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103 In Matthew 5, porneia and moicheia stand side by side and are clearly distinguished. The latter is the common term for adultery, or marital unfaithfulness. What then could porneia mean when used by Jesus or Paul? In our last chapter, we discussed the terms eidolothuton and porneia , though clearly the focus was on the former word.1 Here, we shall concentrate on the latter term, with regard to its use in an early Jewish Christian source—namely, the Gospel of Matthew. If we doubted that social location and social situation affects what certain words mean in both their connotations and denotations, the study of the loaded term porneia can quickly disabuse us of such a view. In this case, we are interested in what Matthew 5:32 and 19:9 mean, particularly the exception clauses. It is true that some interpreters of the exception clauses think they know exactly what the exception refers to (no divorce except on grounds of marital unfaithfulness or adultery), but there are numerous problems with such facile reasoning. For one thing, neither Mark nor Paul think that Jesus allowed any exceptions to his prohibition of divorce. If one takes even a cursory look at Mark 10:9-12 or 1 Corinthians 7:10-11, this becomes rather apparent. Where then do the exception clauses fit into this picture, if at all? Or has the First Evangelist simply modified the strict teaching of Jesus in a more lenient direction? That is certainly possible, but one should not leap to that conclusion, because Matthew takes over about 95 percent of Mark’s material and follows Mark quite closely at most points. Furthermore, porneia is not the term used elsewhere in Matthew 5 for adultery or marital unfaithfulness—that would be moixeia (see Matt 5:27-28). Is there something in the origins of this term, or in the social situation of Jesus (or the First Evangelist), that might help us make sense of this material? 8 What’s in a Word? Part Two—Porneia 104 What’s in the Word Preliminary Considerations The root meaning of the term porneia is “sex with a prostitute.” Indeed, porneµ is the basic term in Greek for a prostitute, and it is of course also the origin of the English word pornography. Could Jesus or the First Evangelist have been critiquing prostitution? This is certainly not impossible , but what makes this an interesting discussion is that Jesus seems to be rather forgiving toward women who are involved in this trade. Besides the famous pericope about the “woman caught in adultery” in John 7:53–8:11, there is in addition the story of Jesus’ forgiveness of the anonymous sinner woman in Luke 7:36-50 who seems to have been a prostitute, not to mention the story of the Samaritan woman in John 4. In other words, there are multiple traditions from various sources that Jesus did not take a hard line against a woman who had committed adultery or even prostitution. Would then he have allowed Jewish men to divorce their wives for prostitution? It is at least a question worth asking. But let us take another angle on this problem and reflect for a bit on the social situation in Galilee under the reign of Herod Antipas. One recent interpretation of what was going on in Galilee during Jesus’ day when it came to the issue of marriage and divorce has been offered by D. Instone-Brewer. He argues on the basis of Matthew 19:3 that Jesus was opposed to the then-popular practice of “any cause” divorce. He contends that there were Hillelite rabbis who interpreted the crucial material in Deuteronomy 24:1 to indicate that a man could divorce a woman for “a cause,” which meant basically on almost any grounds. The Shammaite Jewish teachers, by contrast, understood erwat dabar to mean “adultery,” or marital unfaithfulness.2 Although InstoneBrewer has certainly done his homework on this difficult subject, I have to say that I find his discussion unconvincing for several reasons. First, our earliest evidence about Jesus’ view of divorce comes from Paul and, in the case of the Gospels, from Mark, not Matthew. Both Mark and Paul are clear that Jesus said “no divorce” for those God has joined together.3 Second, while Instone-Brewer has suggested that the reaction of the male disciples to Jesus’ view (“if that is the way it is between a man and woman, it is better not to...

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