From: heb_roots_chr@mail.geocities.com
Sent: Wednesday, October 8, 1997 11:07 PM
To: Hebraic Heritage Newsgroup
Subject: Yeshua's Halacha on Divorce
From James Trimm
To: heb_roots_chr@geocities.com
Subject: Yeshua's Halacha on Divorce
My thoughts Halacha on Divorce:
The Torah passage in question is:
When a man takes a wife and marries her, and it happens
that she finds no favor in his eyes because he has found
some unclean matter in her, and he writes her a bill of
divorcement, puts it in her hand, and sends her out of his
house,...
(Dt. 24:1)
Yeshua gives his halacha on this issue in:
Mt. 5:31-32 & Mt. 19:3-9 = Mk. 10:2-9 = Lk. 16:18
Paul's Halacha on the issue is in:
Rom. 7:2-3 & 1Cor. 7:10-17
Now for the purpose of keeping everything orderly I will begin by quoting
the material as it appears in the Greek NT text. I will then suggest
modifications based on the Semitic versions.
To begin with lets examine Mt. 5:31-32:
Furthermore it has been said,
Whoever divorces his wife,
let him give her a bill of divorcement. (Dt. 24:1).
But I say to you:
that whoever divorces his wife for any reason except sexual
immorality causes her to commit adultry,
and whoever marries a woman who is divorced commits
adultry.
Now the Hebrew and Aramaic text of this passage is ambiguous and is
misrendered by the Greek to say "causes her to commit adultry" the
Semitic text is better translated "does to her adultry." That it is the
man not the wife who commits the adultry is clear from the parallel
passages in Mt. 19:9; Mk. 10:11 & Lk. 16:18. (see also my book THE
SEMITIC ORIGIN OF THE NEW TESTAMENT p. 50)
Yeshua presents his case for these precepts in more detail in Mt. 19:3-9
= Mk. 10:2-9 = Lk. 16:18. Here Yeshua shows how these precepts are
drawn from a Yalemmedenu Homiletic Midrash on Gen. 2:24 &
Deut. 24:1. The keywords for the midrash are: "man"; "put away"
and "wife." The Midrash takes the following format:
Question/dialog:
19:3 The Pharisees also came to him, testing him, and saying
to him: "Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for
any reason?"
Initial passages:
19:4 And he answered and said to them: "Have you not read
that he who made them at the beginning, 'made them
male and female' (Gen. 1:27)
19:5 And said, 'For this reason a man shall leave his father
and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two
shall become one flesh' (Gen. 2:24)
Exposition:
19:6 So then, they are no longer two but one flesh. Therefore
what God has joined together let no man seperate."
Further question/second text:
19:7 They said to him, "Why then did Moses command to give
a certificate of divorce, and to put her away?"
Exposition:
19:8 He said to them, "Moses, because of the hardness of your
hearts, permitted you to divorce your wives, but from the
beginning it was not so.
19:9 And I say to you,
whoever divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality,
and marries another, commits adultry.
and whoever marries her who is divorced commits
adultry.
Yeshua's midrash is very relevant to first century Jewish halachic
debate on this issue. Yeshua's use of Gen. 1:27 to prove his halachic
position is paralled in the Dead Sea Scrolls:
...they are caught in two traps: fornication, by taking two wives
in their lifetimes although the principle of creation is:
"male and female He created them."
(Dam. Doc. Col. 4 line 20 thru Col. 5 line 1)
Even more significant is Yeshua's interpretation of Deut. 24:1. In the
first century a major debate was ongoing as to the meaning of the words
for "uncleaen matter" in this text. THe debate is recorded in the
Mishna as follows:
The House of Shamai say, "A man should divorce his wife
only because he has found grounds for it in unchastity,
since it is said, "Because he has found in her an unclean
matter in anything (Dt. 24:1)"
And the House of Hillel say, "Even if she spoiled his dish,
since it is said, "Because he has found in her an unclean
matter in anything (Dt. 24:1)"
Rabbi Akiba says, "Even if he found someone else prettier
than she, since it is said, "And it shall be if she find no favor
in his eyes (Dt. 24:1)"
(m.Gittin 9:10)
The controversy surrounded the ambiguity of the phrase "matter of
uncleanness." This phrase in Hebrew can be taken literally, or can be
taken as an idiomatic expresion for fornication. Yeshua, who is usually
a Hillelian teacher, here agrees with the strict interpretation of the
school of Shamai. The looser interpretation of Hillel prevailed in
Rabbinic Judaism.
Now lets examine Yeshua's position. Yeshua uses Gen. 1:27 & 2:24 to
argue for the stricter interpretation of "unclean matter" in Deut. 24:1.
In Wt. 19:8 Yeshua makes an important observation. Deut 24:1 is not
presented in the Torah as the will of God. A carefull reading of Deut.
24:1-4 shows that 24:1 is an incidental stetement in a larger Law which
deals with remarraige of the divorced. However 24:1 says:
WHEN a man takes a wife... AND IT HAPPENS that she find
no favor in his eyes...
Deut. 24:1 simply says matter of factly, "when [divorce] happens" and
then discusses the issue of God's Torah on remarraige. Yeshua points
out that this is YHWH's recognition of man's will on the subject and not
God's will itself, which he finds in Gen. 1:27 & 2:24. All of this he
uses to argue for the strictest interpretation of "unclean matter" in
Deut. 24:1.
Now Yeshua draws two halachot from his midrash in Mt. 19:9:
[1] whoever divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality,
and marries another, commits adultry.
[2] and whoever marries her who is divorced commits
adultry.
Now the second of these is mistranslated in the Greek of Mark 10:12 to
say "and if a woman dovorces her husband..." The Aramaic is better read
and if a woman is divorced by her husband (see my book THE SEMITIC
ORIGIN OF THE NEW TESTAMENT p. 52) Under the halacha of the first
century a woman could not divorce her husband for any reason (see
Josephus; Antiquities 15:7:10; see also Rom. 7:2 & 1Cor. 7:10, 39).
Before closing I should add that the Shem Tob text of Mt. 5:32 reads
very differently with:
And I say to you that everyone who leaves his wife is to
give her a bill of divorcement. But concerning adultry,
he is the one who commits adultry and he who takes her
commits adultry.
However the Shem Tob version of the midrash in Mt. 19:3-9 does
not differ in any important ways from our other versions.
OK that is it for my observations on Yeshua's halacha in the issue of
divorce.
James Scott Trimm
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