Please only respond to this message after you have read the entire OP.
The Bible uses 'put away' to refer to divorce. To make it legal, a certificate was given.
Words have different meanings in different contexts. In English, I can say "I went to the amusement park, but was separated from my friends in a crowd." That just means I wasn't with the group anymore. But if someone says, "He separated from his wife", that implies something about their marital relationship, maybe even legal status and tax filing status. It's the same word 'separated', but used in different context.
When we read the NT and OT, in formal equivalence translations divorce is called 'putting away' or something similar. I suppose one could put away or send his wife away without divorce, but that wouldn't be legal according to Judaism.
Within Judaism, there were different groups. There were the Pharisees who were a religious purity society. They followed the teaching of Torah-lawyers they called 'rabbis' (though one is our Rabbi, even Christ.) Later, the declarations of these men would be written in the Mishna in the second century, and later in the Talmud. Another branch of the religion or influence in the religion was the high priest's group, the Saducee or Zadokite group. They believed in the first five books of the Bible and didn't necessarily accept the writings of the prophet or the traditions of the Pharisees. The scribes seemed to have been more allied with the Pharisees. After the temple was destroyed, the Pharisees took over the religion and most of Judaism, the European version of it at least, was an offshoot of the Pharisee's religion. The temple cult was gone, and the legal cult remained.
From what we know of the time, the Pharisees would have strongly believed in the need for a certificate of divorce. The divorce hope site asserts the problem was divorces without certificates. This doesn't fit what we know of history. But look at this quote from the Mishna from this website:
Hillel was Gamaliel's grandfather, the one who brought much of the influence of legal studies from Babylon to Jerusalem. Shamai was a contemporary of his. They headed the two main schools of thought, and their families intermarried.
The issues the debated over was under what circumstances could a man dump his wife. That was the ongoing debate. Both sides clearly believed a divorce certificate was necessary. You can see more details from the Mishna on the same site. They even made legal determinations about sending messengers with certificates of divorce:
Maybe there were bad Jewish men back then who didn't give divorce certificates or keep up their wives. But that wasn't considered legal. The Pharisees would not have debated about that. They would have debated about the two big schools of thought on divorce. It makes sense that they were asking Jesus to give His opinion on the ongoing debate over whether Shamai or Hillel or someone else was right about divorce.
The divorcehope site also argues that Malachi is a key to understanding Matthew. The site asserts that the problem in Malachi is divorcing without a certificate. But there is no reason to assume that was the case. We are talking about 400 years later, after the Pharisees, a Torah-purity society came to power during the time of the Maccabees, after Hillel gained influenced in society.
Here is a quote from divorcehope's page on Matthew 19.
The comment makes no sense. The Pharisees are disagreeing with Jesus' statement,
Judaism required a divorce in the case of adultery. Hillel, the more influential Pharisaical school of thought, allowed for divorce for ruining a meal. The Pharisees felt this was justified based on Torah, so they responded to Jesus' restriction by asking why Moses commanded that a certificate of divorce to put her away. The command is that if the man puts away his wife, he must give her a certificate of divorce.
The author of the website seems to be asserting here that the Pharisees were trying to figure out why they would have to give a certificate of divorce, like they were saying, "Moses commanded it, but why?" and not wanting to do it. That is just such an unPharisaical way of thinking. It also ignores the context that this question is actually a response to Jesus' statement limiting divorce. They are engaging with Christ's statement, not saying, "Duh? Why do we have to give certificates to divorce someone? Duh. Why did Moses command that?"
And here the divorcehope people/person twists what Jesus says with their lying commentary in brackets.
This is error. Moses did NOT allow them to put away their wives without a certificate of divorce. In fact, Moses commanded a certificate of divorce if a man put away his wife. Deuteronomy shows us that. The Pharisees had just referred to that. Moses, because of the hardness of their hearts, allowed them to put away their wives. But the type he allowed was with a certificate.
Again, more error in the brackets. From the beginning, the 'putting away' was not so. Because it was said, "Two shall be one flesh.' Christ, here, is referring to something that predates Moses, which shows God's plan for marriage. The law that allowed divorce was a concession for the hardness of their hearts. Christ was calling the people to a higher standard, which predated the concession given through Moses.
If someone accepts this load of garbage, what do they do with the exception clause? Is it saying if your wife cheats on you, you are allowed to marry someone else without giving her a divorce certificate? Is that why 'except for sexual immorality' is there? That's about the dumbest interpretation of the clause I've seen. The whole divorcehope interpretation is pretty dumb, actually.
And it leads to the very type of Pharisaical immorality when it comes to divorce that Jesus is forbidding. Read the Talmud a little. I was reading in it that if a man marries a woman who gained some flaw after engagement, he could divorce her without paying the money from the marriage contract. They said he could divorce her over having a mole, having one breast larger than another, and if she were a 'screamer'. There were a whole list of things. Of course, Hillel, and later Akiba, were allowing divorce for any ol' reason, but they had some extra situations where a man didn't have to pay a divorce settlement.
The divorcehope website makes Christ's teaching to be less moral than Hillel's, who said a man could divorce his wife for ruining a meal.
If that were the case, would the disciples have really said if such be the case with a man and his wife, it is better for a man not to marry?
What a nonsense interpretation. The Pharisees already believed, knew, absolutely, without any doubt, that a man who married a woman who was kicked out of her house without a certificate committed adultery. There was no debate there. But 'put away' does not exclude those legally put away, with certificates-- the very type of putting away the Pharisees brought up in the passage. Jesus is talking about the legal putting away, the kind done with a certificate, here.
Even though Moses allowed it, putting away was just a concession for the hardness of their hearts. But the original intention was for two to be one flesh. What God has joined together, let not man separate. So the man who puts away his wife, except it be for fornication, and marries another commits adultery. The putting away is the legal kind, the kind Moses allowed.
Moses did not allow putting away a wife without a certificate of divorce. I believe it's Deuteronomy 22. He COMMANDED that the certificate of divorce be given.
'Put away' does not mean 'put away from her husband without a certificate of divorce.' The Pharisees just made it clear by the way they used the word that the woman who is put away with a certificate is put away. So the idea of not having a certificate is not inherent in the word translated 'put away.' This quote is an example of sophistry. So is the websites treatment of the Greek word.
Don't be gullible enough just to read and believe the website.
The Bible uses 'put away' to refer to divorce. To make it legal, a certificate was given.
Words have different meanings in different contexts. In English, I can say "I went to the amusement park, but was separated from my friends in a crowd." That just means I wasn't with the group anymore. But if someone says, "He separated from his wife", that implies something about their marital relationship, maybe even legal status and tax filing status. It's the same word 'separated', but used in different context.
When we read the NT and OT, in formal equivalence translations divorce is called 'putting away' or something similar. I suppose one could put away or send his wife away without divorce, but that wouldn't be legal according to Judaism.
Within Judaism, there were different groups. There were the Pharisees who were a religious purity society. They followed the teaching of Torah-lawyers they called 'rabbis' (though one is our Rabbi, even Christ.) Later, the declarations of these men would be written in the Mishna in the second century, and later in the Talmud. Another branch of the religion or influence in the religion was the high priest's group, the Saducee or Zadokite group. They believed in the first five books of the Bible and didn't necessarily accept the writings of the prophet or the traditions of the Pharisees. The scribes seemed to have been more allied with the Pharisees. After the temple was destroyed, the Pharisees took over the religion and most of Judaism, the European version of it at least, was an offshoot of the Pharisee's religion. The temple cult was gone, and the legal cult remained.
From what we know of the time, the Pharisees would have strongly believed in the need for a certificate of divorce. The divorce hope site asserts the problem was divorces without certificates. This doesn't fit what we know of history. But look at this quote from the Mishna from this website:
Hillel was Gamaliel's grandfather, the one who brought much of the influence of legal studies from Babylon to Jerusalem. Shamai was a contemporary of his. They headed the two main schools of thought, and their families intermarried.
The issues the debated over was under what circumstances could a man dump his wife. That was the ongoing debate. Both sides clearly believed a divorce certificate was necessary. You can see more details from the Mishna on the same site. They even made legal determinations about sending messengers with certificates of divorce:
Maybe there were bad Jewish men back then who didn't give divorce certificates or keep up their wives. But that wasn't considered legal. The Pharisees would not have debated about that. They would have debated about the two big schools of thought on divorce. It makes sense that they were asking Jesus to give His opinion on the ongoing debate over whether Shamai or Hillel or someone else was right about divorce.
The divorcehope site also argues that Malachi is a key to understanding Matthew. The site asserts that the problem in Malachi is divorcing without a certificate. But there is no reason to assume that was the case. We are talking about 400 years later, after the Pharisees, a Torah-purity society came to power during the time of the Maccabees, after Hillel gained influenced in society.
Here is a quote from divorcehope's page on Matthew 19.
The comment makes no sense. The Pharisees are disagreeing with Jesus' statement,
Judaism required a divorce in the case of adultery. Hillel, the more influential Pharisaical school of thought, allowed for divorce for ruining a meal. The Pharisees felt this was justified based on Torah, so they responded to Jesus' restriction by asking why Moses commanded that a certificate of divorce to put her away. The command is that if the man puts away his wife, he must give her a certificate of divorce.
The author of the website seems to be asserting here that the Pharisees were trying to figure out why they would have to give a certificate of divorce, like they were saying, "Moses commanded it, but why?" and not wanting to do it. That is just such an unPharisaical way of thinking. It also ignores the context that this question is actually a response to Jesus' statement limiting divorce. They are engaging with Christ's statement, not saying, "Duh? Why do we have to give certificates to divorce someone? Duh. Why did Moses command that?"
And here the divorcehope people/person twists what Jesus says with their lying commentary in brackets.
This is error. Moses did NOT allow them to put away their wives without a certificate of divorce. In fact, Moses commanded a certificate of divorce if a man put away his wife. Deuteronomy shows us that. The Pharisees had just referred to that. Moses, because of the hardness of their hearts, allowed them to put away their wives. But the type he allowed was with a certificate.
Again, more error in the brackets. From the beginning, the 'putting away' was not so. Because it was said, "Two shall be one flesh.' Christ, here, is referring to something that predates Moses, which shows God's plan for marriage. The law that allowed divorce was a concession for the hardness of their hearts. Christ was calling the people to a higher standard, which predated the concession given through Moses.
If someone accepts this load of garbage, what do they do with the exception clause? Is it saying if your wife cheats on you, you are allowed to marry someone else without giving her a divorce certificate? Is that why 'except for sexual immorality' is there? That's about the dumbest interpretation of the clause I've seen. The whole divorcehope interpretation is pretty dumb, actually.
And it leads to the very type of Pharisaical immorality when it comes to divorce that Jesus is forbidding. Read the Talmud a little. I was reading in it that if a man marries a woman who gained some flaw after engagement, he could divorce her without paying the money from the marriage contract. They said he could divorce her over having a mole, having one breast larger than another, and if she were a 'screamer'. There were a whole list of things. Of course, Hillel, and later Akiba, were allowing divorce for any ol' reason, but they had some extra situations where a man didn't have to pay a divorce settlement.
The divorcehope website makes Christ's teaching to be less moral than Hillel's, who said a man could divorce his wife for ruining a meal.
If that were the case, would the disciples have really said if such be the case with a man and his wife, it is better for a man not to marry?
What a nonsense interpretation. The Pharisees already believed, knew, absolutely, without any doubt, that a man who married a woman who was kicked out of her house without a certificate committed adultery. There was no debate there. But 'put away' does not exclude those legally put away, with certificates-- the very type of putting away the Pharisees brought up in the passage. Jesus is talking about the legal putting away, the kind done with a certificate, here.
Even though Moses allowed it, putting away was just a concession for the hardness of their hearts. But the original intention was for two to be one flesh. What God has joined together, let not man separate. So the man who puts away his wife, except it be for fornication, and marries another commits adultery. The putting away is the legal kind, the kind Moses allowed.
Moses did not allow putting away a wife without a certificate of divorce. I believe it's Deuteronomy 22. He COMMANDED that the certificate of divorce be given.
'Put away' does not mean 'put away from her husband without a certificate of divorce.' The Pharisees just made it clear by the way they used the word that the woman who is put away with a certificate is put away. So the idea of not having a certificate is not inherent in the word translated 'put away.' This quote is an example of sophistry. So is the websites treatment of the Greek word.
Don't be gullible enough just to read and believe the website.
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