Update 2:

I read a bit more about the Rabbinical context of Jesus’ reference to Adam and Genesis and found this excellent post, which points out other problems in the traditional teaching.

Since stoning was, apparently, the correct Jewish response to adultery, the question of remarriage can have applied only to the non-offending partner; the question of marrying an adulterous woman ought never to have arisen, because she would have been killed by stoning as soon as she was judged adulterous.

That conundrum reinforces both the authors’ argument below that taking Jesus’ words out of context leads to nonsensical conclusions, not profound ones.

Update:

Reading more from Dr. Instone-Brewer, I am uncomfortable with some of his conclusions.

Aligning Jesus with the Shammai Rabbinical school would mean that women who were divorced unfairly could legitimately remarry.

But Jesus’ own words seem to refute that interpretation.

Memo to self: Look at this angle a bit more.

However, the context of the debate between the two Rabbis is still very illuminating.

ORIGINAL POST

I came across a  fascinating description of  how divorce was seen during the time of Jesus’ ministry.

The author, David Instone-Brewer, a Professor of Rabbinic and New Testament Studies at Cambridge, examines actual practices and divorce certificates of the period, as well as the teachings of the two major Rabbinical schools then – that of Shammai (which was stricter) and that of Hillel (which was  more lenient).

He places Jesus’ teaching in the context of a debate between the two.

Instone-Brewer’s conclusions dramatically change the Gospel teaching on this crucial matter.

He argues that Jesus implicitly accepted at least one other ground for divorce besides “porneia” (which means sexual immorality) – failure to provide food, clothing and love (including sex) .

Such a failure would constitute neglect, the extreme variant  of  which is abuse.

The defining words in the Gospel passages on divorce, says the author, are “hard-hearted.”

Of course, no ground was to to be seen as automatically granting divorce, should the offending partner repent, since Jesus also constantly admonished his followers to forgive and be tender-hearted.

But a repeat offender who does not repent is not “tender,” but hard-hearted.

It follows that the person who divorces a repeat offender is not the one at fault, but simply the one legalizing the breach of the marriage inflicted by his partner.

David Instone-Brewer:

 Jesus’ teaching on divorce and remarriage sounds completely different when you listen to him with the ears of a 1st C Jew
– so before I take you to Jesus’ teaching, I have to teach you what a 1st C Jew knew
– and then you can listen to the words of Jesus and hear them as they were heard

Jews relied on the OT to teach them God’s Law. So what did God’s Law say?
– they found 613 commandments in the OT, and five grounds for divorce
– the first commandment gave them the first ground for divorce – see Gen.1.28
“Be fruitful and multiply” – it is expressed as a command, so Jews obeyed it
– this meant that they regarded infertility as a ground for divorce
– it was a command which they tried to get round, but nevertheless a command
– Jesus specifically rejected this by saying that you could be a ‘eunuch’ for the kingdom (Mt.19.12)

[Lila: This argument sounds weak to me.

Mt. 19.12 is about becoming a “eunuch” for the kingdom, not because of a lack of fertility. It is a voluntary and therefore moral renunciation of sexuality, not an involuntary inability to conceive.]

[Instone-Brewer]

– that is, you could remain single, because the command to have children was not for everyone.

[Lila: It was, for married people engaged in lawful sexuality.]

– so infertility is not a ground for divorce, though it is frequently a cause of much grief.

The second ground for divorce they found is one which we do recognise: Immorality, in Deut.24.1
“When a man takes a wife and marries her, if then she finds no favour in his eyes because he has found a cause of 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…”

– the observant among you will notice that the sentence has not ended

– this is part of a case law – an actual occurrence with complicated circumstances

– it goes on to say that if this woman marries someone else, who also divorces her, and she comes back to her original husband, he may not marry her again.
– why? We don’t know. It is described as an “abomination”, so it is very bad
– but why is it worse to remarry your first husband than to marry a third?
– the best solution I know is that this was outlawing pimping your wife
– ie you divorce her, let her marry a customer for the night, then remarry her
– it is legal and common in some branches of Islam, but it was abominable to Moses

Perhaps that’s what the original case referred to, and perhaps not. It matters little
– the important thing is the principle in it: It allowed divorce for a particular ground
– the ground is “a cause of indecency” which the Jews interpreted as “adultery”

The last three grounds for divorce, the most important, were all found in one text
Ex.21.10f: If he takes another wife to himself, he shall not diminish her food, her clothing, or her marital rights. And if he does not do these three things for her, she shall go out for nothing, without payment of money.
– OK, this doesn’t make much sense the first time you read it.
– the context is talking about slaves, and about someone who marries a slave.
– these verses tell him how he should treat her if he later marries another wife
– polygamy was allowed in the OT so it wasn’t wrong to marry another wife
– but these verses told him not to neglect his first wife now that he had another
– and, if he did neglect her, she had the right to a divorce and her freedom

This is revolutionary teaching in the Ancient Near East – treating slaves with dignity
– when the Jews came to apply this, they made various deductions, which I agree with
– they said: if a slave wife has these rights, then a free wife must also have these rights
– and if a wife has these rights, then a husband must also have these rights
– this kind of deduction is normal in OT law, which often gives only an example
– the Law says: Do not muzzle the ox, but let it eat the grain it threshes (Deut.25.4)
– Jews said: if this is the right of an ox, it is also the right of any farm worker
– and the NT uses this same method to argue that ministers should be paid (1Co.9.9)
– so I agree that this text gives these same rights to all husbands and wives
– and if they don’t get them, they have the right to divorce and freedom

What does this law say a husband should give to a wife, and wife to a husband?
– “food”, “clothing” and “marital rights”
– what would a lawyer make of this? It all sounds too vague
– and that’s exactly the conclusion of the Pharisees – the Jewish lawyers

– they debated exactly how to define neglect of food and clothing and love
– they defined how much food and clothing preparation the wife had to do
– so that if she fell short of this, the husband could divorce her for neglect
“These are the kinds of labour which a woman performs for her husband: she grinds flour, bakes bread, does laundry, prepares meals, feeds her child, makes the bed, works in wool.” (Mishnah Ketuvah 5.5)

– they also defined how much money for food and clothing the husband had to give:
– “he may not provide for her less than two qabs of wheat or four qabs of barley [per week]…. And he gives her a bed, a cover and a mat. And he gives her a cap for her head, and a girdle for her loins, and shoes from one festival season to the next, and clothing worth fifty zuz from one year to the next. ”  (Mishnah Ketuvah 5.8)
– I did some calculations, and found what this minimum support actually entailed
– for a normal day labourer, the cost of his wife’s clothes was 1/7th of his income!
– and if a husband didn’t support his wife properly, she could get a divorce

[Lila: So,  a bit more than 1/7th of the husband’s income was due to the wife for her upkeep, at a time when women were not earning in the market-place like men. This is far from 1/2, which is what modern feminism-instigated laws seem to demand, even though women are now in a position to contribute just as much or more to the finances of a marriage.]
Marriage was a contract in the Bible, and if you had to keep your side of the bargain
– both sides vowed to supply food, clothing and love, and to be faithful
– and if you didn’t keep your contract, the wronged partner could end the contract
– ie ask for a divorce, because marriage is a contract made before God (Prov.2.17)

We used to think that only men could get a divorce, and women were helpless
– but now we know that it was normal for Jewish women to get a divorce
– in fact half of all the divorce certificates surviving from the 1st 2 centuries are written for wives divorcing their husbands.
– before you stow that away as a useful fact, let me admit this is a statistical trick
– because but actually only two divorce certificates have survived from that time
– and 50% of them, ie one, was written for a woman divorcing her husband

– See more at: http://www.instonebrewer.com/visualsermons/Jesus-Divorce/_Sermon.htm#sthash.fTrPffZy.dpuf

For a refutation of Instone-Brewer’s analysis, see John Piper’s post at Desiring God.

Piper claims that too much of Instone-Brewer’s analysis relies on extra-textual elements and silences in the Biblical texts.