absolutely
right in pointing out the error of this thinking when he says "... in this
passage the woman is not adulterated by the next man; she is adulterated by
the first man/husband."
In his second posting Jeff Smelser asks the question: "How does he [the
first husband] cause her to be adulterated?" The answer resides in
Deuteronomy 24:1-4, the Old Testament passage which lies behind our verse,
and which gives sexual misconduct as the reason for a divorce. If therefore
a husband puts away his wife, he has characterized her as an adulteress -
given her this stigma and reputation which, in the situation Jesus
describes, is unfair and unjustified, as she has not been guilty of such
behaviour (the point of the exceptive clause).
William Boyd writes:
>Will the language allow for the possibility that the husband, putting away
>a faithful wife, adulterates her by placing her into the position of one
>who has committed adultery? That is, being divorced without adultery she
>is placed into the same situation as a woman who was divorced because of
>adultery. The passive verb seems to place the woman as the victim here.
Yes! You are absolutely right!
It is not a subsequent remarriage which does this to her, but the first
husband, when he divorces her. This is indicated by the verb MOICEUESQAI,
aorist passive. Being put in this situation is something which is done to
her by the first husband by his divorcing her. And a man who subsequently
marries her becomes tarred with the same brush (Mt 5:32c). The wagging
tongues would say, "She must have been playing around for her husband to
divorce her, and now we know who she was playing around with."
This is the significance of the aorist passive MOICEUESQAI. It is important
for us all to recognize that the break-up of a marriage is disobedience to
Christ and therefore sin (Mt 19:6), but it is not the unforgivable sin: it
can be repented of, and the sinner justified by grace, and forgiven. "It is
not good for a man to be alone." There is nowhere in Scripture which
forbids or condemns a divorcee remarriage per se (contrast Mt 19:9).
When a first marriage ends and a person is having trouble living celibate,
Paul instructs remarriage as the right course of action (1 Cor 7:9, Greek),
and specifically says such remarriage after divorce is not sin (1 Cor 7:28,
Greek).
Some people take the view, "You get just one chance at marriage and if that
falls through, you are forbidden to marry ever again (unless your ex-spouse
happens to die)." I submit that as a careful examination of the relevant
passages show, this is NOT the teaching of Scripture.
Ward Powers
At 01:49 AM 021019 -0400, wmhboyd at aol.com wrote:
>Will the language allow for the possibility that the husband, putting away
>a faithful wife, adulterates her by placing her into the position of one
>who has committed adultery? That is, being divorced without adultery she
>is placed into the same situation as a woman who was divorced because of
>adultery. The passive verb seems to place the woman as the victim here.
>
>William Boyd
>Little Rock
>
>---
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Rev Dr B. Ward Powers Phone (International): 61-2-8714-7255
259A Trafalgar Street Phone (Australia): (02) 8714-7255
PETERSHAM NSW 2049 email: bwpowers at optusnet.com.au
AUSTRALIA. Director, Tyndale College
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