[B-Greek] MH EPI PORNEIA in Matthew 19:9

Harold Holmyard hholmyard3 at earthlink.net
Tue Feb 17 19:26:39 EST 2009


Will ,
> Thanks for all the responses. I certainly did not intend to make this a
> translation issue. I am sorry if my question veered us in that direction.
>
> I guess my question then is must MH EPI PORNEIA be understood as "except for
> fornication"?
>   

HH: I think you can also take it literally with a meaning like "for any 
reason besides":

And I tell you, whoever divorces his wife not for sexual
immorality and marries another, commits adultery."

HH: Matthew would be indicating a category by its exclusions and so would be saying what he means, but it is clumsy English. This kind of phrasing can work all right in some English contexts:

Whoever marries not for love makes a big mistake.

The person would mean, "Whoever marries for any reason other than love."

Yours,
Harold Holmyard








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