Scripture translation question

[runandsew]

Well, I do not see where you get this assumption that this is exactly what He means here. With the same success I can say that He really meant adultery here, and you know there are multiple verses in the OT against the sin of adultery. Jesus Himself did not make that allusion, by saying that He meant exactly this we put OUR DESIRED MEANING into His words.

And too, I think I mentioned it already, Leviticus is talking about unlawful sexual relations. Jews (who were Jesus’ audience) knew those laws. And I can assume such incestous relations could happen in the Jewish society occasionally, still, it would probably be more of a “taken over by passion” thing. Jesus is talking about divorce - that is when people ARE OFFICIALLY MARRIED (according to all of the Jewish traditions and requirements of the time), and then separate/divorce. Honestly, do you think it is very much likely that an official marriage (which is not something secret, but known and open to the public) could have taken place in the Jewish society which had known the law (Leviticus which you mentioned)? And you know Jews - they took pride in their origin and kept their genealogies as something sacred, held onto them, kept the records. How easy would it be for two people who are related to each other to hide their ancestries and somehow get married publicly and live together in the Jewish community? Why would Jesus all of a sudden talk about incestous MARRIAGES (not just RELATIONS - note the difference) as if it was something common among them? I think Jesus’ listeners did not even have this idea in their mind when they heard Jesus words.

Well, I got it from the Navarre Bible, and listening to Scott Hahn, but they could be wrong in their thinking.

What Jesus could have been saying is that you can only divorce if the marrriage is unlawful, and you may not remarry for any reason.
This would have been in keeping with his earlier statement concerning marriage in Genesis, and the two become one flesh.

The types of relationships mentioned in Leviticus would have also been unlawful marriages, just like King Herod’s marriage to his brothers wife which would have been the relationship listed last in my earlier post of Leviticus.

When Jesus is asked about divorce, it was in the land beyond the Jordan, this is the same area where John the Baptist was arrested and beheaded for confronting King Herod about his marriage to his brothers wife. The Pharisees might have been trying to trap Jesus into saying something about divorce that would have also gotten him arrested by Herod, just like John the Baptist.
Keeping the issue of King Herod in mind, then one can deduct that Jesus was referring to the passages in Leviticus concerning these forbidened relationships. And adultry would not have been the point Jesus was trying to make here.

Also all of the other passages of Jesus on the subject of divorce do not give this exception of pornea, they just forbid divorce and remarriage. If your remarry, then you commit adultry, period.

(The passage in Leviticus list the different types of Pornea which were forbidden. There are other passages in the old testament that list them also, but I just wrote the one that was listed in the commentary.)

 

[mercygate]

P.S. I used the Revised Standard Version translation here.

Showing impeccable respect for the Greek original, of which the RSV is the closest approximation in English.

 

[Mystic]

The types of relationships mentioned in Leviticus would have also been unlawful marriages, just like King Herod’s marriage to his brothers wife which would have been the relationship listed last in my earlier post of Leviticus.

When Jesus is asked about divorce, it was in the land beyond the Jordan, this is the same area where John the Baptist was arrested and beheaded for confronting King Herod about his marriage to his brothers wife. The Pharisees might have been trying to trap Jesus into saying something about divorce that would have also gotten him arrested by Herod, just like John the Baptist.
Keeping the issue of King Herod in mind, then one can deduct that Jesus was referring to the passages in Leviticus concerning these forbidened relationships. And adultry would not have been the point Jesus was trying to make here.

Well, in the first occasion Jesus talks about this (Matthew 5:32) it was on the Mount of Beatitudes near the See of Galilee, so it is not really associated with John the Baptist and his story with King Herod. Also about Herod, as you know from history he was not like a real Jewish king, his origin was not pure Jewish (his father was an Edomite), and he was more of a Roman political figure than someone serving the interests of his people, especially religious interests. So he was resented by the Jews, not looked up to.

Here in the context Jesus is opposing the old law to the new law that He is about to establsh. And the way He is talking about the old law is such that it is presumably followed and fulfilled perfectly, and that’s the point He is making here - even if they follow all of those old rules and regulations, still it is not what is ultimately expected from them. So talking about marriage and divorce in this context, I do not think He would talk about something messed up and invalid in the first place, I doubt it that He would even call it “marriage”. He considers a normal situation where a man and a woman are legally and validly married to each other.

Anyways, most of the words we operate with have multiple meanings. Somehow we are able to understand each other and pick the right meaning out of many, the most common and obvious one. What idea first comes to your mind when you hear worlds like “if a man divorces his wife except for the cause of fornication”? Even though “fornication” can mean so many things, somehow you automatically associate it with something most common that seems to be on the surface in this case. What do you think was the most common and obvious meaning of these words to the people who heard Jesus? And here in Mtt 5 Jesus is talking to the crowds of people, not the select few using some kind of obscure language. He used plain common words in their common meaning and expected people to understand it. To see a different meaning in it somehow you have to “really try hard”, you know what I mean. It is just not on the surface. You have to “stretch” it to get this other meaning, and I do not think it is right.

 

[mirandajb]

Hello all,

This seems important to me because, if translated right, it means that Jesus gives the permission to divorce if the spouse has been unfaithful. Can someone comment on that?

Thank you.

Spot on. During Jesus’ time women (who had not been married before) had to be virgins. Some apparently were not and ‘deceived’ the husband that they were. I remember reading somewhere in the OT but can’t provide references off hand. Under those grounds, divorce was permitted. God bless.

 

[runandsew]

Deu 24:1
"When a man takes a wife and marries her, if then she finds no favor in his eyes because he has found some indecency in her, and he writes her a bill of divorce and puts it in her hand and sends her out of his house, and she departs out of his house,

I am not saying that it couldn’t be adultery that Jesus was given the acception to, but this passage from Deuteronomy says “found some indecency in her”.
Now though this could mean adultery, it could also mean some other reason that would have made the marriage unlawful, because if the husband had known this before the marriage, he would not have married her.

That is what annulment is all about, for some reason the marriage was unlawful, if one of the married couple had known about this thing beforehand, the marriage would not have taken place.

 

[runandsew]

1 Corinthians 5
It is reported commonly [that there is] fornication among you, and such fornication (Pornea) as is not so much as named among the Gentiles, that one should have his father’s wife. (KJV)

Pornea is also used to describe St. Paul’s reference to an unlawful marriage between a Christian and his dead father’s wife in this passage.

Again, I would say that even though the exception in Matthew 19 could be referring to adultery, it could also be referring to an unlawful marriage, just like Paul is mentioning here, or like in Deuteronomy in my previous post.

And as for the response of the disciples saying “they why should one marry”, and you wrote

Well, it does make sense since whereas before a man could divorce his wife simply because he got tired of her, or his passion for her died, or she could not have more children for him, or he found someone else more attractive, etc etc, now Jesus is saying “This is it, guys. You marry a woman, and it is for life!” (Unless it is the wife that chooses to destroy the marriage).

That (divorce for any reason) was not the only view of divorce at that time, there were two views, the other view being that you could divorce only for adultery, so the disciples would not have been shocked to hear this view, and replied the way they did when they said “then why even get married.”

No, I say that Jesus said that once married, always married.
No Divorce and remarriage unless the marriage was unlawful in the first place.
This message from our Lord would led the disciples to respond as they did.

 

[mirandajb]

Deu 24:1
"When a man takes a wife and marries her, if then she finds no favor in his eyes because he has found some indecency in her, and he writes her a bill of divorce and puts it in her hand and sends her out of his house, and she departs out of his house,

I am not saying that it couldn’t be adultery that Jesus was given the acception to, but this passage from Deuteronomy says “found some indecency in her”.
Now though this could mean adultery, it could also mean some other reason that would have made the marriage unlawful, because if the husband had known this before the marriage, he would not have married her.

That is what annulment is all about, for some reason the marriage was unlawful, if one of the married couple had known about this thing beforehand, the marriage would not have taken place.

God bless. That was the passage that I was looking for. I share with your thoughts and wish that some of our clergy as well as our Protestant brothers shared the same sentiments about divorce.

 

[Mystic]

Deu 24:1
"When a man takes a wife and marries her, if then she finds no favor in his eyes because he has found some indecency in her, and he writes her a bill of divorce and puts it in her hand and sends her out of his house, and she departs out of his house,

I am not saying that it couldn’t be adultery that Jesus was given the acception to, but this passage from Deuteronomy says “found some indecency in her”.
Now though this could mean adultery, it could also mean some other reason that would have made the marriage unlawful, because if the husband had known this before the marriage, he would not have married her.

That is what annulment is all about, for some reason the marriage was unlawful, if one of the married couple had known about this thing beforehand, the marriage would not have taken place.

Well, I just do not want to get into another dispute over translation of this particular passage in Deut. 24:1, actually, I just checked the RSV, and there is says “Suppose a man has taken a wife and consummated the marriage; but she has not pleased him and he has found some impropriety of which to accuse her; he has therefore made out a writ of divorce for her and handed it to her and then dismissed her from his house” - you see a different translation here. If you look at Deut. 22:22 (actually, v.20-21 also), you will see that God commanded to put fornicators and adulterers to death, how come just a few verses below God is saying to send an adulterous woman away (to the point where she can go ahead and marry another man)? For this reason I do not believe “some indecency” could be adultery, it was just something else that was displeasing to the husband.

 

[MASTERK_00]

bibles are man made and with there own opinions, gospel of man not god

 

[Jerry-Jet]

“What God has joined together let No Man put assunder.”

What part of “No Man” do protestants not understand?

What part of God “joining together” do they not understand?

How could God ever “Join together” two people if such a union would constitute an invalid marriage?

If Protestants really believed Jesus they would know that divorce is Always wrong.

The only thing that could be in doubt would be if God truely joined two together.

That is not for civil government to ascertain in a sacramental sense–the only entity that can judge that here and now on Earth is the Catholic Church.

Protestants who don’t believe that are no different than Henry VIII.

 

[guanophore]

Hello all,

I have been reading through another post here and came across a discussion (or rather advice someone was giving) on marriage and divorce. It was said that a person cannot divorce even in the case where the other spouse has been unfaithul. It automatically made me think of a verse where Jesus was teaching on the issue of marriage and divorce. My translation of the Bible (Russian Orthodox), Matthew 19:9 literally says this: “Whoever divorces a woman NOT FOR THE REASON OF ADULTERY and marries another, commits adultery himself, and the one who marries a divorced woman commits adultery”. So I went for the English version of this verse in the Catholic translations, and here is what I found:
New American Bible: “I say to you, whoever divorces his wife (UNLESS THE MARRIAGE IS UNLAWFUL) and marries another commits adultery.”
The Jerusalem Bible: "Now I say this to you: anyone who divorces his wife - I AM NOT SPEAKING OF AN ILLICIT MARRIAGE - and marries another, is guilty of adultery.’

Well, I did not stop there and checked the Greek tranlsation in which the New Testament was originally written, here is what it says (in the English transliteration): “legw de umin oti os an apolush thn gunaika autou mh epi PORNEIA kai gamhsh allhn moicatai.” Then I also went to the Latin Vulgate Bible to check the same verse, here is what it says there: “dico autem vobis quia quicumque dimiserit uxorem suam nisi ob FORNICATIONEM et aliam duxerit moechatur et qui dimissam duxerit moechatur”.

I do not profess to be a great scholar, but even those who did not take any Greek or Latin classes can recognize the words PORNEA and FORNICATION (Greek and Latin respectively), and see that you have to stretch it waaaay too far to get the current Catholic tranlsations of UNLAWFUL or ILLICIT MARRIAGE. The word “marriage” is not even used there in the original text, and “pornea” or “fornication” are words used in the Bible to describe sexual sins (sex outside of marriage, that is adultury or premarital sex would fall under this category). So my Russian translation seems to convey the original meaning just right: “Whoever divorces a woman NOT FOR THE REASON OF HAVING SEX OUTSIDE OF MARRIAGE (in other words, adultery), commits adultery himself.”

This seems important to me because, if translated right, it means that Jesus gives the permission to divorce if the spouse has been unfaithful. Can someone comment on that?

Thank you.

I think we need to be careful not to place our modern day understanding of the words porneo and fornication into the ancient text. The ancients would never have dreamed of our current state of affairs. That being said, one must take into account the other scriptures along with this one. For example:

Matt 5:31-32
32 But I say to you that whoever divorces his wife for any reason except sexual immorality causes her to commit adultery; and whoever marries a woman who is divorced commits adultery."

and

1 Cor 7:10-11

Now to the married I command, yet not I but the Lord: A wife is not to depart from her husband. 11 But even if she does depart, let her remain unmarried or be reconciled to her husband. And a husband is not to divorce his wife."

In the eyes of God, they are still husband and wife, even if they are civilly divorced or separated.

Annulments are not based on whatever heinous behaviors have occured after marriage, but on the criteria present at the beginning, when the vows were made. It is true that later behavior can point to an invalid foundation, but not always.