There is an interesting phenomenon described as "the butterfly effect" that says that some things are very sensitive to influence by other things, and a small change at one place can sometimes result in large differences somewhere else, later on. And, on a practical note, the implication is that, sometimes, when you mess with something, you REALLY mess with the future in ways you have no idea how much...
I've studied this whole issue of divorce and remarriage for over a year now in great depth. There is a lot I've learned that I had no idea about before. I had previously read from most of the popular books on the subject - Craig S. Keener, Jay Adams, Guy Duty, and others. Something that never seemed to get much coverage from any of the popular authors on the subject is the history of the manuscripts from which we get our bibles. And I think this is extremely important.
You see, when translators work going from Greek to English, they sometimes have to translate what the words say, sometimes what the meaning is, and sometimes they have to choose one over the other. And many of these passages dealing with divorce and remarriage are subject to this kind of decision-making in translation. But the translators typically learn the theology of divorce and remarriage from English texts before they learn to understand Greek, and so they often lean on tradition and predetermined theology for translation as much as they do the actual Greek manuscripts when push comes to shove.
But what if there was a wrinkle in the history of the transmission of the manuscripts? You can go to a link for this history, which is both interesting and disturbing:
A look at what Erasmus did to the text of Matthew 19:9
The short take on it is this, though. Erasmus was a humanist theologian in the Catholic church who justified his idea, contrary to Catholic theology, that divorce should be allowed in some circumstances. And it is this Erasmus who was responsible, in his day, for coming up with the Greek New Testament from which Calvin, Luther and others did their work. They at first praised him for his great work on this new Greek new testament, but later wrote him off as a pervert and a pedophile. But in the meantime, they bought into his manuscript where he had introduced a single word into Matthew 19:9 - the Greek word "ei" which changes the meaning of Matthew 19:9 completely.
With this change, the passage reads, "anyone who divorces his wife, except for fornication, and marries another, commits adultery." Without this change, the passage reads, "anyone who divorces his wife, even if for fornication, and marries another, commits adultery."
Later editions of our greek manuscripts have since had this change corrected, and yet our modern translations still translate this passage as if the "ei" is in there.
If the greek of the passage is considered with the "extra" word, it would seem to say in Matthew, "anyone who divorces his wife, except for pornea, and marries another, commits adultery." Without the extra word, a clearer rendering of the text into English might well be "anyone who divorces his wife (not speaking of pornea here) and marries another, commits adultery." The question then becomes, "what does pornea here mean?" It can mean adultery, and is at times used this way, but in the context, it might be just as reasonable to consider that Jesus was referring to any number of things besides adultery (especially since he used the word adultery in the same sentence). I would suggest, in keeping with the otherwise consistent interpretation of all the other texts in the new testament, he might be referring to marriages considered invalid in God's eyes - and which therefore should be undone because they never were lawful in His eyes. It's a thought....
This might be a fair understanding, since in Matthew's telling of the story, the gospel writer is writing to Jews, and they would have been familiar with the Shammai-Hillel debate about the reason for divorce, which is why Matthew includes, "is it wrong to divorce for every and any reason." And I believe that Jesus was saying "anyone who divorces (except where the divorce would be required because of an 'uncleanness' - pornea - that violates the law of marriage because it was never a legitimate marriage in the first place) and marries another enters into a state of adultery...."
There is a place for tradition, I know. But there is also something to be said for stating what is true, no matter how painful it is. After looking at what Matthew emphasized to the Jews, and Mark emphasized to the gentiles, what I believe Jesus was saying was this: "anyone who divorces his wife (unless it was an illegitimate marriage in the first place, in which case it should be undone) and marries another, commits adultery." This is essentially the same as what he says in Mark 10. Any legitimate marriage is not undone by divorce; though the laws might support it, the covenant is still in place, which is why Jesus calls the next marriage an ongoing condition of adultery.
So what happened after Erasmus introduced the "ei"? Luther eventually wrote Erasmus off as dangerous, the manuscripts have been corrected so that they no longer show this mistake. But it was translated "except for fornication" in the KJV based on this error deliberately planted in the greek manuscript at the time. And now, who can question the KJV?
OK. Now, having said that, I have to state the reasons for why the opinion I just spouted off should be taken with a grain of salt. It's interesting to look at these passages and to try to determine what Jesus was speaking about; but it's also helpful (perhaps, anyway) to look at how the early church interpreted the Matthean exception. And if you look here,
A Look at the Historical Views on Divorce and Remarriage in the Early Church
You will see the following: the Shepherd of Hermas (A.D. 90) taught that if a husband had a wife committing adultery, he was required to divorce her, as a means of disciplining the wayward wife, but also required not to remarry, as he needed to remain single so as to take her back as his wife if she repented of the adultery; Clement of Alexandria, in A.D. 208, wrote that "if a man divorces his wife, except for adultery" he causes her to commit adultery. But he refers to the divorce as a separation, not that it ended the marriage - more of a space, for discipline. And he also said that anyone who would take the divorced woman as his wife was perpetuating her adultery; Origin, A.D. 250 said that if a man divorced, except for adultery, he was causing her to become an adultress - so he read Matthew as "except for" (though not as a permission to remarry, and neither could the woman, because their union was still a covenant in God's eyes); and if you look at the others, it seems they generally saw adultery/fornication in the same way - divorce was allowed in the case of consistent promiscuity. So Jesus' "except for fornication" was seen by the early church to be referring to adultery just as easily as anything else. But it didn't end the covenant, and if a remarriage occurred, it was considered a state of adultery, which needed to be repented of.
I've studied this whole issue of divorce and remarriage for over a year now in great depth. There is a lot I've learned that I had no idea about before. I had previously read from most of the popular books on the subject - Craig S. Keener, Jay Adams, Guy Duty, and others. Something that never seemed to get much coverage from any of the popular authors on the subject is the history of the manuscripts from which we get our bibles. And I think this is extremely important.
You see, when translators work going from Greek to English, they sometimes have to translate what the words say, sometimes what the meaning is, and sometimes they have to choose one over the other. And many of these passages dealing with divorce and remarriage are subject to this kind of decision-making in translation. But the translators typically learn the theology of divorce and remarriage from English texts before they learn to understand Greek, and so they often lean on tradition and predetermined theology for translation as much as they do the actual Greek manuscripts when push comes to shove.
But what if there was a wrinkle in the history of the transmission of the manuscripts? You can go to a link for this history, which is both interesting and disturbing:
A look at what Erasmus did to the text of Matthew 19:9
The short take on it is this, though. Erasmus was a humanist theologian in the Catholic church who justified his idea, contrary to Catholic theology, that divorce should be allowed in some circumstances. And it is this Erasmus who was responsible, in his day, for coming up with the Greek New Testament from which Calvin, Luther and others did their work. They at first praised him for his great work on this new Greek new testament, but later wrote him off as a pervert and a pedophile. But in the meantime, they bought into his manuscript where he had introduced a single word into Matthew 19:9 - the Greek word "ei" which changes the meaning of Matthew 19:9 completely.
With this change, the passage reads, "anyone who divorces his wife, except for fornication, and marries another, commits adultery." Without this change, the passage reads, "anyone who divorces his wife, even if for fornication, and marries another, commits adultery."
Later editions of our greek manuscripts have since had this change corrected, and yet our modern translations still translate this passage as if the "ei" is in there.
If the greek of the passage is considered with the "extra" word, it would seem to say in Matthew, "anyone who divorces his wife, except for pornea, and marries another, commits adultery." Without the extra word, a clearer rendering of the text into English might well be "anyone who divorces his wife (not speaking of pornea here) and marries another, commits adultery." The question then becomes, "what does pornea here mean?" It can mean adultery, and is at times used this way, but in the context, it might be just as reasonable to consider that Jesus was referring to any number of things besides adultery (especially since he used the word adultery in the same sentence). I would suggest, in keeping with the otherwise consistent interpretation of all the other texts in the new testament, he might be referring to marriages considered invalid in God's eyes - and which therefore should be undone because they never were lawful in His eyes. It's a thought....
This might be a fair understanding, since in Matthew's telling of the story, the gospel writer is writing to Jews, and they would have been familiar with the Shammai-Hillel debate about the reason for divorce, which is why Matthew includes, "is it wrong to divorce for every and any reason." And I believe that Jesus was saying "anyone who divorces (except where the divorce would be required because of an 'uncleanness' - pornea - that violates the law of marriage because it was never a legitimate marriage in the first place) and marries another enters into a state of adultery...."
There is a place for tradition, I know. But there is also something to be said for stating what is true, no matter how painful it is. After looking at what Matthew emphasized to the Jews, and Mark emphasized to the gentiles, what I believe Jesus was saying was this: "anyone who divorces his wife (unless it was an illegitimate marriage in the first place, in which case it should be undone) and marries another, commits adultery." This is essentially the same as what he says in Mark 10. Any legitimate marriage is not undone by divorce; though the laws might support it, the covenant is still in place, which is why Jesus calls the next marriage an ongoing condition of adultery.
So what happened after Erasmus introduced the "ei"? Luther eventually wrote Erasmus off as dangerous, the manuscripts have been corrected so that they no longer show this mistake. But it was translated "except for fornication" in the KJV based on this error deliberately planted in the greek manuscript at the time. And now, who can question the KJV?
OK. Now, having said that, I have to state the reasons for why the opinion I just spouted off should be taken with a grain of salt. It's interesting to look at these passages and to try to determine what Jesus was speaking about; but it's also helpful (perhaps, anyway) to look at how the early church interpreted the Matthean exception. And if you look here,
A Look at the Historical Views on Divorce and Remarriage in the Early Church
You will see the following: the Shepherd of Hermas (A.D. 90) taught that if a husband had a wife committing adultery, he was required to divorce her, as a means of disciplining the wayward wife, but also required not to remarry, as he needed to remain single so as to take her back as his wife if she repented of the adultery; Clement of Alexandria, in A.D. 208, wrote that "if a man divorces his wife, except for adultery" he causes her to commit adultery. But he refers to the divorce as a separation, not that it ended the marriage - more of a space, for discipline. And he also said that anyone who would take the divorced woman as his wife was perpetuating her adultery; Origin, A.D. 250 said that if a man divorced, except for adultery, he was causing her to become an adultress - so he read Matthew as "except for" (though not as a permission to remarry, and neither could the woman, because their union was still a covenant in God's eyes); and if you look at the others, it seems they generally saw adultery/fornication in the same way - divorce was allowed in the case of consistent promiscuity. So Jesus' "except for fornication" was seen by the early church to be referring to adultery just as easily as anything else. But it didn't end the covenant, and if a remarriage occurred, it was considered a state of adultery, which needed to be repented of.
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