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

Harold Holmyard hholmyard3 at earthlink.net
Thu Feb 19 11:07:54 EST 2009


Roger,

Your post has question marks after periods in many sentences, even when 
the sentence cannot really be taken as a question.

>  The issue here does not seem to be the translation but perhaps the manner in which people use the translation.? We have:
>
> LEGW DE hUMIN hOTI hOS AN APOLUSHi THN GUNAIKA AUTOU MH EPI PORNEIAi KAI GAMHSHi ALLHN MOIXATAI.
>
> The force of the verse is hOTI hOS AN APOLUSHi THN GUNAIKA AUTOU KAI GAMHSHi ALLHN MOIXATAI.? If divorce were actually limited to those cases where the wife commits PORNEIAi, I suspect divorce might be rare.? 

HH: That was exactly the point. Jesus wanted divorce to be very rare 
among the people who trusted him.


> Not even intimated is the case where the man commits PORNEIAi.? We see here a very severe limitation on the ability of the husband to divorce his wife.
>   

HH: Most sexual laws in the OT were stated in terms of the husband and 
his rights. But they sometimes could apply equally to the wife. So the 
reader in such cases could make the necessary changes and draw the same 
conclusions. The law allowed divorce for the wife at this time. So 
presumably the same thing would be true if the roles were reversed. 
There is one place where Jesus discussed a wife divorcing:

CSB Mark 10:12 Also, if she divorces her husband and marries another, 
she commits adultery."

HH: This is the more common form of Jesus' expression in its lack of 
exception. Jesus stated things in the broadest way, not even dealing 
with exceptions:

CSB Mark 10:11 And He said to them, "Whoever divorces his wife and 
marries another commits adultery against her.

HH: Mark 10:12 is just the role-reversed verse of 10:11, suggesting that 
what was true in one direction was true in another. So if the exception 
is added, I don't see that the exception changes anything in that regard.

> The special case, MH EPI PORNEIAi, is not addressed here as it is excluded from discussion. 

HH: Despite some naysayers, the obvious intent of Jesus' words in the 
exception clauses of Matt 5:32 and 19:9 is to exclude divorces on the 
basis of "porneia" and subsequent remarriages from the status of 
involving adultery. There have to be both conditions in order for 
adultery to exist, so the exception concerns the entire statement.

> The reader (especially a man who wants to divorce his wife and is looking for cause) is left asking, What happens in the case where the wife does commit fornication. 

HH: In Jesus' time he would not be left asking that. Jewish law was 
quite clear about that. The law said that the woman was to die by 
stoning. That would free up the man for remarriage, wouldn't it? She 
could die even if the fornication occurred before the marriage. For 
example:, the first passage below talks about a man who finds on his 
wedding night that his wife was not a virgin:

Deut 22:20 But if the accusation is true and the young woman was not a 
virgin, 21 the men of her city must bring the young woman to the door of 
her father's house and stone her to death, for she has done a 
disgraceful thing in Israel by behaving like a prostitute while living 
in her father's house. In this way you will purge evil from among you.

HH: Another case involved sex discovered while the woman was engaged, 
which likewise earned the death penalty:

Deut 22:23  If there is a young woman who is a virgin engaged to a man, 
and another man encounters her in the city and has sex with her, 24 you 
must take the two of them out to the gate of that city and stone them to 
death-- the young woman because she did not cry out in the city and the 
man because he has violated his neighbor's fiancée. You must purge the 
evil from you.

HH: And the plain case of adultery deserved the death penalty for the woman:

Deut 22: 22  "If a man is discovered having sexual relations with 
another man's wife, both the man who had sex with the woman and the 
woman must die. You must purge the evil from Israel.

HH: So that is why Jesus made the exception for sexual immorality. The 
woman would have been dead on strict observance of the OT law, so the 
man would have been free to remarry. Sexual immorality violated the 
marriage covenant and received a commensurate penalty in the law. Jewish 
practice had apparently softened so that often the guilty partner often 
did not die but was divorced. Yet that did not change the reality that 
the marriage covenant was broken by the sexual immorality, and an 
assumed right to remarry existed, just as it would if the woman had been 
killed for the crime.

> Can the husband put her away? 

HH: Yes, he could put her away. That would be more merciful than stoning 
her.

> What if he does and then marries again?? Does he commit adultery in that case?? 

HH: No, that is the exception that Jesus names.

> We don't know because Jesus really doesn't tell us as MH EPI PORNEIAi is an exception not for divorce but for the discussion at hand. [Is this true? Is this the effect of the MH EPI clause?]]
>   

HH: Yes, the exception is not subject to the status of adultery. When 
someone divorces his wife because of her sexual immorality and then 
remarries, there is no adultery on his part.

> MH EPI is used in 1 Tim 5:19:
>
> KATA PRESBUTEROU KATHGORIAN MH PARADEXOU EKTOS EI MH EPI DUO H TRIWN MARTURWN.
>   

HH: It's slightly different because it is EI MH, but EKTOS with EI MKN 
seems similar to PAREKTOS in Matt 5:32.
> The force of the verse is, KATA PRESBUTEROU KATHGORIAN MH PARADEXOU.?
>  The exception is MH EPI DUO H TRIWN MARTURWN or not without two or three witnesses.? This is meant to limit accusations KATA PRESBUTEROU.? However, bringing an accusation even with two or three witnesses does not, in itself, prove the accusation and condemn the accused.? It merely establishes a basic requirement for making an accusation (and then following Matthew 18, that accusation would be made in private to the accused and not in public).

HH: This is an accusation that Timothy is to receive, and he was serving 
as pastor. PARADEXOMAI means "receive, accept, acknowledge (as 
correct)." Paul could have meant PARADEXOMAI in that last sense 
("acknowledge as correct") and then would have been assuming that the 
witnesses were valid witnesses. But even if he meant PARADEXOMAI as 
"receive" or "accept," it was conceivably a matter that had gone beyond 
the private stage of Matthew 18 and had been brought to the church. 
Timothy would have represented the church.
>
> The exception in Matthew 19 does not take away from the force of the verse which clearly limits the ability of a man to divorce his wife.? As a grammatical issue, the presence of the exception (MH EPI) seems to exclude that issue from discussion and does not necessarily allow, require or justify a man to divorce his wife.? 
>   

HH: Yes, the exception allows the man to divorce his sexually immoral 
wife and marry another woman without incurring the status of being an 
adulterer. And Jesus was speaking of the way God regarded the matter.

Yours,
Harold Holmyard




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