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For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me… Matthew 25:35

Divorce
Short Study, Mark 10:1-12, Matthew 19, and many more Scriptures.
Aug 1, 2010/Feb. 2013

This one is for you to THINK on.  See the Video for my 10 minute Teaching on Divorce!

Check your hermeneutic.  Your framework of interpreting the Bible.

You must process the passages below for you to interpret them for a Biblical Answer.
How you interpret?  System of interpretation?
Weight to OT?  More power for higher bar for spirit filled church today?  Concessions God makes like divorce for our sins after original intent in Genesis?  Understanding slave and captive wives in OT?

And Exegesis?  Drawing out?  Defining?  Passages, phrases, words?  Defining “naked cause” (“sexual indecency”)?  Understanding Pharisees questions in Matthew divorce “for any cause”?  Defining “desertion”?

Trying to understand God’s perspective on marriage and divorce in the OT… the old dispensation… to the 1^st Century mindset that brought the question to Jesus… .and then how Jesus altered, or raised the bar… while continuing to allow an exception… and then how Paul further clarified the exception to include more.

 

Summary.

OT texts.  To Jesus words.   To Paul’s.  And your Grace Theology.

 

I.  Jesus appeared as hard liner, no divorce.    Mark 10:1-12

And Pharisees came up and in order to test him asked, “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife?” ³He answered them, “What did Moses command you?” ⁴They said, “Moses allowed a man to write a certificate of divorce and to send her away.” ⁵And Jesus said to them, “Because of yourhardness of heart he wrote you this commandment. ⁶But from the beginning of creation, ‘God made them male and female.’ ⁷ ‘Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, ⁸and the two shall become one flesh.’ So they are no longer two but one flesh. ⁹ What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate.”
¹⁰And in the house the disciples asked him again about this matter. ¹¹And he said to them, “Whoever divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery against her, ¹²and if she divorces her husband and marries another, she commits adultery.”

II. But an exception in Matthew 19

“Is it lawful to divorce one’s wife for any cause?” ⁴He answered, “And I say to you: whoever divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, and marries another, commits adultery.”

It records Jesus answering the “any cause” which  seems to be referencing Deut. 24:1-4 “naked matter (cause)”  and   “any cause”  exception for “porneia” in Matthew 19:1-12

Consider the absolute astonishment of the disciples… if you can’t divorce here “for any cause”… the disciples conclude to never marry then has to be best.

 

III.  Genesis 2:24. 

²⁴ Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.

 

IV.  Exodus 21:7-11 a kind of Desertion?  ESV translation.

⁷“When a man sells his daughter as a slave, she shall not go out as the male slaves do. ⁸If she does not please her master, who has designated her for himself, then he shall let her be redeemed. He shall have no right to sell her to a foreign people, since he has broken faith with her. ⁹If he designates her for his son, he shall deal with her as with a daughter. ¹⁰If he takes another wife to himself, he shall not diminish her food, her clothing, or her marital rights. ¹¹And if he does not do these three things for her, she shall go out for nothing, without payment of money.

 

Important to consider if Paul might build from his base Jewish concept of not providing “food, clothing, and marital rights” in 1 Corinthians 7 concerning conjugal rights and desertion?

 

V.  Wow… Rights of an “unloved” slave wife?  Slaves had rights?

Deuteronomy 21:10-15

¹⁰“When you go out to war against your enemies, and the LORD your God gives them into your hand and you take them captive, ¹¹and you see among the captives a beautiful woman, and you desire to take her to be your wife, ¹²and you bring her home to your house, she shall shave her head and pare her nails. ¹³And she shall take off the clothes in which she was captured and shall remain in your house and lament her father and her mother a full month. After that you may go in to her and be her husband, and she shall be your wife. ¹⁴But if you no longer delight in her, you shall let her go where she wants. But you shall not sell her for money, nor shall you treat her as a slave, since you have humiliated her.

 

VI.  Deuteronomy 22:22 Adultery, capital punishment.

²² “If a man is found lying with the wife of another man, both of them shall die, the man who lay with the woman, and the woman. So you shall purge the evil from Israel.”

 

God gives Israel a certificate of divorce for unfaithfulness, Jeremiah below.

Joseph doesn’t want this for Mary so he determines to put her away quietly.

 

VII.  Deuteronomy 24:1-4.   “Naked matter”.

¹“When a man takes a wife and marries her, if then she finds no favor in his eyes because he has found a naked matter (“cause”, some “indecency”) in her, and he writes her a certificate of divorce and puts it in her hand and sends her out of his house, and she departs out of his house, ²and if she goes and becomes another man’s wife, ³and the latter man hates her and writes her a certificate of divorce and puts it in her hand and sends her out of his house, or if the latter man dies, who took her to be his wife, ⁴then her former husband, who sent her away, may not take her again to be his wife, after she has been defiled, for that is an abomination before the LORD. And you shall not bring sin upon the land that the LORD your God is giving you for an inheritance.”

 

Or a man might not want to press capital offense charges, maybe like Joseph.  Mary was pregnant… either she was “sexually immoral” / a “naked cause” or adultery was natural conclusion until angel spoke to him.

 

VIII.  Example Lesson, Hosea told to take an unfaithful wife, Gomer.

No divorce, no stoning here.

Hosea 1:2     ²When the LORD first spoke through Hosea, the LORD said to Hosea, “Go, take to yourself a wife of whoredom and have children of whoredom, for the land commits great whoredom by forsaking the LORD.”

Hosea 3:1     ¹And the LORD said to me, “Go again, love a woman who is loved by another man and is an adulteress, even as the LORD loves the children of Israel, though they turn to other gods and love cakes of raisins.”

 

IX.   625 BC to  Temple Destruction 586 BC.

Jeremiah 3:6-8 God sends Israel away with a certificate of divorce without “executing her”.

“Have you seen what she did, that faithless one, Israel, how she went up on every high hill and under every green tree, and there played the whore? ⁷And I thought, ‘After she has done all this she will return to me,’ but she did not return, and her treacherous sister Judah saw it. ⁸She saw that for all the adulteries of that faithless one, Israel, I had sent her away with a decree of divorce.

 

X.  Coming back from Babylon… while back in the land… they disobeyed still the OT mandates.  They married unbelieving non-Israelites.

Ezra 10:2-3

²And Shecaniah the son of Jehiel, of the sons of Elam, addressed Ezra: “We have broken faith with our God and have married foreign women from the peoples of the land, but even now there is hope for Israel in spite of this. ³Therefore let us make a covenant with our God to put away all these wives and their children, according to the counsel of my lord and of those who tremble at the commandment of our God, and let it be done according to the Law.

Ezra 10:16-17

¹⁶Then the returned exiles did so. Ezra the priest selected men, heads of fathers’ houses, according to their fathers’ houses, each of them designated by name. On the first day of the tenth month they sat down to examine the matter; ¹⁷and by the first day of the first month they had come to the end of all the men who had married foreign women.

Commanded to divorce in Babylonian return.

 

Paul will bring the fuller revelation and declare in 1 Corinthians 7 that if the “unbelieving spouse” is willing to stay with you, you are not to divorce them, see below.

 

XI.  Around  400 BC.  God is again frustrated with His people… what for…

Malachi 2:13-16

¹³And this second thing you do. You cover the LORD’s altar with tears, with weeping and groaning because he no longer regards the offering or accepts it with favor from your hand. ¹⁴But you say, “Why does he not?” Because the LORD was witness between you and the wife of your youth, to whom you have been faithless, though she is your companion and your wife by covenant. ¹⁵ Did he not make them one, with a portion of the Spirit in their union? And what was the one God seeking? Godly offspring. So guard yourselves in your spirit, and let none of you be faithless to the wife of your youth. ¹⁶“For the man who does not love his wife but divorces her, says the LORD, the God of Israel, covers his garment with violence, says the LORD of hosts. So guard yourselves in your spirit, and do not be faithless.”

Malachi God disdains divorce.

 

XII.  Hillelite rabbis:  By First Century Jewish thought the “naked matter” from Deut. 24, see above, “matter” or “Cause” and interpreted into “Divorce her ‘for any cause’”.

 

XIII.  This is What Jesus directly addresses in Matthew 19:3.

Shammaite rabbis interpreted it:  as for “immorality”.

 

XIV.  Jesus reiterates and goes back to Deut. 24:1-4… Matthew 19 divorce for indecency, a shameful thing…a “naked matter”… written in Greek word ‘porneia’ or sexual immorality and if marries another without reason commits adultery Greek ‘moichatai’, (Matt. 5:31-32).

 

XV.  Paul comes back in 1 Corin.7:5 don’t deprive of conjugal rights.

Do not deprive one another, except perhaps by agreement for a limited time, that you may devote yourselves to prayer; but then come together again, so that Satan may not tempt you because of your lack of self-control.

1 Corin. 7:10, wife don’t separate… but if she does (as if for obvious things for obvious reasons) stay unmarried and seek reconciliation.
¹⁰To the married I give this charge (not I, but the Lord): the wife should not separate from her husband ¹¹(but if she does, she should remain unmarried or else be reconciled to her husband), andthe husband should not divorce his wife.
¹²To the rest I say (I, not the Lord) that if any brother has a wife who is an unbeliever, and she consents to live with him, he should not divorce her. ¹³If any woman has a husband who is an unbeliever, and he consents to live with her, she should not divorce him. ¹⁴For the unbelieving husband is made holy because of his wife, and the unbelieving wife is made holy because of her husband. Otherwise your children would be unclean, but as it is, they are holy. ¹⁵But if the unbelieving partner separates, let it be so. In such cases the brother or sister is not enslaved. God has called you to peace. ¹⁶For how do you know, wife, whether you will save your husband? Or how do you know, husband, whether you will save your wife?

1 Corin. 7:12ff, stay with unbeliever if the unbeliever is willing.

 

Opposite of Ezra 9 and 10, yet understood as a fuller more complete revelation of God’s will.

 

XVI.  Remarry?  1 Cor. 7:15  If unbelieving partner separates… deserts…  then “not enslaved”.  What does that mean?  Not bound?

Not bound in marriage I think.  For if he left, what else could it mean… she is not enslaved to follow but can remain unmarried and not chase him.  She (he) is free to marry again.  In first Century to think a single mother has good chance in life is unrealistic.  It probably means can remarry.

Is he addressing maybe Exodus 21:7-11, is it in his mind, basic needs not met… and calling it “desertion”?

What about today.. basic needs of food, clothing, and conjugal rights?  How liberal will you interpret this?  If someone isn’t providing this can you leave, separate?

 

XVI.  Modern day and complications, how far can you stretch “desertion”?    Drugs, abuse verbal – sexual – physical, insanity, criminal, prison, child safety?

Abuse, I think is fair to say is extreme neglect, it’s worse than neglect, it’s harm?  But how liberal will you be with things like verbal abuse?  Just trying to get your way?
XVII.  Ultimate goal.  Matt. 18 forgive 70 x 7 times.

If even a Christian commits adultery, in Heaven we will be reconciled.  Can you do it here?

Ultimately, God seeks healing, reconciliation, forgiveness, is this possible in your pursuit of this answer?

How to Choose a Bible Version with Pics in Simplified PDF click here then one more time

Text version of above PDF below.

Edit July 26, 2012 11am
“How to Choose a Bible Version”
By Robert L. Thomas

This is a book summary to condense the material for Twelve Mile Creek Church. Approximately 98% of the thoughts, research, work, and words are copied from Robert Thomas’ book. Please read the book for greater detail. This is for the sole purpose of helping the local church better understand Bible versions. Some additional information has been included.

Textual Basis of Bible Translations

Early “Texts” can be small fragments, incomplete letters, mostly complete letters, complete letters, multiple letters found together, and complete NT/OT manuscripts. Thousands of “texts” exist for the New Testament. Much much less for the OT.

The earliest ancient translations from the Greek NT are in three languages:
Syriac 150AD, Coptic 200AD, and Latin 150AD. These can be researched and used to compare against Greek Texts but would be for another study, and are not contained in this paper.

——–

*The Original Greek New Testament Does Not Still Exist*
Copies of the original are generally categorized into regions forming families.
There are thousands upon thousands of copies from copies within the 4 family groups.

The 4 Text Types or Families for the Greek New Testament are:
1-Alexandria, Africa 2-Byzantine, Turkey 3-Caesarea, Middle East 4-Western, Italy

Alexandrian, oldest Greek texts follow this family, might be oldest since Egypt’s geographic/topographic/climatic conditions are best suited for preserving manuscripts, Westcott and Hort Greek NT based off these, so is Nestle-Aland Greek NT, most English Translations since 1900’s used this family since many like the older manuscripts. Used Greek upper case letters called uncials, mostly from 1st to 9th Century. Usually shorter and less paraphrased.

Byzantine, also called the Majority Text, since a majority of the preserved surviving manuscripts are from this family, most numerous, some think as proof that these are the most reliable, but they are not the oldest, thus others disagree about them as being the most reliable. Main family used for the Textus Receptus by Erasmus. Byzantine texts seem fuller, more complete, utilizing other scriptures to fill out, this seems to support the idea that these are indeed later manuscripts. Used Greek lower case called minuscules, mostly from 9th Century on. Usually longer and paraphrased.

Caesarean, mildly paraphrastic in amount somewhere between the shorter Alexandrian and longer Western texts. No texts considered purely Caesarean but with a mixture of Byzantine. Some argue it’s not a separate text type.

Western, an Old Text type which the Latin versions are derived from. Usually longer, frequently paraphrased, inserted, and omitted words to make for a smoother reading. Fewer manuscripts, but date from the earliest to very late.

Techniques Used in Bible Translations

1) Formal Equivalence (formal correspondence)
Literal translation.
For accuracy or faithfulness to the original text. Seeks as close a match between the receptor language and the original language.

2) Dynamic Equivalence (functional equivalence)
Free translation, paraphrase, thought for thought.
For readability, convey the thought of the original language. Desire is to produce an effect on the reader in the receptor language equivalent to what was produced on the reader in the original language.

English Translations Historical Backgrounds

Jerome’s Latin Vulgate
380AD Hebrew Greek Translation into Common Latin, known as the Latin Vulgate. Revision of older Latin translations, using mostly Alexandrian texts for the Gospels and Western texts for the remaining NT.

John Wycliffe
1380sAD Sponsored translation of the Latin Vulgate into English.

Erasmus of Rotterdam
1516AD Dutch Christian humanist created the Greek New Testament from mainly Byzantine texts… also created a Latin New Testament at the same time.
This Greek NT was used by Martin Luther to translate NT into German. Subsequent versions of Eramus’s Greek NT became known as the “Textus Receptus”.

William Tyndale
Translated Erasmus’ Greek translation of New Testament into English in 1526.
Also parts of the OT.

King James Version (1611)
KJ took throne in 1603. 90-92% of the KJV is still from the work of William Tyndale. There were 50 scholars, divided into 2 teams on the OT, 3 teams on the NT, and 1 team on the Apocrypha. Interpreted the Hebrew and Greek. Also made use of Jewish and Catholic scholars. Based off Textus Receptus of the Byzantine texts.
For use of Churches in England. Without marginal notes. The first Bible printed in the USA, in USA it was printed without the Apocrypha.
Values staying close to the original text. Conservative bias. Outdated English. Textual basis on Byzantine family.

English Revised Version (1881-85)
Westcott and Hort key 2 of the NT 4 translators. These 2 preferred the Alexandrian text family and just days prior finished their own Greek NT.

American Standard Version (1901)
The ERV counterpart created due to variances in English spoken across the Atlantic. ‘Strict literalism’ (formal equivalence), thus English is choppy, long sentences with commas, syntax similar to Greek (syntax is word order, structure, framework of sentences.)
Better textual basis of manuscripts. Close to original text translation. Evangelical bias. Outdated English.

Revised Standard Version (1937-1952)
Revision of ASV. 32 scholars, blessed by Protestants, Catholics, and Eastern Orthodox.
Like ASV in textual basis. Formal equivalence. Liberal bias.

New American Standard Bible (1963-1971)
Revision of ASV. 68 more conservative scholars/pastors than RSV.
Word-for-word correspondence.
Great textual basis. Formal equivalence. Conservative bias. Not smooth English style.

New King James Version (1979-1982)
119 translators from protestant denominations.

The New Revised Standard Version (1974-1989)
Less formal, elimination of ‘sex-biased’ language for inclusive gender language.
Great textual basis. Dynamic equivalence. Gender neutral. Pleasing English style. Liberal bias.

The New American Standard Bible Updated (1995)
Easier to read, not as literal as the 1963-71 ASV edition.

English Standard Version (2001)
A revision of the RSV (1971) by a team of 14 men of the Translation Oversight Committee. Assisted by 50 Translation Review Scholars and another 50 on an Advisory Council. All were evangelical in theology.
Word-for-word rather than thought-for-thought translation philosophy.
Called ‘essentially literal’ allowing for more deviation than the ASV (1901) which was ‘strict literalism’. Utilized the Alexandrian family of manuscripts.
Great textual basis. Essentially literal translation. Conservative bias. Pleasing English style.

Outside the Tyndale Philosophy and Family of Translations
Meaning the Earlier English Translations were not utilized as the basis of the translation.
These Are the More Freer Translations:

The New World Translation (1950, 1961)
The Watchtower Bible and Tract Society Inc., translation from the Greek and Hebrew. Unorthodox Jehovah Witness subjectivities.

The Amplified Bible (1958, 1965)
By Francis E. Siewert, Zondervan Publishing, expansive non literal renderings.

The Good News Bible (Today’s English Version) (1966, 1976)
The American Bible Society’s showpiece for a philosophy of translation called “dynamic equivalence” developed by Eugene Nida. He attempted to provide a theoretical basis for what many English translations were already doing. One scholar for the NT and 7 for the OT.

The Living Bible (1971)
One author using the ASV as basis. A conservative who founded the Tyndale Publishing Company. Billy Graham promoted and in 1974 46% of all Bible sales in the USA.

The New Living Translation (1996)
Revised the Living Bible, with 90 translators, using Hebrew and Greek texts, a new ‘dynamic-equivalence’ translation from protestants and evangelicals, use of gender-neutral terminology.

The New International Version (A Contemporary Translation) (1973, 1978)
An evangelical effort of 110 scholars from many countries, split into 20 teams, with a translator, co-translator, two consultants, and English stylist in each team. Zondervan publishing, not a revision of an earlier work, wanted to be the standard among evangelicals.
Great textual basis, more eclectic than others. Evangelical bias. Easy to read. Dynamic equivalence.

The Message (1993)
By Eugene Peterson, to everyday English, a paraphrase, Peterson’s own interpretations rather than what the Greek text says, capturing idiomatic street language at the cost of accuracy. For the casual popular reader.

Theological Bias in Bible Translations

1) General Knowledge. If the translations is sanctioned, financed, and/or endorsed say by: The Catholic Church, Evangelicals, Liberal Schools, Reformed or Arminians, etc.
2) The Introductory Statements. Like in the inspiration of Scripture, the school of translators, one translator or 100 translators.
3) The Study Notes. Can be heavily Calvinistic, or Pre-millennial, or Ecclesiological.
4) The Words. OT prophesy about a ‘young girl’ or ‘virgin’ giving birth. Prophesy dealing with Israel and Messiah. Tongues as a foreign language unknown or a heavenly spiritual language. Therefore as causal or resulting.

Bibliology (Biblical Inspiration)
Moffatt felt freed from the influence of the theory of verbal inspiration in 1913. The NASB foreword reads “the words of Scripture as originally penned in the Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek were inspired by God”. The NKJV reads “a verbal and plenary inspiration of Scripture, and in the inerrancy of the original autographs.” The RSV was more liberal in orientation yet produced a literal translation. The NIV was more evangelical with a belief in the “full authority and complete trustworthiness of the Scriptures” yet produced a dynamic equivalent translation.
The RSV diminishes possible OT fulfillments of prophesy as for example: Ps. 45:6a “Your divine throne endures for ever and ever.” and Hebrews 1:8a “Thy throne, O God, is for ever and ever.” Could legitimately be written exactly the same, yet the RSV diminishes fulfillment with other optional readings. The NASB and ESV translate both passages exactly the same.
Gender-neutral translation views can effect the translation. Some translations interpret the general “brothers” to “brothers and sisters” when it appears appropriate.

Christology
Translating Jesus Christ as God. In Romans 9:5 since punctuation didn’t exist in the early Greek, some have clearly separated Christ from God like the NAB, RSV and others, and some have kept Christ as God affirming his deity like the KJV, ASV, NASB, ESV, NIV, NRSV.
In Acts 20:28 the KJV, NKJV, NASB, ESV, NIV read “the church of God (Theos) which he purchased with his own blood”… but the RSV reads “the church of the Lord…” avoiding a statement of the deity of the Son. The Greek word here is Theos which is God, while Kurious is the Greek word for Lord, Theos is what appears in the Greek text.
The NRSV reads “the church of God that he obtained with the blood of his own Son”, also avoiding deity. “That he obtained” is added instead of the simple ‘which’ translation.
The RSV and NRSV translate Is. 7:14 as “young woman” in failure to relate it to Matt. 1:23 the ‘virgin’.

Pneumatology (The Holy Spirit)
Translating the word for “tongue” in 1 Cor. 14 as tongue in NASB, ESV, RSV and others is potentially non-committal. The NIV footnotes tongues as ‘other languages’ or ‘unknown languages’.

Soteriology (Salvation)
Calvinistic influences with Hebrews 6:6 translated in the KJV, RSV, ESV, NIV as “if they fall away” but for Arminian influences “while they recrucify the Son of God” making it more temporal instead of the causal “because”… to avoid a Calvinistic “once lost always lost” destination as recorded in the NASB, NIV, some in footnotes.
In Acts 13:48 KJV, NIV, NEB, NRSV, have “destined for eternal life” while others might have “as wanted” added.

Ecclesiology (The Church)
In Matt. 16:18 the NASB an approved Roman Catholic translation, Peter is the “Rock” upon which the new Israel (the Church) is to be built, moving towards the theology of the papacy. Others with protestant influences preferring the “rock”.

Quick Repeat Concluding Summaries of Popular Translations

KJV
Values staying close to the original text. Conservative bias. Outdated English. Textual basis on Byzantine family.

ASV
Better textual basis of manuscripts. Close to original text translation. Evangelical bias. Outdated English.

RSV
Like ASV in textual basis. Formal equivalence. Liberal bias.

NASB
Great textual basis. Formal equivalence. Conservative bias. Not smooth English style.

NRSV
Great textual basis. Dynamic equivalence. Gender neutral. Pleasing English style. Liberal bias.

ESV
Great textual basis. Essentially literal translation. Conservative bias. Pleasing English style.

NIV
Great textual basis, more eclectic than others. Evangelical bias. Easy to read. Dynamic equivalence.