Craig S. Keener
Craig S. Keener
Responding to Bill Heth’s argument here is both a joy and a trial. It is a joy because I am grateful for his courage in taking this position publicly, though it reverses the argument he had defended over the years. Bill and I have been dialogue partners on the issue for over a decade (including participating in a Chris tianity Today forum, where we represented opposing biblical views on remarriage). He has mentioned elsewhere that my book started him on the road to rethinking some of his argument (which may make me appear doubly reprehensible to our detractors!); more recent works by David Instone-Brewer and others finally convinced him to change his position.
A RARE REVERSAL
I have seen no scholar cited more often than Bill in favor of the no-remarriage position, so his reversal (in view of the many who still depend on his former case to prohibit remarriage) is significant. I would hope that even those who disagree with him will commend his humility and scholarly open-mindedness in being willing to rethink his argument, and his courage in breaking with a position that everyone (especially supporters of the no-remarriage position, many of whom are friends) expected him to defend. Such reversals are rare among scholars, especially when a scholar has traditionally been hailed as a position’s leading defender.
Responding to Bill’s argument is a trial, however, because it is difficult to know what to say when there is so little with which I disagree. His position, like that of David Instone-Brewer, whom he cites, is very close to my own in . . . And Marries Another. The advantage of multiple-views books is that they can articulate various divergent positions on an issue; in practice, however, the individuals defending these positions may be nearer or further apart. Whereas my assignment forced me to explore other exceptions more pointedly and Bill’s forced him to focus on the explicit biblical exceptions, our views do not seem far apart.
A LITTLE ELABORATING
In little, if any, of what follows am I contradicting what Bill has written; mostly I’m simply adding my own perspectives. I would contend that Jesus is at least rhetorically stricter than the Shammaites, who did not consider divorces on wider grounds illegal. (At least in some later sources, it is said that Shammaites broadened the category of “indecency” further than what we mean by “adultery”; attempts to seduce others [such as going out in public with uncovered hair] counted, even if no intercourse took place.) In practice, though, I would consider Jesus’ claim of “adultery,” which is harsher than normal Shammaite language on this issue, to be hyperbolic. This use of hyperbole is analogous to second-century rabbis calling sexual self-stimulation or lust adulterous (e.g., b. Nid. 13b; in the third century, cf. Pesiq. Rab. 24:2; Lev. Rab. 23:12), but without instituting actual legal sanctions, as in the case of intercourse.
Bill is correct that most people in this period would have followed the broader Hillelite position. This need not be because the school of Hillel was dominant in this period (tradition claims that Shammaites were dominant before the fall of Jerusalem) but because on this point Hillelites reflected the wider practice (attested, e.g., in Sir. 25:26). In any case, whatever view Jesus took could be used against him by proponents of a different view.
Bill notes three approaches to Jesus’ tersest prohibition of divorce, namely, (1) it is hyperbole; (2) it is a generalized statement; or (3) the exception was already implicit in the statement and for cultural reasons did not always need to be stated. I believe that all three approaches are plausible; they are not mutually exclusive. Similarly, I would argue that 1 Corinthians 7:39 and Romans 7:2 – 3 are generalized statements and that the divorce issue could be taken for granted (especially since the Romans passage describes “the law”; cf. Deut. 24:1 – 4).
Bill is leery of appealing to the sexual needs of divorced people as grounds for remarriage. He is certainly right that the argument cannot depend on this; if God forbids remarriage, divorced Christians — like all single Christians (and married people when physical distance, infirmity, or the spouse’s refusal makes intercourse impossible) — would need to control themselves sexually. If, however, remarriage is permitted, sexual desire would be no less a reason for a divorced person to marry than for a single person (cf. 1 Cor. 7:8 – 9, 27 – 28; Paul prefers singleness for any so gifted).
SOME NECESSARY EXTRAPOLATING
I think that Bill’s case for the two explicit biblical exceptions is clear, and I anticipate that most readers will agree on this point. This is currently the least controversial position (at least among evangelicals) and is also the easiest position to defend from Scripture.
My assignment, extrapolating Scripture’s principles to resolve questions not explicitly addressed in the biblical text, involves a more difficult interpretive approach (though most of us commonly employ it for various other issues). Yet if we are to grapple with issues that Scripture does not address explicitly (or even to apply Scripture’s principles to our congregation’s needs in our sermons), we must consider how to extrapolate such principles. This approach leaves more areas undefined than some people (including myself) feel comfortable with. (Unhappily, much of life proves more ambiguous than we feel comfortable with; while Scripture defines many issues for us explicitly, it does not define all of them.) We cannot avoid extrapolating principles, but it is sometimes a complex task to define how far to extrapolate particular principles (such as, in this case, protecting an innocent party) in view of other principles (such as, in this case, our Lord’s prohibition of divorce).
Here I am not arguing against Bill, whose conclusions do not differ from mine. Toward the end of his chapter, he argues that we should not require separation for remarriages that spring from invalid divorces. Likewise, he expresses his sympathy for physical (and even emotional) abuse with regard to justifying a divorce, but he rejects incompatibility, fits of anger, lack of provision, and so forth as valid grounds for divorce. I cannot see any difference between the position I articulate in the next chapter and that for which Bill has sympathy. Here, therefore, I am simply taking the opportunity to explore the hermeneutical questions involved in pressing beyond the explicit biblical exception.
Paul makes an exception (analogous to but different from Matthew’s exception) when a new issue comes up, which he apparently did not address in Corinth previously. If this issue hadn’t come up, we would not have an explicit exception for abandonment. What, then, of issues that did not come up? What if physical abuse had come up? We do not have an explicit text that addresses the question, but if we follow the principle Paul follows (which, probably not coincidentally, agrees with Matthew’s exception), we may guess that Paul would have treated a situation like abuse in the same way he responded to the situation of abandonment. (Most today allow divorce, or at least separation, for continued abuse, even if they do not allow remarriage. But if the understanding of “divorce” that Bill and I espouse is correct, permission to eventually remarry is, by definition, implied in the divorce.)
The text provides other principles that also offer some boundaries on the more restrictive side; for example, Paul explicitly disallows “spiritual incompatibility” as an exception (despite the existence of arranged marriages in his day). True exceptions dare not be excuses to escape a difficult relationship but rather occur when the other partner ruptures the marriage covenant against the nonoffending party’s best efforts to preserve marriage. Like many principles, this one leaves us with some uncomfortably ambiguous pastoral situations in practice. In such ambiguous cases, pastoral sensitivity to the situation and to the Holy Spirit cannot be circumvented simply by an appeal to “established results” of biblical scholarship.
An old argument centers around the question of whether to allow only what the Bible allows, or to allow whatever it does not forbid. In an extreme form practiced only by a few, the former approach forbids cars and electricity; in an extreme form practiced by many, the latter approach is used to justify a range of behaviors (a pervasive example is watching unwholesome television programs when such behavior contravenes biblical principles about doing everything for God’s glory, meditating on Christ, and so forth).
A sounder approach is to let Scripture’s principles guide us to a deeper relationship with God that helps us discern what is consistent with biblical principles, even when we lack explicit biblical statements. Scripture invites us to hear God’s heart and to desire what God desires. Without that heart, it is difficult to avoid the extremes of legalism and libertinism, of judging others too harshly and of justifying whatever appeals to our passions. May we have God’s heart to work against the evil of divorce and injustice in marriages, while we also work for the healing of those broken by such acts.
Chapter 2: Remarriage for Adultery or Desertion
1. A 1992 Christianity Today readers’ survey revealed that “the majority believe that fornication (73 percent) and desertion by a non-Christian spouse (64 percent) are two scriptural grounds for remarriage. At the same time, a significant minority believe Jesus taught that believers should not remarry after divorce (44 percent) and that God designed marriage to be permanent, and that remarriage constitutes adultery (44 percent). Less than four out of ten believe there may be reason for remarriage other than adultery or desertion. Those who have been divorced are more likely to accept other reasons” (Had-don Robinson, “CT Readers Survey: Sex, Marriage, and Divorce,” Christia ity Today [Dec. 14, 1992], 31).
2. See my “Another Look at the Erasmian View of Divorce and Remarriage,” JETS 25 (1982): 263 – 72; “The Meaning of Divorce in Matthew 19:3 – 9,” Chm 98 (1984): 136 – 52; “Divorce and Remarriage,” in Applying the Scriptures:Papers from ICBI Summit III, ed. K. S. Kantzer (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1987), 219 – 39; “Divorce, but No Remarriage,” in Divorce and Remarriage: Four Chris tian Views, ed. H. Wayne House (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity, 1990), 73 – 129; “The Changing Basis for Permitting Remarriage after Divorce for Adultery: The Influence of R. H. Charles,” TJ 11 NS (1990): 143 – 59; “Divorce and Remarriage: The Search for an Evangelical Hermeneutic,” TJ 16 NS (Spring 1995): 63 – 100; with Gordon J. Wenham, Jesus and Divorce: Towards an Evangelical Understanding of New Testament Teaching (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1984; Nashville: Nelson, 1985; updated ed., Carlisle: Paternoster, 1997).
3. This chapter contains revised portions of my article “Jesus on Divorce: How My Mind Has Changed,” SBJT 6 (Spring 2002): 4 – 29. Used by permission. I also want to thank Dr. David Instone-Brewer, Tyndale House, Cambridge, for the many email exchanges we shared and the way his work has influenced my own thinking on this subject recently.
4. See Gordon P. Hugenberger, Marriage as a Covenant: Biblical Law and Ethics as Developed from Malachi (Biblical Studies Library; Grand Rapids: Baker, 1998), 11 – 12, 193, 215.
5. Cited in Hugenberger, Marriage as a Covenant, 165.
6. Ibid., 3 n. 25; cf. David Instone-Brewer, Divorce and Remarriage in the Bible: The Social and Literary Context (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2002), 1 – 19.
7. David Instone-Brewer, Divorce and Remarriage in the Church: Biblical Solutions for Pastoral Realities (London: Paternoster, 2003), 7. Cf. Craig L. Blom-berg, “Marriage, Divorce, Remarriage, and Celibacy: An Exegesis of Matthew 19:3 – 12,” TJ 11 NS (1990): 169 – 70; Bruce Kaye, “ ‘One Flesh’ and Marriage,” Colloq 22 (1990): 51.
8. See Instone-Brewer, Divorce and Remarriage in the Bible, 8.
9. The distinctive contribution of Instone-Brewer’s Divorce and Remarriage in the Bible is that he identifies two additional biblical grounds for divorce based on Exod. 21:10 – 11 (see his p. 102). Rabbinic sources classifi ed these under two headings: material neglect and emotional neglect.
10. I am departing from the ESV here to pursue a more literal rendering of the Hebrew text in order to clarify a point.
11. Cf. Raymond Westbrook, “The Prohibition on Restoration of Marriage in Deuteronomy 24:1 – 4,” in Studies in the Bible 1986, ed. Sara Japhet (ScrHier 31; Jerusalem: Magnes, 1986), 387 – 405. Both Hugenberger (Marriage as a Covenant, 79 – 81) and Instone-Brewer (Divorce and Remarriage in the Bible, 7) affirm Westbrook’s findings on the distinction between the two divorces and the related financial penalties but find the unjust enrichment motivation only half correct. Neither Stephen Clark (Putting Asunder: Divorce and Remarriage in Biblical and Pastoral Perspective [Bryntirion, Bridgend, Wales: Bryntirion Press, 1999]) nor Alex R. G. Deasley (Marriage and Divorce in the Bible and the Church [Kansas City, Mo: Beacon Hill, 2000]) mention Westbrook in connection with their treatment of Deuteronomy 24:1 – 4.
12. Cf. also Judith R. Wegner, Chattel or Person? The Status of Women in the Mishnah (New York: Oxford Univ. Press, 1988), 80 – 86; Léonie J. Archer, Her Price Is Beyond Rubies: The Jewish Woman in Graeco-Roman Palestine (JSOTSup 60; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1990), 173, 176 – 81.
13. Westbrook, “Prohibition on Restoration of Marriage,” 402.
14. For the best defense of this translation, see Hugenberger, Marriage as a Covenant, 48 – 83. Instone-Brewer concurs (Divorce and Remarriage in the Bible, 7 n. 30). David Clyde Jones (“A Note on the LXX of Malachi 2:16,” JBL 109 [1990]: 683 – 85) also points out, prior to Hugenberger (but not listed in Hugenberg-er’s bibliography), that the LXX manuscripts a B A and Q witness to the interpretation favored here: “if you divorce out of hatred.” Jones does not evidence familiarity with Westbrook and seems not to notice that the divorce for “a matter of indecency” in Deut. 24:1 differs from the one God justly condemns in Mal. 2:16 (cf. David Clyde Jones, Biblical Christian Ethics [Grand Rapids: Baker, 1994], 189 – 92).
15. Here is Hugenberger’s paraphrase of Malachi 2:16: “If one hates and divorces [that is, if one divorces merely on the ground of aversion], says Yahweh, God of Israel, he covers his garment with violence [i.e., such a man visibly defiles himself with violence], says Yahweh of hosts. Therefore, take heed to yourselves and do not be faithless [against your wife]” (Marriage as a Covenant, 76).
16. At one point, I argued that the Deuteronomy 24:4 prohibition still applies (my Jesus and Divorce, 200 – 201), and some still do (cf. Clark, Putting Asunder, 183 – 84).
17. The phrase “after she has been defiled” (Deut. 24:4) involves the legal principle of estoppel and would be better translated “after she has been made to declare herself to be unclean.” Cf. John H. Walton, “The Place of the Hutqat.t.eml within the D-Stem Group and Its Implications in Deuteronomy 24:4,” HS 32 (1991): 12. Walton improves on Westbrook when he notes that “the law restricts the first husband because he forced her to publicize something that was embarrassing to her perhaps to achieve his own selfish ends” (14 – 15). Walton also points out, as I did in “Divorce, but No Remarriage” (p. 86), that Westbrook’s interpretation is supported by Stephen A. Kaufman’s brilliant analysis of “The Structure of the Deuteronomic Law,” Maarav 1/2 (1978 – 79): 105 – 58.
18. Cf. David Instone-Brewer, “Deuteronomy 24:1 – 4 and the Origin of the Jewish Divorce Certificate,” JJS 49 (1998): 233 – 34. Both Hugenberger (Marriage as a Covenant, 77 n. 144 point j.) and Instone-Brewer believe that the law of Deut. 24:1 – 4 wants to prohibit what may be called “legalized adultery” or “pimping.”
19. Evidence for this is also found in the LXX translation of Deut. 24:1, in Philo (Spec. Laws 3.30), and in Josephus, the first-century Jewish historian (Life 426 – 27; Ant. 4.253).
20. The only exception would be a Roman law and a Jewish practice that forbade an adulterer from marrying the one with whom he or she had committed adultery, but not someone else.
21. I am using Instone-Brewer’s translation (Divorce and Remarriage in the Bible, 111).
22. See Archer, Her Price Is Beyond Rubies, 177 – 78, 180.
23. Archer (Her Price Is Beyond Rubies, 218 n. 3) observes, “Only in instances when the husband’s reason for divorce, if proven true, would exempt him from the obligation of kethubah payment . . . , did he need to present his case to a court. In Joseph’s case [Matt. 1:19], had he acted on his intent and proceeded in public, not only would he not have had to pay the kethubah, but he could also have charged Mary with adultery” (cf. Instone-Brewer, Divorce and Remarriage in the Church, 45 – 46, 134 – 35).
24. D. J. Moo (“Law,” in Dictionary of Jesus and the Gospels, ed. J. B. Green and S. McKnight [Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity, 1992], 455) notes that “Jesus’ position is not far from that of his near-contemporary Shammai, and from Deuteronomy 24:1 – 4 as well” (cf. Heth and Wenham, Jesus and Divorce, 168).
25. Instone-Brewer’s research well qualifies him to comment on this topic (cf. David Instone-Brewer, Techniques and Assumptions in Jewish Exegesis before 70 CE [TSAJ 30; Tübingen: Mohr, 1992]).
26. Cf. Instone-Brewer, Divorce and Remarriage in the Bible, 186. The Sham-maite phrase equivalent to the wording of the exception in Matt. 19:9 appears in Sifre Deut. 269; y. Sot.ah 1.2 (16b).
27. See C. S. Mann, Mark: A New Translation with Text and Commentary (AB 27; Garden City, N.J.: Doubleday, 1986), 388. Cf. R. H. Stein, “Divorce,” in Dictionary of Jesus and the Gospels, 193; Craig Blomberg, Matthew (NAC; Nashville: Broadman, 1992), 111.
28. Cf. Marcus Bockmuehl, “Matthew 5.32; 19.9 in the Light of PreRabbinic Halakah,” NTS 35 (1989): 291 – 95 (see also Warren Carter, Households and Discipleship: A Study of Matthew 19 – 20 [JSNTSup 103; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1994], 56 – 89; A. Tosato, “Joseph, Being a Just Man,” CBQ 41 [1979]: 547 – 51).
29. Moo, “Law,” 456.
30. Archer ( Her Price Is Beyond Rubies, 219) observes that “in the fi rst century the Shammaites attempted to restrict the man’s power of divorce to charges of adultery, but such was the strength of the ancient view that the normally more progressive school of Hillel came out in opposition and declared that a man could divorce his wife for any cause.”
31. Interestingly, Raymond F. Collins (Divorce in the New Testament [GNS 38; Collegeville, Minn.: Liturgical Press, 1992], 120 – 26), like Robert H. Gundry, follows the minority view on Matthew 19:10 – 12 (i.e., that Jesus’ “not all can accept this saying” [v. 11] refers to Jesus’ divorce saying in v. 9, not to the disciples’ retort in v. 10) but believes that divine enablement to remain single is given to those who divorce or have been divorced for reasons other than unchastity (v. 9). Collins’s exegesis is seconded by Richard B. Hays, The Moral Vision of the New Testament (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1996), 376 – 77 n. 17. Hays has a brief but excellent canonical synthesis of the biblical teaching on divorce and remarriage (pp. 361 – 76) after his survey of the gospel divorce texts and Paul (pp. 347 – 61).
32. Blomberg, Matthew, 289 – 90. Thus, Stein (“Divorce,” 197) notes that it is quite unlikely we should treat “Jesus’ words as if they were the objective, referential language of jurisprudence seeking to convey a legal precept.”
33. Stein, “Divorce,” 194.
34. Blomberg, “Marriage, Divorce, Remarriage, and Celibacy,” 162.
35. Ibid., 162 – 63.
36. We now know that not even the strict Jewish Essene sect prohibited divorce or remarriage after divorce (cf. Craig S. Keener, . . . And Marries Another: Divorce and Remarriage in the Teaching of the New Testament [Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson, 1991], 41; Instone-Brewer, Divorce and Remarriage in the Bible, 63 – 64, 66, 70 – 71).
37. Instone-Brewer, Divorce and Remarriage in the Bible, 134.
38. Ibid., 135 – 36.
39. Ibid., 153.
40. Keener, . . . And Marries Another, 61.
41. Cited in Archer, Her Price Is Beyond Rubies, 131; cf. 220. For the text and translation of the deed, see her appendix 1 (p. 298). Cf. also Instone-Brewer, Divorce and Remarriage in the Church, 100.
42. Instone-Brewer, Divorce and Remarriage in the Bible, 209.
43. Hays (Moral Vision of the New Testament, 18) would refer to Paul’s words in 1 Cor. 7:15 as “theology in progress.” He finds it unlikely that Paul would categorically prohibit remarriage for the believers described in vv. 12 – 16; “rather he would invite them to engage with him in a process of discernment about how they could best serve God in the ‘present necessity’ (v. 26), in the time that remains” (p. 361).
44. On Rom. 7:2 – 3 and 1 Cor. 7:39, see John Murray, Divorce (Phillips-burg, N.J.: Presbyterian & Reformed, 1953), 78 – 95; Instone-Brewer, Divorce and Remarriage in the Church, 76 – 79; Clark, Putting Asunder, 201 – 2.
45. Cf. Instone-Brewer, Divorce and Remarriage in the Church, 66 – 67; Susan Treggiari, “Divorce Roman Style: How Easy and How Frequent Was It?” in Marriage, Divorce, and Children in Ancient Rome, ed. Beryl Rawson (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1991), 31 – 46.
46. Blomberg (Matthew, 293), Jones (Biblical Christian Ethics, 202 – 3), Hays (Moral Vision of the New Testament, 372), Clark (Putting Asunder, 154 – 56), and Keener (. . . And Marries Another, 105) all answer this question in the affirmative.
47. Cf. Gary P. Liaboe, “The Place of Wife Battering in Considering Divorce,” Journal of Psychology and Theology 13 (1985): 129 – 38.
48. Gordon Hugenberger observes in an email communication (Jan. 10, 2002), “In terms of their implications for marriage and divorce, the ancient world lumped together adultery and desertion (‘you can’t have me’ is the standard expression in the law codes). Both were seen to justify divorce and cause the guilty wife to forfeit her dowry, for example.”
49. Instone-Brewer, Divorce and Remarriage in the Bible, 183.
50. See esp. Keener, . . . And Marries Another, ch. 7 (“Can Ministers Be Remarried? — 1 Timothy 3:2”); S. Page, “Marital Expectations of Church Leaders in the Pastoral Epistles,” JSNT 50 (1993): 105 – 20; Keener, “Husband of One Wife,” AME Zion Quarterly Review 109 (January 1997): 5 – 24. Jay E. Smith (“Can Fallen Leaders Be Restored to Leadership?” BSac 151 [1994]: 455 – 80) focuses on another related issue: Does sexual immorality permanently disqualify one from leadership? He concludes that the Pastoral Epistles’ leadership qualifications are concerned with the current, not the past, status of a leader’s character, that fallen leaders can be restored if both their lives and their reputations inside and outside (cf. Rom. 2:24) the church can be rehabilitated, but notes that this may be very diffi cult.
51. Hays, Moral Vision of the New Testament, 372. Hays’s study has also had an impact on the chapter “Marriage and Divorce” in Glen H. Stassen and David P. Gushee, Kingdom Ethics: Following Jesus in Contemporary Context (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity, 2003), 271 – 89.
Chapter 2: A Response to William A. Heth (Gordon J. Wenham)
1. John Murray, Divorce (Philadelphia: Presbyterian & Reformed, 1976), 25.