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BlackFriar
Guest
Then by adultery you mean something other than what Jesus meant…or you are saying Jesus is wrong.
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lilypadrees
Guest
What does “adultery” mean to you? To me, it means being unfaithful to your spouse, remarrying while your ex is still alive or having thoughts of sleeping with someone other than your spouse.
The Bible is clear that if one divorces, he or she is not to marry again while the person’s ex is still alive. Jesus condones divorce under only one or two conditions, iirc. But remember that He told the woman at the well who’d had 5 husbands and was currently living with another that she was correct in saying she had no husband because the man she was living with was not her husband. (John 4:17-18)
The Bible is clear that if one divorces, he or she is not to marry again while the person’s ex is still alive. Jesus condones divorce under only one or two conditions, iirc. But remember that He told the woman at the well who’d had 5 husbands and was currently living with another that she was correct in saying she had no husband because the man she was living with was not her husband. (John 4:17-18)
A
Annie
Guest
So what did Jesus mean: that a woman abandoned by her husband is ipso facto committing adultery?
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BlackFriar
Guest
It isnt about what I think, its about how Jesus was thinking when he said that. I am simply attempting objective exegesis of the text as it stands not as we wish it to be 2000 years later…with our over sexualised interpretations.
It seems that by adultery Jesus may not always have meant sexual unfaithfulness. Simply abandoning care, bed and board with the one we promised to cherish for life qualifies as unfaithfulness. That state of life, that counterwitness to Gods intent (ie divorce itself), is shared by both partners…one is culpable, the other not.
The state of disorder, of sin, is shared by both. Like original sin, some evils are forced on us non culpably by “contraction” not by “commission”. Divorce is such and here Jesus seems to see it as a soft form of adultery which ultimately is about an attitude of unfaithfulness not simply sex.
So non culpable divorcees are “forced” to break their vows of lived togetherness/faithfulness…regardless of whether that later involves sex with another or not.
It seems that by adultery Jesus may not always have meant sexual unfaithfulness. Simply abandoning care, bed and board with the one we promised to cherish for life qualifies as unfaithfulness. That state of life, that counterwitness to Gods intent (ie divorce itself), is shared by both partners…one is culpable, the other not.
The state of disorder, of sin, is shared by both. Like original sin, some evils are forced on us non culpably by “contraction” not by “commission”. Divorce is such and here Jesus seems to see it as a soft form of adultery which ultimately is about an attitude of unfaithfulness not simply sex.
So non culpable divorcees are “forced” to break their vows of lived togetherness/faithfulness…regardless of whether that later involves sex with another or not.
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jcrichton
Guest
You cannot be more wrong!
Jesus warns that even if one simply holds thoughts of desire one commits adultery–how can the wife of a man commit adultery by his lustful desires (and vice versa)?
The person that divorces his/her spouse commits adultery not by divorce but by uniting to another person; yet, if the spouse who was abandoned does not unite him/herself to another that person is not living in a state of adultery.
Maran atha!
Angel
Jesus warns that even if one simply holds thoughts of desire one commits adultery–how can the wife of a man commit adultery by his lustful desires (and vice versa)?
The person that divorces his/her spouse commits adultery not by divorce but by uniting to another person; yet, if the spouse who was abandoned does not unite him/herself to another that person is not living in a state of adultery.
Maran atha!
Angel
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BlackFriar
Guest
Jesus laid down the principle.
If he is correct then it appears he uses the word adultery with sub meanings that many contributers here do not avert to.
If you dont like my explanation offer a better one.
If mine is so wrong olease quote the clear error. Your response seems a little vague there.
Do you deny my principle that the innocent can be forced into a state of sin by a culpable related other?
If he is correct then it appears he uses the word adultery with sub meanings that many contributers here do not avert to.
If you dont like my explanation offer a better one.
If mine is so wrong olease quote the clear error. Your response seems a little vague there.
You are begging the question. Jesus at face value says exactly the opposite in Mt5 doesnt he?yet, if the spouse who was abandoned does not unite him/herself to another that person is not living in a state of adultery
Do you deny my principle that the innocent can be forced into a state of sin by a culpable related other?
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jcrichton
Guest
No. I’m questioning your interpretation of Jesus’ Word.
Maran atha!
Angel
Maran atha!
Angel
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BlackFriar
Guest
So give reasons not hot air?
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Rau
Guest
Was he not merely attaching some blame to the one who divorces his wife for what might follow? A literalist reading (at face value?) does not seem appropriate.Jesus at face value says exactly the opposite in Mt5 doesnt he?
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jcrichton
Guest
You, my friend have a short fuse.
Not only that but are content to understand God through your prism; there’s nothing to aide into a full understanding of Christ’s Teachings as you are already filled with the “knowledge” that you are correct.
Maran atha!
Angel
Not only that but are content to understand God through your prism; there’s nothing to aide into a full understanding of Christ’s Teachings as you are already filled with the “knowledge” that you are correct.
Maran atha!
Angel
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BlackFriar
Guest
That is certainly one possibility that is also not inconsistent with Jesus’s unexplained statement.
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stpurl
Guest
I don’t see where Jesus says what you have Him say. here is the passage per the Douay Rheims: [32] But I say to you, that whosoever shall put away his wife, excepting for the cause of fornication, maketh her to commit adultery: and he that shall marry her that is put away, committeth adultery.
Note that Jesus immediately after the ‘maketh her to commit adultery’ follows with "and he that shall marry her that is put away committeth adultery.’
What could be clearer (and apparently was perfectly clear for centuries) than that Jesus was speaking, in modern English, the following: Whoever divorces a woman, unless HE has married her unlawfully --i.e., the situation for a decree of nullity-- makes her commit adultery when she ‘remarries’ (for whatever reason) AND that the man who marries this woman likewise is committing adultery?
Jesus specifically brings up the fact that the adultery is caused by the woman marrying again (unless she had not been free to marry the first man in the first place), and that the ‘second man’ is committing adultery along with her. Jesus does not say that a woman who does NOT remarry commits adultery.
Context, context, context.
Note that Jesus immediately after the ‘maketh her to commit adultery’ follows with "and he that shall marry her that is put away committeth adultery.’
What could be clearer (and apparently was perfectly clear for centuries) than that Jesus was speaking, in modern English, the following: Whoever divorces a woman, unless HE has married her unlawfully --i.e., the situation for a decree of nullity-- makes her commit adultery when she ‘remarries’ (for whatever reason) AND that the man who marries this woman likewise is committing adultery?
Jesus specifically brings up the fact that the adultery is caused by the woman marrying again (unless she had not been free to marry the first man in the first place), and that the ‘second man’ is committing adultery along with her. Jesus does not say that a woman who does NOT remarry commits adultery.
Context, context, context.
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BlackFriar
Guest
Please. Lets not make this more knotted than it already is. The word “unlawful” is unhelpful. Nor is it helpful to retrospectively inject modern concepts of nullity here. Jesus more literally speaks of the dissolution of an originally lawful marriage.Whoever divorces a woman, unless HE has married her unlawfully --i.e., the situation for a decree of nullity
Yes this is a possibility - though, like other possible solutions, it is not clear nor conclusive.Note that Jesus immediately after the ‘maketh her to commit adultery’ follows with "and he that shall marry her that is put away committeth adultery.’
The fact that one is not personally aware of alternative traditional commentary, other than one that has been imbibed passively over the years from a Roman pulpit, does not make it so.What could be clearer (and apparently was perfectly clear for centuries).
On what scholarly basis do you make this universalised assertion?
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stpurl
Guest
Mind translating the last sentence a bit more clearly?
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