The Wesleyan Church has, probably, less than ten Bible scholars in its ranks at present. Of course everyone thinks they can speak to the original meaning of the Bible.
I dug up this excerpt on the subject of Jesus and divorce, taken from an article by Bob Lyon, who taught at Asbury until his death. It is in a volume titled, Interpreting God's Word for Today, published by Warner Press in 1982. Its contributors are Bible professors who taught at Wesleyan approved institutions at the time--and therefore while we do not have to agree with Dr. Lyon's train of thought, it stands within the parameters of Wesleyan thought.
I share it to give a sense of how many factors can go into making decisions on these sorts of things.
___________
AN EXAMPLE: THE DIVORCE ISSUE
One example might be given to show the illegitimacy of a
nonhistorical approach. The issue of divorce-remarriage adultery
is presented in Mark 10:llff.; Matthew 5:32, 19:9;
and Luke 16:18. The main problem has to do with Matthew’s
exception clauses. Both John Murray and John R. W. Stott
resolve the issue dogmatically.[59] Both studies reveal a deep concern for Christian marriage
as well as a thorough acquaintance with the background
data. Yet both studies are ultimately unsatisfactory because
they fail to ask certain necessary historical questions.
How
did the varying forms of the saying(s) originate? Is one a
derivative of another? Is there a merging of two originally
separate topics (divorce and adultery)? Murray regards Matthew
19:9 as “the most pivotal passage” in the New Testament,
not because it is the truly authentic (i.e., dominical)
statement but because it is the most complete; that is, it has
both the exception clause and the remarriage clause.[60] And
Stott refers only to the form of the Pharisee’s question
found in Matthew.[61] Both presume Mark and Matthew carry the same teaching;
Mark omitted the exception clause because he assumed the
exception.
But what about the community for whom Mark
prepared his Gospel? Did it, or could it, assume an exception?
According to Murray, the “silence” of Mark and Luke
respecting the right to divorce does not itself prejudice the
right to divorce. But are Mark and Luke silent? Did their
communities believe they were silent? Do not both Mark
and Luke give a rather clear word?
More important, neither Murray nor Stott asks the historical
question, "What did Jesus say and how do we explain the
various forms of the saying(s)?" From the four texts we come
up with the following statements from the lips of Jesus:
(1)
Remarriage following divorce constitutes adultery (Mark
10:11ff.; Luke 16:18);
(2) Except in a case of porneia,
remarriage following divorce constitutes adultery (Matt.
19:9);
(3) Whoever marries a divorced woman commits
adultery (Luke 16:18; Matt. 5:32);
(4) Whoever divorces his
wife causes her to commit adultery.
Murray, whose treatment
of the texts is much more extended that Stott’s, never asks if
these are all separate sayings of Jesus or different versions of
a single saying in response to the Pharisees. More important,
perhaps, he does not treat the question whether the sayings
have anything to do directly with the question the Pharisees
asked.
In this connection two observations are crucial:
(1) these
sayings all relate to the question of adultery and not directly
to divorce-that is, they answer the question of what constitutes
adultery;
(2) except for Matthew 19:9, none of the
sayings in their present context are spoken to the Pharisees
who asked the question.
In terms of a historical-rather
than dogmatic-approach, it seems Jesus answers the question
of the Pharisees solely on the basis of Genesis 1 and 2,
and that the various sayings derive from another context
involving a discussion of the commandments. Whether they
represent separate sayings or variant forms of a single saying
is another matter deserving further study.
The dogmatic approach fails methodologically because it
begins by assuming Matthew and Mark say the same thing.
One may come to that conclusion, but one cannot begin
there.
Also, Mark and Luke are not, as Murray contends,[62] silent concerning any grounds for divorce. What they say
would have to be considered by any common standards of
literary analysis to be both clear and unequivocal. It is as
arbitrary to interpret Mark and Luke on the basis of
Matthew as the reverse. The evangelists must be heard and
their community traditions recognized in their own right.
The problematic element in Murray’s study is seen in his
variant conclusions. On the one hand, he rightly perceives
that in the mind of Jesus, divorce “could not be contemplated otherwise than as a radical breach of the divine
institution."[63] Yet elsewhere he says that Jesus “legitimated
divorce for adultery,"[64] and indicates that divorce following
porneia is not a sin[65] even though, as he says, it is a radical
breach of the divine institution.
A historical approach would offer a less arbitrary analysis
as well as probably more integrated conclusions. In the last
analysis, the approach of Murray and Stott reflects a thoroughgoing
legalism that focuses on texts rather than a broader
perspectival approach to Scripture that recognizes the diversity
of the biblical witness.
Precisely at this point one finds the critical error of the
dogmatic approach to exegesis. Ultimately, this “textual”
approach ignores the diversity of the apostolic witness for
the sake of uniformity.
By contrast, the historical approach
is able to accept the multiple witness to Jesus as Messiah
and to develop a better picture of primitive Christian faith.
In this connection, we note that the second-century church,
when faced by skeptics with the embarrassment of seeming
contradictions and inconsistencies in the Gospel narratives,
rejected out of hand the neat solution offered by Tatian’s
Diatessaron. Instead, the Church preferred the fourfold
witness with all its ambiguities, rather than accept any
reduction in the apostolic witness. That diversity is still
crucial, and the exegete as historian-rather than exegete as
dogmatician-will be faithful to it.
Scripture is a product of history; it grew out of the history
of God’s dealings with people. And the documents of Scripture
reflect all the diversity of history. Evangelicals, of
course, also believe they possess a fundamental and basic
unity that reflects the all-encompassing purpose of God. The
full scope of the biblical revelation comes to expression
when we show an interest in this diversity equivalent to our
concern for the unity in Scripture...
Showing posts with label divorce. Show all posts
Showing posts with label divorce. Show all posts
Monday, June 25, 2012
Tuesday, June 05, 2012
Wesleyan General Conference Decisions
I know many will feel the opposite but I thought yesterday went very well at the Wesleyan General Conference (GC). Here are four things that make me think we are on the right track as a denomination. I am very encouraged.
1. First, the GC voted to change its structure to one General Superintendent (GS) with four Executive Directors. I could see both sides to this debate (former GS Lee Haines made a fine counter-speech) but, in the end, I think they made the right decision for two reasons:
3. We had a proposed memorial on sin to put in our Articles of Religion. I was so pleased that the denomination voted it down in order to come up with something better. Three reasons: 1) the other GCs of the Philippines and Caribbean were not consulted (if it had been passed, I was hoping those other conferences would vote it down to make it clear to the North American Conference that they are now our equals and can't be taken for granted on such important issues); 2) accidentally, it was written with no awareness that the article right before it already said half the same thing; and 3) it was poorly written, seemingly spliced together from various emails from key people... and in 1940s H. Orton Wiley language to boot. Thank you church for taking the time to do it right!
4. The church voted to include marital violence as a legitimate basis for divorce. Now, mind you, it makes our denomination look bad that we are even having to discuss this question. For one thing, although I'm not sure how to get around it, we are still operating with a "bounded set" mentality when it comes to membership, one that is overly preoccupied with who is "in" and who is "out." A "centered-set" approach is more concerned with our core values rather than about how individuals measure up to it.
In my opinion, however, large segments of our denomination remain legal-oriented, or fundamentalist, when it comes to the Bible. For example, if we think that a "biblical basis" for divorce can only be limited to a specific statement along the lines of "Divorce can be allowed when a husband beats his wife," then we not only are legal-oriented in our hermeneutic but we do not have the Wesleyan spirit of the 1800s on issues like slavery and women's rights.
Why was Jesus against divorce? Why was Malachi against divorce? Surely it was primarily because divorce was a form of (non-physical) violence against wives. By the way, ironically this is what Malachi 2:16 is talking about--not sure how that passage read in context does anything but support the proposal. God hated divorce in Malachi because it was a form of violence against wives!!!
I believe Jesus' prohibitions on divorce were, in the first instance, surely meant to protect women. If so, then it is then ironic in the extreme that we find ourselves hesitant to allow for divorce in a case where a woman's life may be in constant danger. Although it is complicated and a matter of debate, it is quite possible that the prohibitions on wives divorcing husbands related more to the expansion of Jesus' message to a broader Mediterranean context than to his original Galilean audiences.
In terms of our heritage, the "principle" approach to a biblical basis is exactly the approach Luther Lee took on slavery. While the "fundamentalist" hermeneutic of his day looked to specific Scriptures that allowed for slavery, he looked to the ideal values of the biblical text instead. In that sense, the "principled" approach to issues such as this one better fit the founding spirit of the denomination than the "legal" approach.
Yes, I realize there is the potential for slippery slopes. But I liked what one speaker was trying to say on the floor yesterday. Which side do we want to err on--the side of protecting the oppressed or worrying about whether someone is going to get by with something?
After all, I doubt God is fooled.
1. First, the GC voted to change its structure to one General Superintendent (GS) with four Executive Directors. I could see both sides to this debate (former GS Lee Haines made a fine counter-speech) but, in the end, I think they made the right decision for two reasons:
- Our most gifted leaders are currently not at all attracted to enter denominational leadership. I think this is because, for good or ill, the idea of being part of a relatively weak three person pow-wow is not attractive to them. The down side is that the position might now be very appealing to megalomaniacs, the testosterony, and individuals who mistake their own personalities for God's. It's a trade off ;-)
- It shows "large organization" rather than "small church" thinking. Lee Haines mentioned that Roy Nicholson, a GS from the 1950s, thought the one GS model had been horrible. But I can't imagine he knew as much about leadership as even I do now (as a naturally-born leadership idiot), given the massive literature out there these last 50 years. In particular, I doubt he knew how to delegate and set up a support structure. He probably thought the GS needed to kiss every baby in every church.
3. We had a proposed memorial on sin to put in our Articles of Religion. I was so pleased that the denomination voted it down in order to come up with something better. Three reasons: 1) the other GCs of the Philippines and Caribbean were not consulted (if it had been passed, I was hoping those other conferences would vote it down to make it clear to the North American Conference that they are now our equals and can't be taken for granted on such important issues); 2) accidentally, it was written with no awareness that the article right before it already said half the same thing; and 3) it was poorly written, seemingly spliced together from various emails from key people... and in 1940s H. Orton Wiley language to boot. Thank you church for taking the time to do it right!
4. The church voted to include marital violence as a legitimate basis for divorce. Now, mind you, it makes our denomination look bad that we are even having to discuss this question. For one thing, although I'm not sure how to get around it, we are still operating with a "bounded set" mentality when it comes to membership, one that is overly preoccupied with who is "in" and who is "out." A "centered-set" approach is more concerned with our core values rather than about how individuals measure up to it.
In my opinion, however, large segments of our denomination remain legal-oriented, or fundamentalist, when it comes to the Bible. For example, if we think that a "biblical basis" for divorce can only be limited to a specific statement along the lines of "Divorce can be allowed when a husband beats his wife," then we not only are legal-oriented in our hermeneutic but we do not have the Wesleyan spirit of the 1800s on issues like slavery and women's rights.
Why was Jesus against divorce? Why was Malachi against divorce? Surely it was primarily because divorce was a form of (non-physical) violence against wives. By the way, ironically this is what Malachi 2:16 is talking about--not sure how that passage read in context does anything but support the proposal. God hated divorce in Malachi because it was a form of violence against wives!!!
I believe Jesus' prohibitions on divorce were, in the first instance, surely meant to protect women. If so, then it is then ironic in the extreme that we find ourselves hesitant to allow for divorce in a case where a woman's life may be in constant danger. Although it is complicated and a matter of debate, it is quite possible that the prohibitions on wives divorcing husbands related more to the expansion of Jesus' message to a broader Mediterranean context than to his original Galilean audiences.
In terms of our heritage, the "principle" approach to a biblical basis is exactly the approach Luther Lee took on slavery. While the "fundamentalist" hermeneutic of his day looked to specific Scriptures that allowed for slavery, he looked to the ideal values of the biblical text instead. In that sense, the "principled" approach to issues such as this one better fit the founding spirit of the denomination than the "legal" approach.
Yes, I realize there is the potential for slippery slopes. But I liked what one speaker was trying to say on the floor yesterday. Which side do we want to err on--the side of protecting the oppressed or worrying about whether someone is going to get by with something?
After all, I doubt God is fooled.
Monday, June 04, 2012
Wesleyan Church's Divorce Decision
One of the issues before the WC's General Conference is whether to expand its membership boundary on divorce to allow for divorce in the case of spousal abuse. I don't know which way the wind will blow, but I did think I would sketch what I see the main options are:
1. The Legal Vote
Those who approach the biblical text more in terms of specific instructions will tend not to support the change because the New Testament does not mention spousal abuse as an appropriate basis for divorce. Mark gives no exceptional circumstance for divorce, and Matthew gives only one (sexual immorality), so the legal approach to the Bible would not likely allow for any additional reasons.
2. The Principle Vote
Those who approach the biblical text more in terms of general principles rather than specifics might put the Bible's teaching on divorce into the context of loving one's neighbor (in this case, one's spouse) and therefore not throwing your spouse away. If this is the reason for the prohibition (rather than violation of some abstract law), then it would at least seem that divorcing a truly abusive spouse does not in any way violate the principle of love of one's neighbor.
3. The Slippery Slope View
This view doesn't necessarily have a problem with allowing divorce in the case of true spousal abuse. It's problem is with the next exception that might come up at the next General Conference. There might also be the sense that some will claim spousal abuse to get out of marriage when in fact they're not really being abused.
4. The Practical Repercussions View
The slippery slope view would fall into this category. Someone might also argue that allowing for divorce in this case would have bad practical repercussions in some way. How hard would it be legally to defend removing someone from the membership rolls if they took you to court because a church did not truly believe a spouse was being sufficiently abused? Maybe someone would argue that it can't be allowed to maintain the integrity of the "pro-marriage system," regardless of how justified it might be in an individual situation.
Those are the different angles I thought of. Can you think of other positions?
1. The Legal Vote
Those who approach the biblical text more in terms of specific instructions will tend not to support the change because the New Testament does not mention spousal abuse as an appropriate basis for divorce. Mark gives no exceptional circumstance for divorce, and Matthew gives only one (sexual immorality), so the legal approach to the Bible would not likely allow for any additional reasons.
2. The Principle Vote
Those who approach the biblical text more in terms of general principles rather than specifics might put the Bible's teaching on divorce into the context of loving one's neighbor (in this case, one's spouse) and therefore not throwing your spouse away. If this is the reason for the prohibition (rather than violation of some abstract law), then it would at least seem that divorcing a truly abusive spouse does not in any way violate the principle of love of one's neighbor.
3. The Slippery Slope View
This view doesn't necessarily have a problem with allowing divorce in the case of true spousal abuse. It's problem is with the next exception that might come up at the next General Conference. There might also be the sense that some will claim spousal abuse to get out of marriage when in fact they're not really being abused.
4. The Practical Repercussions View
The slippery slope view would fall into this category. Someone might also argue that allowing for divorce in this case would have bad practical repercussions in some way. How hard would it be legally to defend removing someone from the membership rolls if they took you to court because a church did not truly believe a spouse was being sufficiently abused? Maybe someone would argue that it can't be allowed to maintain the integrity of the "pro-marriage system," regardless of how justified it might be in an individual situation.
Those are the different angles I thought of. Can you think of other positions?
Friday, April 06, 2012
Jesus and Divorce 4
... Perhaps on no other subject have Christians more often taken the Pharisees of the gospels as a model. For example, recognizing the spirit of Christ, some have allowed for separation in cases like child molestation or spousal abuse. But to keep the letter of the law, they have forbid official divorce or remarriage after divorce.
Certainly as Christians we have to believe in miracles and the possibility of restoration. We believe an offender can be redeemed and that the offended should forgive. The Christian virtues of patience and hope are commendable. But Jesus also bids us to be "wise as serpents" (Matt. 10:16). Abused spouses can forgive their former abusers from afar, without putting themselves in harm's way again.
Is the institution of marriage an end-in-itself? Perhaps to some extent it is. The institution of marriage probably does provide stability to most societies on some level, and it surely did in the biblical worlds. However, we should be careful to recognize that it has done so in different ways at different times and places. So biblical marriages range from polygamous arrangements to perhaps arranged marriages within one's extended family. [1] We do not find the small nuclear family as the norm in Bible times.
But the spirit of Jesus far more bids us look at people as what need to be protected, not laws about marriage. People are the ones who are at the table--husbands, wives, and children--not legalities and ideas. To put a wife or husband in an eternal limbo of separation because of a rule, when wisdom says healing best will take place by moving on, seems completely out of sync with the way Jesus thought, especially in the age of the nuclear family. [2]
I remember a well intentioned believer once telling me that a person remained married in God's eyes to whomever you first had sex with. I have even heard someone wonder if a divorced and remarried couple should divorce their second spouses so they can get back with their first partner, believing that the first partner remained eternally the one to whom they are married in God's eyes. This is an extreme example of an idea driving a rule rather than love of neighbor driving our action. And it is thoroughly unbiblical.
Deuteronomy 24 actually prohibited an Israelite man from remarrying an earlier wife if she had later remarried someone else. It is true that two people having sex become one flesh, but this is true of the polygamist in the Old Testament and the prostitute in 1 Corinthians 6. Certainly Paul wouldn't have urged the Corinthians to marry the prostitute, nor would he have urged someone to wait for the prostitute to become available for marriage if she was someone's first. This perspective breaks down into absurdities upon even a little reflection.
The whole line of thinking also treats sex in a way that the Bible never does. The Old Testament, for example, is much more practical. In Exodus 22:16-17, whether a man marries an unpromised virgin he has slept with depends on what her father wants. Polygamy is an assumed practice in the Old Testament (e.g., Deut. 21:15-16), and Jacob became "one flesh" with both his wives and both his concubines. In Hosea 1:2, God seems to command Hosea to marry a prostitute to make a point.
The bottom line is that sex is something distinct from marriage in the Bible. The ideal is certainly that sex and marriage go together neatly. This is God's ideal. But having sex does not mean two people have become married in God's eyes or that they must certainly get married--a potential recipe for disaster. Those who marry only because of a rule are prime candidates for later divorce. There is an ideal, but it is not an exceptionless one.
If Christians have often been legalistic on the front end of getting a divorce, they have also been legalistic on the back end, after a person has been divorced. Perhaps a person can remarry if they were the "innocent party." Or perhaps they have to wait until their former spouse remarries before he or she can. Can divorced individuals be ministers or does a previous divorce forever preclude a person from becoming a minister? In some contexts, divorce is a kind of unpardonable sin from which one can never escape the "legal" consequences.
There would seem to be serious theological problems with this perspective. Is there any sin for which Christ's death does not atone? Absolutely not. True, we often have to live with the consequences of our sins. It takes time for communities and individuals to rebuild trust, even if they are willing to forgive. Healing can take time, and surely it does not glorify God to be naive.
But consequences should ultimately be a matter of the real world, not of artificially imposed rules. If I lose an arm doing something foolish, the laws of nature force me to live with the consequences of my actions. It is something quite different for us to insist a person remain unmarried forever after a divorce when nothing precludes the possibility of going on to have another chance at a healthy marriage. Remaining single then becomes an eternal punishment for a past sin, something quite different from a natural consequence.
It seems that this view involves an inferior sense of Christ's atonement. Perhaps his death can forgive the personal guilt of the sin but it can't forgive the social guilt. And it can't restore. We may talk about God restoring the virginity of a girl who has sex before marriage, but we don't believe it can restore a divorced person to a pure state. This perspective seems deeply problematic...
[1] "Endogamous" marriage where one tends to marry "within" the larger extended family to keep possessions in the group. See Malina ***. Family is not a matter of a husband, wife, and kids (nuclear family) but includes grandparents, cousins, aunts, and uncles.
[2] In other words, there are some significant differences between family then and now. A wife can get a job and there are safety networks to take care of children. The extended family is now divided into relatively independent nuclear families, all of whom are expected to take care of themselves. We do not live in an "honor-shame" culture, where divorce brings debilitating dishonor to the members of a family unit.
Certainly as Christians we have to believe in miracles and the possibility of restoration. We believe an offender can be redeemed and that the offended should forgive. The Christian virtues of patience and hope are commendable. But Jesus also bids us to be "wise as serpents" (Matt. 10:16). Abused spouses can forgive their former abusers from afar, without putting themselves in harm's way again.
Is the institution of marriage an end-in-itself? Perhaps to some extent it is. The institution of marriage probably does provide stability to most societies on some level, and it surely did in the biblical worlds. However, we should be careful to recognize that it has done so in different ways at different times and places. So biblical marriages range from polygamous arrangements to perhaps arranged marriages within one's extended family. [1] We do not find the small nuclear family as the norm in Bible times.
But the spirit of Jesus far more bids us look at people as what need to be protected, not laws about marriage. People are the ones who are at the table--husbands, wives, and children--not legalities and ideas. To put a wife or husband in an eternal limbo of separation because of a rule, when wisdom says healing best will take place by moving on, seems completely out of sync with the way Jesus thought, especially in the age of the nuclear family. [2]
I remember a well intentioned believer once telling me that a person remained married in God's eyes to whomever you first had sex with. I have even heard someone wonder if a divorced and remarried couple should divorce their second spouses so they can get back with their first partner, believing that the first partner remained eternally the one to whom they are married in God's eyes. This is an extreme example of an idea driving a rule rather than love of neighbor driving our action. And it is thoroughly unbiblical.
Deuteronomy 24 actually prohibited an Israelite man from remarrying an earlier wife if she had later remarried someone else. It is true that two people having sex become one flesh, but this is true of the polygamist in the Old Testament and the prostitute in 1 Corinthians 6. Certainly Paul wouldn't have urged the Corinthians to marry the prostitute, nor would he have urged someone to wait for the prostitute to become available for marriage if she was someone's first. This perspective breaks down into absurdities upon even a little reflection.
The whole line of thinking also treats sex in a way that the Bible never does. The Old Testament, for example, is much more practical. In Exodus 22:16-17, whether a man marries an unpromised virgin he has slept with depends on what her father wants. Polygamy is an assumed practice in the Old Testament (e.g., Deut. 21:15-16), and Jacob became "one flesh" with both his wives and both his concubines. In Hosea 1:2, God seems to command Hosea to marry a prostitute to make a point.
The bottom line is that sex is something distinct from marriage in the Bible. The ideal is certainly that sex and marriage go together neatly. This is God's ideal. But having sex does not mean two people have become married in God's eyes or that they must certainly get married--a potential recipe for disaster. Those who marry only because of a rule are prime candidates for later divorce. There is an ideal, but it is not an exceptionless one.
If Christians have often been legalistic on the front end of getting a divorce, they have also been legalistic on the back end, after a person has been divorced. Perhaps a person can remarry if they were the "innocent party." Or perhaps they have to wait until their former spouse remarries before he or she can. Can divorced individuals be ministers or does a previous divorce forever preclude a person from becoming a minister? In some contexts, divorce is a kind of unpardonable sin from which one can never escape the "legal" consequences.
There would seem to be serious theological problems with this perspective. Is there any sin for which Christ's death does not atone? Absolutely not. True, we often have to live with the consequences of our sins. It takes time for communities and individuals to rebuild trust, even if they are willing to forgive. Healing can take time, and surely it does not glorify God to be naive.
But consequences should ultimately be a matter of the real world, not of artificially imposed rules. If I lose an arm doing something foolish, the laws of nature force me to live with the consequences of my actions. It is something quite different for us to insist a person remain unmarried forever after a divorce when nothing precludes the possibility of going on to have another chance at a healthy marriage. Remaining single then becomes an eternal punishment for a past sin, something quite different from a natural consequence.
It seems that this view involves an inferior sense of Christ's atonement. Perhaps his death can forgive the personal guilt of the sin but it can't forgive the social guilt. And it can't restore. We may talk about God restoring the virginity of a girl who has sex before marriage, but we don't believe it can restore a divorced person to a pure state. This perspective seems deeply problematic...
[1] "Endogamous" marriage where one tends to marry "within" the larger extended family to keep possessions in the group. See Malina ***. Family is not a matter of a husband, wife, and kids (nuclear family) but includes grandparents, cousins, aunts, and uncles.
[2] In other words, there are some significant differences between family then and now. A wife can get a job and there are safety networks to take care of children. The extended family is now divided into relatively independent nuclear families, all of whom are expected to take care of themselves. We do not live in an "honor-shame" culture, where divorce brings debilitating dishonor to the members of a family unit.
Wednesday, April 04, 2012
Jesus and Divorce 3
... Again, we see that these statements by Jesus are far from legalistic rules. They are statements full of compassion aimed to protect the weak and helpless in society, namely, the vulnerable Jewish wife of Galilee. Of course, God did not want the wife in broader Roman society to throw her husband away either, and so the possibly expanded instruction is equally valid for the audience of Mark as Jesus' instruction was for his audience in Galilee. [1]
A key difference between Matthew and Mark on the question of divorce is the exception phrase in Matthew: "except for sexual immorality." [2] The fact that Matthew brings out an exception highlights the fact that Jesus' teaching in Mark 10 was never meant to be exceptionless but to give the general rule. Matthew, which the vast majority of experts believe used Mark as a source, brings out the most significant potential exception to the rule--sexual infidelity.
The fact that Matthew and Mark do not mention other exceptions does not necessarily mean that there were no others. Again, the spirit of Jesus in these instructions was not to set up a rule for its own sake but to show compassion on the weak and chastise the pleasure-seeking husband interested only in his own self-gratification. For example, surely it would violate the very purpose of Jesus' instructions to force an abused wife or husband to remain married to a violent spouse.
Of course, just because a man's wife is unfaithful does not mean that he must divorce her. Matthew suggests that sexual infidelity can be a exception to the general rule not to divorce, but surely the spirit of Jesus could forgive an unfaithful spouse. Surely God would be even more glorified by a couple who, after such a significant crisis, could find reconciliation and healing.
Amid all the legalism that has surrounded the application of biblical teaching on divorce, it ultimately comes down once again to the fundamental principle that God is love and that, for Jesus, the lives of real people trumped rules for their own sake. Jesus did not want spouses to harm each other by throwing the other away in pursuit of selfish pleasure. Today he would not want parents to harm their children by ripping a family apart for selfish reasons.
But children can be harmed by some parents staying together as well. Would Jesus want a spouse to stay in a relationship where the other spouse was molesting a child? Surely the spirit of Jesus would want to save some spouses from harmful situations even if the spouse hasn't crossed the line in sexual infidelity. It is the Pharisees in the gospels who mistake the rules themselves for the principles behind the rules.
Our problem is that we know people make excuses to justify what they want to do. We want to be able to stop them from getting by with it. We want to stop the person who wants to claim an exceptional situation when it is nothing of the sort. We humans are very good of coming up with good-sounding reasons that are not our real reasons.
God is not fooled. This is key. We want to be able to stop the person making excuses. We want to expose the fraud. We don't want to leave the pretenders to God. We want to punish them now. But God says that vengeance is his (Rom. 12:19). No one is getting away with anything...
[1] If this interpretation of how the oral tradition developed is correct, then we see that God used the tradition at every point to clarify his will on divorce in more than one context.
[2] The key passages are Mark 10:11-12 and Matthew 5:32 and 19:9.
A key difference between Matthew and Mark on the question of divorce is the exception phrase in Matthew: "except for sexual immorality." [2] The fact that Matthew brings out an exception highlights the fact that Jesus' teaching in Mark 10 was never meant to be exceptionless but to give the general rule. Matthew, which the vast majority of experts believe used Mark as a source, brings out the most significant potential exception to the rule--sexual infidelity.
The fact that Matthew and Mark do not mention other exceptions does not necessarily mean that there were no others. Again, the spirit of Jesus in these instructions was not to set up a rule for its own sake but to show compassion on the weak and chastise the pleasure-seeking husband interested only in his own self-gratification. For example, surely it would violate the very purpose of Jesus' instructions to force an abused wife or husband to remain married to a violent spouse.
Of course, just because a man's wife is unfaithful does not mean that he must divorce her. Matthew suggests that sexual infidelity can be a exception to the general rule not to divorce, but surely the spirit of Jesus could forgive an unfaithful spouse. Surely God would be even more glorified by a couple who, after such a significant crisis, could find reconciliation and healing.
Amid all the legalism that has surrounded the application of biblical teaching on divorce, it ultimately comes down once again to the fundamental principle that God is love and that, for Jesus, the lives of real people trumped rules for their own sake. Jesus did not want spouses to harm each other by throwing the other away in pursuit of selfish pleasure. Today he would not want parents to harm their children by ripping a family apart for selfish reasons.
But children can be harmed by some parents staying together as well. Would Jesus want a spouse to stay in a relationship where the other spouse was molesting a child? Surely the spirit of Jesus would want to save some spouses from harmful situations even if the spouse hasn't crossed the line in sexual infidelity. It is the Pharisees in the gospels who mistake the rules themselves for the principles behind the rules.
Our problem is that we know people make excuses to justify what they want to do. We want to be able to stop them from getting by with it. We want to stop the person who wants to claim an exceptional situation when it is nothing of the sort. We humans are very good of coming up with good-sounding reasons that are not our real reasons.
God is not fooled. This is key. We want to be able to stop the person making excuses. We want to expose the fraud. We don't want to leave the pretenders to God. We want to punish them now. But God says that vengeance is his (Rom. 12:19). No one is getting away with anything...
[1] If this interpretation of how the oral tradition developed is correct, then we see that God used the tradition at every point to clarify his will on divorce in more than one context.
[2] The key passages are Mark 10:11-12 and Matthew 5:32 and 19:9.
Jesus and Divorce 2
This raises an interesting question of cultural background. It is not clear that a wife actually could officially divorce her husband in Palestine at the time of Jesus. [1] For example, the Jewish historian Josephus says that it was against the Jewish Law for a woman to divorce her husband, although it was possible for elite women to do it under Roman law. [2] The later Jewish collection of oral tradition, the Mishnah (ca. 200), similarly assumes throughout that only a husband could initiate a divorce. [3]
What then are we do with Mark 10:12, where Jesus prohibits a wife from divorcing her husband? It is a difficult question. On the one hand, the time of Jesus has left us such little evidence that we cannot ignore the possibility that, despite all the information we have from elsewhere, it was still possible somehow in Galilee for an ordinary wife to initiate a divorce. Or perhaps Mark is worded imprecisely and refers to a wife asking her husband for a divorce.
However, the more likely suggestion is that the oral tradition of Jesus' statement on divorce expanded as the saying left Palestine. In the Roman world, it was equally possible for wife to divorce her husband as for a husband to divorce a wife. Mark or the tradition he inherited thus would have taken an original saying, which only mentioned the husband divorcing, and expanded it for a Roman audience to include the wife as well.
The original concern of Jesus in Galilee, then, would have focused exclusively on husbands throwing away their helpless wives. This likelihood changes our sense of the original dynamic in the ministry of Jesus considerably. Jesus' teaching, as we would expect, focused on compassion toward the powerless, namely, the wife in Galilean society. Mark 10 appropriately broadens the principle for a different context.
Another curious aspect of Jesus' teaching here, and perhaps quite revolutionary, is the sense that a husband can commit adultery against his wife (Mark 10:11). The New Testament anthropologist Bruce Malina has argued that adultery at the time by definition was the shaming of a man by sleeping with his wife. [4] Accordingly, a man could not commit adultery against a woman. If a man slept with another man's wife, he was committing adultery against her husband. Similarly, if a married man slept with a single woman, he would not be committing adultery.
If Malina's analysis of ancient Mediterranean culture is correct, then it would have been shocking for Jesus to suggest that a man might commit adultery against his wife by sleeping with another woman. Jesus would be giving a significance to the wife that was unheard of. What we assume when we read these texts--that adultery goes both ways--becomes another example of Jesus' startling care for the disempowered in society and his shocking preaching.
Matthew 5:32 then must also be somewhat tongue in cheek, typical Jesus. A divorced wife will almost have to remarry to support herself. In that sense, the husband who divorces her is forcing her to sleep with another man. Tongue in cheek, he is forcing her to commit adultery against himself. Obviously Jesus could not mean this literally. He is shaming the man who would do such a thing. The man who divorces his wife, in effect, is forcing her to shame him by sleeping with another man.
Again, we see that these statements by Jesus are far from legalistic rules...
[1] A recent article discussing the issue is Robert Brody, "Evidence for Divorce by Jewish Women?" Journal of Jewish Studies 50.2 (1999): **
[2] Antiquities 15.259.
[3] Yev 14.1; Qid 1.1; Git 4.2, 8.4, 9.10
[4] The Social World of Jesus and the Gospels.
What then are we do with Mark 10:12, where Jesus prohibits a wife from divorcing her husband? It is a difficult question. On the one hand, the time of Jesus has left us such little evidence that we cannot ignore the possibility that, despite all the information we have from elsewhere, it was still possible somehow in Galilee for an ordinary wife to initiate a divorce. Or perhaps Mark is worded imprecisely and refers to a wife asking her husband for a divorce.
However, the more likely suggestion is that the oral tradition of Jesus' statement on divorce expanded as the saying left Palestine. In the Roman world, it was equally possible for wife to divorce her husband as for a husband to divorce a wife. Mark or the tradition he inherited thus would have taken an original saying, which only mentioned the husband divorcing, and expanded it for a Roman audience to include the wife as well.
The original concern of Jesus in Galilee, then, would have focused exclusively on husbands throwing away their helpless wives. This likelihood changes our sense of the original dynamic in the ministry of Jesus considerably. Jesus' teaching, as we would expect, focused on compassion toward the powerless, namely, the wife in Galilean society. Mark 10 appropriately broadens the principle for a different context.
Another curious aspect of Jesus' teaching here, and perhaps quite revolutionary, is the sense that a husband can commit adultery against his wife (Mark 10:11). The New Testament anthropologist Bruce Malina has argued that adultery at the time by definition was the shaming of a man by sleeping with his wife. [4] Accordingly, a man could not commit adultery against a woman. If a man slept with another man's wife, he was committing adultery against her husband. Similarly, if a married man slept with a single woman, he would not be committing adultery.
If Malina's analysis of ancient Mediterranean culture is correct, then it would have been shocking for Jesus to suggest that a man might commit adultery against his wife by sleeping with another woman. Jesus would be giving a significance to the wife that was unheard of. What we assume when we read these texts--that adultery goes both ways--becomes another example of Jesus' startling care for the disempowered in society and his shocking preaching.
Matthew 5:32 then must also be somewhat tongue in cheek, typical Jesus. A divorced wife will almost have to remarry to support herself. In that sense, the husband who divorces her is forcing her to sleep with another man. Tongue in cheek, he is forcing her to commit adultery against himself. Obviously Jesus could not mean this literally. He is shaming the man who would do such a thing. The man who divorces his wife, in effect, is forcing her to shame him by sleeping with another man.
Again, we see that these statements by Jesus are far from legalistic rules...
[1] A recent article discussing the issue is Robert Brody, "Evidence for Divorce by Jewish Women?" Journal of Jewish Studies 50.2 (1999): **
[2] Antiquities 15.259.
[3] Yev 14.1; Qid 1.1; Git 4.2, 8.4, 9.10
[4] The Social World of Jesus and the Gospels.
Tuesday, April 03, 2012
Jesus and Divorce 1
Thanks for all the honor my family felt was given to my father this last week. I felt that the funeral yesterday was an appropriate send off. For me the song, "Jesus Led Me All the Way" was the most tender moment in the service. Great song and not as well known today. I'm tempted to post it here sometime.
Trying to get back to writing. I'm in a chapter on the ethic Jesus taught. I thought the section on Jesus and divorce might get me back in the groove.
_____________
The picture of Jesus in this chapter thus far has been consistent. He allowed his disciples to break the Sabbath rule because they were hungry, and endorsed the priest breaking the rules about sanctified bread to feed David. The Parable of the Good Samaritan implies that helping someone in serious need is more important to God than the purity laws for priests. Everything we have seen so far shows that people took priority for him over Old Testament Law and that he made exceptions to the rules when the two came into significant conflict.
We might be a little puzzled at first, then, to see Jesus seem to take an almost legalistic position on the issue of divorce. Indeed, those who see Christianity primarily as a series of dos and don'ts may pay more attention to the words of Jesus on divorce than to the vast majority of things he said. And churches have sometimes played out divorce as something like an unpardonable sin, in effect ostracizing people from full Christian fellowship if they are divorced--sometimes even when they did not initiate the divorce.
Matthew 19:9 remembers Jesus' words in this way: "I tell you that anyone who divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, and marries another woman commits adultery." In this passage, Jesus' disciples are so amazed at this restriction on divorce that they conclude it's almost better not to marry at all. Their world was one in which the only restriction was that the husband had to make a divorce official. Beyond that, a man could divorce his wife for pretty much any reason.
Apparently, the men of the time took their sense that a man could divorce his wife for any reason from Deuteronomy 24, to which this passage alludes. While Deuteronomy is actually about the remarriage of a divorced wife to her first husband, Jesus' contemporaries debated whether it implicitly gave a man permission to divorce his wife for anything he might find "indecent" in her. The way they put it to Jesus in Matthew 19:7 is that God commanded a man to give his wife a certificate of divorce and send her away.
In itself, there is some mercy even in this interpretation. There are places in the world today where a man can put a wife in limbo by leaving her, maybe leaving her in some village far away from where he is, and never officially severing ties from her. Sometimes this sort of thing happens in societies in places of the world where the woman cannot possibly take care of herself. She might receive no support from her "husband" and yet be unable to find another man to support her because she is still officially married to her husband.
A command to make divorce official for such a woman is an act of mercy. It allows her to marry another man who will support her and her children. Perhaps some at the time of Jesus were interpreting Deuteronomy 24:1 in that way. If so, then we can at least commend that sort of divorce as an act of mercy.
But surely Jesus' words on divorce, like his other teaching in the Sermon on the Mount, means to get to the root of the issue. A man should not be throwing away his wife in the first place. Although Jesus does not quote Malachi 2, surely it is in the same spirit that Jesus made his statements on divorce. He is thinking primarily of the husband who is unfaithful to the wife of his youth and stops protecting her, instead choosing to divorce her for selfish reasons.
This raises an interesting question of cultural background. It is not clear that a wife actually could officially divorce her husband in Palestine at the time of Jesus...
Trying to get back to writing. I'm in a chapter on the ethic Jesus taught. I thought the section on Jesus and divorce might get me back in the groove.
_____________
The picture of Jesus in this chapter thus far has been consistent. He allowed his disciples to break the Sabbath rule because they were hungry, and endorsed the priest breaking the rules about sanctified bread to feed David. The Parable of the Good Samaritan implies that helping someone in serious need is more important to God than the purity laws for priests. Everything we have seen so far shows that people took priority for him over Old Testament Law and that he made exceptions to the rules when the two came into significant conflict.
We might be a little puzzled at first, then, to see Jesus seem to take an almost legalistic position on the issue of divorce. Indeed, those who see Christianity primarily as a series of dos and don'ts may pay more attention to the words of Jesus on divorce than to the vast majority of things he said. And churches have sometimes played out divorce as something like an unpardonable sin, in effect ostracizing people from full Christian fellowship if they are divorced--sometimes even when they did not initiate the divorce.
Matthew 19:9 remembers Jesus' words in this way: "I tell you that anyone who divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, and marries another woman commits adultery." In this passage, Jesus' disciples are so amazed at this restriction on divorce that they conclude it's almost better not to marry at all. Their world was one in which the only restriction was that the husband had to make a divorce official. Beyond that, a man could divorce his wife for pretty much any reason.
Apparently, the men of the time took their sense that a man could divorce his wife for any reason from Deuteronomy 24, to which this passage alludes. While Deuteronomy is actually about the remarriage of a divorced wife to her first husband, Jesus' contemporaries debated whether it implicitly gave a man permission to divorce his wife for anything he might find "indecent" in her. The way they put it to Jesus in Matthew 19:7 is that God commanded a man to give his wife a certificate of divorce and send her away.
In itself, there is some mercy even in this interpretation. There are places in the world today where a man can put a wife in limbo by leaving her, maybe leaving her in some village far away from where he is, and never officially severing ties from her. Sometimes this sort of thing happens in societies in places of the world where the woman cannot possibly take care of herself. She might receive no support from her "husband" and yet be unable to find another man to support her because she is still officially married to her husband.
A command to make divorce official for such a woman is an act of mercy. It allows her to marry another man who will support her and her children. Perhaps some at the time of Jesus were interpreting Deuteronomy 24:1 in that way. If so, then we can at least commend that sort of divorce as an act of mercy.
But surely Jesus' words on divorce, like his other teaching in the Sermon on the Mount, means to get to the root of the issue. A man should not be throwing away his wife in the first place. Although Jesus does not quote Malachi 2, surely it is in the same spirit that Jesus made his statements on divorce. He is thinking primarily of the husband who is unfaithful to the wife of his youth and stops protecting her, instead choosing to divorce her for selfish reasons.
This raises an interesting question of cultural background. It is not clear that a wife actually could officially divorce her husband in Palestine at the time of Jesus...
Friday, March 02, 2007
Book Review: Moral Vision, Divorce and Remarriage
The chapter of Hays' Moral Vision I read this week was on divorce and remarriage (chap. 15). In keeping with his general method, he begins with the descriptive task:
1. Mark 10:2-12
In this text, Jesus prohibits a husband or wife from divorcing the other spouse, and remarriage in either case is said to be to commit adultery.
There are two really intriguing aspects of this passage, both of which Hays mentions at least in passing.
a) The first is that Jesus tells the wife not to divorce her husband. This may not strike us as odd, but it is not at all clear that wives could legally divorce their husbands in Galilee at this time. For this reason, perhaps the majority of NT scholars do not believe that Jesus said it quite this way. Most think what Jesus said was that husbands should not divorce their wives. Then Mark and Paul, writing for a broader cultural context, expanded Jesus' prohibition to include wives divorcing their husbands, since this was possible in the Greco-Roman world. Christian tradition would thus have balanced out Jesus' historical teaching as the gospel expanded beyond the borders of Israel.
This will of course be a controversial claim, although I do not believe we can listen to the gospels and not conclude that the Spirit of Jesus has sometimes been conveyed in the gospels well beyond the things Jesus actually said while on earth. Nevertheless, the fact that Paul focuses first and I believe foremost on the wife divorcing the husband in his relating of what the Lord said (1 Cor. 7:10-16) must at least raise the question of whether scholars have correctly understood what was and wasn't possible at the time in Galilee.
b) The second striking thing about Jesus' words in Mark 10 is that he says that the husband who divorces and remarries commits adultery against his wife. This statement must have sounded very bizarre to Mark's and/or Jesus' audiences. I do not just mean that it was a really "liberal" "feminist" type statement that was revolutionary in the way it took the woman into account, although I imagine this is true as well. [I find it nearly impossible to read Jesus as a conservative in his world]
It is just that the word adultery at the time meant to shame a man by sleeping with his woman, with his "property," so to speak. One could not by definition commit adultery against a woman. I've tried to think of a way to convey the wierdness of the statement. Perhaps this starts us toward the connotations: "Anyone who trades in his dog for another steals himself away from the dog." So if the current understanding of ancient adultery is correct, this statement would be another example of Jesus' hyperbolic speech.
Hays' most important thought on Mark 10 is that Jesus places staying in marriage within the context of discipleship, following Jesus. This section of Mark is Jesus' trip to Jerusalem to die and Jesus is teaching his followers how to be true disciples in it. By implication, Hays thinks, staying within marriage comes to be part of following Jesus, even when it can involve suffering.
2. Matthew 19:3-12
Hays points out three ways in which Matthew's version of the Mark statement (assuming Markan priority) modifies Mark:
a. Matthew removes the "adultery against her" statement.
b. Matthew drops the prohibition of a woman divorcing her husband.
c. Matthew adds an exception clause: "except for porneia."
Overall, Hays believes that Matthew adapts Jesus' saying to make it more practiceable and brings it more closely into line with Jewish custom and the patriarchal assumptions of Jewish law. Thus no mention of a woman divorcing her husband is made and the kind of exception necessitated by purity rules in the Jewish law is made.
Hays also mentions that since Matthew deals with this issue twice, here and in Matthew 5:31-32, it may have been an issue of some concern in his community.
This section of Hays' chapter deals with two other matters of relevance: what porneia is and the two Pharisaic schools. Hays discusses the options that 1) porneia means adultery, 2) porneia means pre-marital unfaithfulness during the betrothal phase and 3) that it refers to incestuous relationships. I agree with him that we should probably 4) take it as a catch-all term that would include a large number of sexual sins, certainly including adultery and incest.
Hays rightly concludes that Matthew's Jesus lines up more closely with the School of Shammai than the School of Hillel. The School of Hillel allowed divorce for almost any reason. The School of Shammai only allowed it for porneia and thus for reasons of purity only. Hays, as most scholars, believes however that Jesus himself probably did not enumerate the exception clause and that it is a Matthean adaptation. [In this sense Jesus' words are more restrictive than either of these schools, yet more liberal in a way since he seems to disregard the concern for the purity of the man]
Hays on remarriage after divorce notes that Matthew does not explicitly prohibit a divorced man from remarrying a woman who has not previously been married (now looking at Matthew 5:31-32), while the divorced woman who remarries commits adultery. An interesting twist to note here, I think, is that Matthew's Jesus does not actually prohibit a woman from remarrying. Strikingly, he assumes a wife will remarry! Any man who divorces his wife forces her to commit adultery [against him]. In short, he is causing her to sin against himself by forcing her to marry another man!
This is again exactly the kind of hyperbolic speech we would expect of Jesus, even if we are less certain whether this is a historical statement or a distinctively Matthean adaptation.
An interesting part of Matthew 19 is the indication that staying in a marriage might involve some suffering of shame. Hays at least mentions the sometimes made suggestion (e.g., Malina) that to become a eunuch for the kingdom of God might refer to the figurative castration a husband can receive in terms of his honor by remaining in a marriage with a woman who disgraces him culturally.
3. Luke 16:18
I wonder if Luke gives Jesus' saying closest to its most original form? Anyone who divorces his wife commits adultery and whoever marries her commits adultery.
4. 1 Corinthians 7:10-16
Because Paul mentions the wife divorcing her husband, his version of the divorce logion is closest to Mark's. Of course Paul's statement is actually the closest to Jesus in time, since all the gospels were all written decades later than 1 Corinthians (I personally date the current form of Mark to the early 70's).
The main addition Paul makes is his allowance for an unbelieving spouse to depart--"if the unbelieving spouse departs, let her depart." This "pastoral improvisation," as Hays puts it, now comes into play as the gospel reaches a Gentile audience where we face the possibility that one spouse will become a believer and the other will not. It is surely noteworthy that Paul does not insist a Christian man force his wife to convert!
Also fascinating is Paul's statement that the unbelieving spouse and their children are sanctified and made holy by continguity with the believer. Hays reads this verse a little differently than I do. Hays thinks it is optimistic, "Who knows, maybe you will save them?" I read it more in the sense, "Let them depart, you ultimately can't save them for sure by staying with them..."
Hays' Synthesis
In Hays synthesis of these biblical data, he notes that despite some of the diversity, divorce is always seen as exceptional--"divorce is therefore flatly contrary to God's will" (372). He also notes, however, the principle of accommodation we see. Mark and Paul adjust Jesus' teaching to a Hellenistic context and Matthew brings it more into line with patriarchal Jewish customs.
Hays turns to Malachi where marriage is seen as a mirror of God's covenant with Israel. He turns to Ephesians where marriage is put in the context of the cross. The image of marriage is an image of redemption (e.g., Revelation) and of new creation. Divorce, by contrast, is an image moving in the wrong direction.
Because the church is a community, divorce can never be a private matter for a Christian. Paul's pastoral concerns in particular reflect the interests of the community of faith ("God has called us to peace").
Hermeneutics
Hays notes that love and justice are never brought into the equation of divorce in the NT. Christian tradition does not favor divorce, for it was hardly even possible until recent days (although the RC church used the idea of annullment to work with the exigencies of life). Hays suggests that experience currently is what has been used these days to trump all else (e.g., Spong), but without any basis in either Scripture or tradition.
He suggests six things about appropriating the biblical text on this issue:
1. Marriage is an aspect of discipleship, a reflection of God's faithfulness.
2. Divorce is contrary to God's will except in extraordinary circumstances. The NT mentions two: porneia and the will of an unbelieving spouse. But the NT itself models a process of reflection and adaptation with regard to what such exceptional circumstances might be. Hays suggests spousal abuse would likely be one obvious adaptation the church today might want to make.
3. Marriage is not grounded in feelings of love but in the practice of love. Lack of fulfillment is not a Christian basis for divorce.
4. Sometimes a spouse can deeply wrong the other, as Matthew implies, to the extent that the marriage cannot continue.
5. Remarriage cannot be excluded as a possibility not least because of the principle of redemption. He thinks the fact that it is better to marry than to burn with passion can apply here as well.
6. The community of the church must seek to find ways to provide koinonia for those divorced persons who choose not to remarry.
Once again, while we can always disagree on details, I find Hays once again a model of how to appropriate Scripture.
1. Mark 10:2-12
In this text, Jesus prohibits a husband or wife from divorcing the other spouse, and remarriage in either case is said to be to commit adultery.
There are two really intriguing aspects of this passage, both of which Hays mentions at least in passing.
a) The first is that Jesus tells the wife not to divorce her husband. This may not strike us as odd, but it is not at all clear that wives could legally divorce their husbands in Galilee at this time. For this reason, perhaps the majority of NT scholars do not believe that Jesus said it quite this way. Most think what Jesus said was that husbands should not divorce their wives. Then Mark and Paul, writing for a broader cultural context, expanded Jesus' prohibition to include wives divorcing their husbands, since this was possible in the Greco-Roman world. Christian tradition would thus have balanced out Jesus' historical teaching as the gospel expanded beyond the borders of Israel.
This will of course be a controversial claim, although I do not believe we can listen to the gospels and not conclude that the Spirit of Jesus has sometimes been conveyed in the gospels well beyond the things Jesus actually said while on earth. Nevertheless, the fact that Paul focuses first and I believe foremost on the wife divorcing the husband in his relating of what the Lord said (1 Cor. 7:10-16) must at least raise the question of whether scholars have correctly understood what was and wasn't possible at the time in Galilee.
b) The second striking thing about Jesus' words in Mark 10 is that he says that the husband who divorces and remarries commits adultery against his wife. This statement must have sounded very bizarre to Mark's and/or Jesus' audiences. I do not just mean that it was a really "liberal" "feminist" type statement that was revolutionary in the way it took the woman into account, although I imagine this is true as well. [I find it nearly impossible to read Jesus as a conservative in his world]
It is just that the word adultery at the time meant to shame a man by sleeping with his woman, with his "property," so to speak. One could not by definition commit adultery against a woman. I've tried to think of a way to convey the wierdness of the statement. Perhaps this starts us toward the connotations: "Anyone who trades in his dog for another steals himself away from the dog." So if the current understanding of ancient adultery is correct, this statement would be another example of Jesus' hyperbolic speech.
Hays' most important thought on Mark 10 is that Jesus places staying in marriage within the context of discipleship, following Jesus. This section of Mark is Jesus' trip to Jerusalem to die and Jesus is teaching his followers how to be true disciples in it. By implication, Hays thinks, staying within marriage comes to be part of following Jesus, even when it can involve suffering.
2. Matthew 19:3-12
Hays points out three ways in which Matthew's version of the Mark statement (assuming Markan priority) modifies Mark:
a. Matthew removes the "adultery against her" statement.
b. Matthew drops the prohibition of a woman divorcing her husband.
c. Matthew adds an exception clause: "except for porneia."
Overall, Hays believes that Matthew adapts Jesus' saying to make it more practiceable and brings it more closely into line with Jewish custom and the patriarchal assumptions of Jewish law. Thus no mention of a woman divorcing her husband is made and the kind of exception necessitated by purity rules in the Jewish law is made.
Hays also mentions that since Matthew deals with this issue twice, here and in Matthew 5:31-32, it may have been an issue of some concern in his community.
This section of Hays' chapter deals with two other matters of relevance: what porneia is and the two Pharisaic schools. Hays discusses the options that 1) porneia means adultery, 2) porneia means pre-marital unfaithfulness during the betrothal phase and 3) that it refers to incestuous relationships. I agree with him that we should probably 4) take it as a catch-all term that would include a large number of sexual sins, certainly including adultery and incest.
Hays rightly concludes that Matthew's Jesus lines up more closely with the School of Shammai than the School of Hillel. The School of Hillel allowed divorce for almost any reason. The School of Shammai only allowed it for porneia and thus for reasons of purity only. Hays, as most scholars, believes however that Jesus himself probably did not enumerate the exception clause and that it is a Matthean adaptation. [In this sense Jesus' words are more restrictive than either of these schools, yet more liberal in a way since he seems to disregard the concern for the purity of the man]
Hays on remarriage after divorce notes that Matthew does not explicitly prohibit a divorced man from remarrying a woman who has not previously been married (now looking at Matthew 5:31-32), while the divorced woman who remarries commits adultery. An interesting twist to note here, I think, is that Matthew's Jesus does not actually prohibit a woman from remarrying. Strikingly, he assumes a wife will remarry! Any man who divorces his wife forces her to commit adultery [against him]. In short, he is causing her to sin against himself by forcing her to marry another man!
This is again exactly the kind of hyperbolic speech we would expect of Jesus, even if we are less certain whether this is a historical statement or a distinctively Matthean adaptation.
An interesting part of Matthew 19 is the indication that staying in a marriage might involve some suffering of shame. Hays at least mentions the sometimes made suggestion (e.g., Malina) that to become a eunuch for the kingdom of God might refer to the figurative castration a husband can receive in terms of his honor by remaining in a marriage with a woman who disgraces him culturally.
3. Luke 16:18
I wonder if Luke gives Jesus' saying closest to its most original form? Anyone who divorces his wife commits adultery and whoever marries her commits adultery.
4. 1 Corinthians 7:10-16
Because Paul mentions the wife divorcing her husband, his version of the divorce logion is closest to Mark's. Of course Paul's statement is actually the closest to Jesus in time, since all the gospels were all written decades later than 1 Corinthians (I personally date the current form of Mark to the early 70's).
The main addition Paul makes is his allowance for an unbelieving spouse to depart--"if the unbelieving spouse departs, let her depart." This "pastoral improvisation," as Hays puts it, now comes into play as the gospel reaches a Gentile audience where we face the possibility that one spouse will become a believer and the other will not. It is surely noteworthy that Paul does not insist a Christian man force his wife to convert!
Also fascinating is Paul's statement that the unbelieving spouse and their children are sanctified and made holy by continguity with the believer. Hays reads this verse a little differently than I do. Hays thinks it is optimistic, "Who knows, maybe you will save them?" I read it more in the sense, "Let them depart, you ultimately can't save them for sure by staying with them..."
Hays' Synthesis
In Hays synthesis of these biblical data, he notes that despite some of the diversity, divorce is always seen as exceptional--"divorce is therefore flatly contrary to God's will" (372). He also notes, however, the principle of accommodation we see. Mark and Paul adjust Jesus' teaching to a Hellenistic context and Matthew brings it more into line with patriarchal Jewish customs.
Hays turns to Malachi where marriage is seen as a mirror of God's covenant with Israel. He turns to Ephesians where marriage is put in the context of the cross. The image of marriage is an image of redemption (e.g., Revelation) and of new creation. Divorce, by contrast, is an image moving in the wrong direction.
Because the church is a community, divorce can never be a private matter for a Christian. Paul's pastoral concerns in particular reflect the interests of the community of faith ("God has called us to peace").
Hermeneutics
Hays notes that love and justice are never brought into the equation of divorce in the NT. Christian tradition does not favor divorce, for it was hardly even possible until recent days (although the RC church used the idea of annullment to work with the exigencies of life). Hays suggests that experience currently is what has been used these days to trump all else (e.g., Spong), but without any basis in either Scripture or tradition.
He suggests six things about appropriating the biblical text on this issue:
1. Marriage is an aspect of discipleship, a reflection of God's faithfulness.
2. Divorce is contrary to God's will except in extraordinary circumstances. The NT mentions two: porneia and the will of an unbelieving spouse. But the NT itself models a process of reflection and adaptation with regard to what such exceptional circumstances might be. Hays suggests spousal abuse would likely be one obvious adaptation the church today might want to make.
3. Marriage is not grounded in feelings of love but in the practice of love. Lack of fulfillment is not a Christian basis for divorce.
4. Sometimes a spouse can deeply wrong the other, as Matthew implies, to the extent that the marriage cannot continue.
5. Remarriage cannot be excluded as a possibility not least because of the principle of redemption. He thinks the fact that it is better to marry than to burn with passion can apply here as well.
6. The community of the church must seek to find ways to provide koinonia for those divorced persons who choose not to remarry.
Once again, while we can always disagree on details, I find Hays once again a model of how to appropriate Scripture.
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