Abstract
Matthew’s divorce clause remains one of the most vexed questions in NT studies. The generality of the keyword πορνεία stumps commentators, while little help appears forthcoming from the clause’s immediate context, the wider statements of Mt. 5.32 and 19.9. Against the widespread view that πορνεία per the divorce clause is badly underdetermined, however, this paper argues that the clause as set in immediate context does indeed signal a specific meaning to πορνεία which redounds to the unique correctness of a particular clausal interpretation: the ‘betrothal view’. After outlining the semantic scope of πορνεία it critiques attempts by proponents of the ‘adultery view’, the dominant scholarly interpretation of the clause, to explain why the clause employs πορνεία but not μοιχεία. It then argues that the juxtaposition of the two terms within the parameters set by the ancient Jewish meaning of ‘wife’ and ‘divorce’ specifies a wife’s pre-nissuin unchastity as the referent of the divorce clause’s πορνεία.
Every interpreter of Matthew’s divorce clause (Mt. 5.32; 19.9) has to grapple with two major difficulties. First, the key term πορνεία is general in semantic scope and can mean a wide variety of sexual offences. Second, the clause itself (in both formulations) is very brief. Even when set in immediate context (i.e., the wider statements of Mt. 5.32 and 19.9) the clause initially appears to offer little support in specifying the meaning of πορνεία. Mt. 5.32 (NRSV) reads: But I say to you that anyone who divorces his wife, except on the ground of unchastity [παρεκτὸς λόγου πορνείας], causes her to commit adultery [ποιεῖ αὐτὴν μοιχευθῆναι]; and whoever marries a divorced woman commits adultery [μοιχᾶται].
Mt. 19.9 (NRSV) reads: And I say to you, whoever divorces his wife, except for unchastity [μὴ ἐπὶ πορνεία], and marries another commits adultery [μοιχᾶται].
When a particular interpretation of the divorce clause is endorsed it is usually conceded, if only implicitly, that even as set within its immediate context πορνεία remains underdetermined and thus could mean other moral objects, given its generality. Hence the various clausal interpretations tend to be heavily reliant on extra-textual considerations (e.g., rabbinic debates, gentile marriage practices, comparative divorce law in the ancient near east, early church writings, etc.). The present paper is out of step with such approaches. It argues that when the key terms are understood in an ordinary Jewish manner congruent with their use elsewhere in Matthew, the cooperation of the divorce clause with the wider statements of Mt. 5.32 and 19.9 signals a specific meaning to the clause’s invocation of πορνεία, one relevant to Matthew’s Jewish setting and one indirectly alluded to at the beginning of the gospel. That meaning redounds to the unique correctness of what is often called ‘the betrothal view’ (BV) of the divorce clause.
In effect, I argue that the meaning of the divorce clause was available to the first readers/hearers of Matthew when they encountered the text of Mt. 5.32; 19.9. This is not to suggest that the divorce clause would have been impossible to misinterpret, or that its comprehension would not have required any pre-understanding on the part of readers/hearers, or would not have benefited from, and been deepened by, awareness of the wider context of Mt. 5.31–32 (as set within Mt. 5.17–48) and Mt. 19.3–9. Rather, it is to say that those initially encountering the divorce clause as embedded within the statements of Mt. 5.32; 19.9 plausibly could have been expected to understand the intended referent via a widely shared (or at least readily attainable) pre-understanding of the meaning of, and interrelationship between, πορνεία, μοιχεία, ‘wife’, and ‘divorce’. They did not need technical knowledge of intra-rabbinic debates, or insight into gentile marriage practices or foreign laws, or knowledge of anything distant from Matthew’s text. While some familiarity with Torah was part of the requisite pre-understanding, the present argument is not in the first instance an argument from Torah (notwithstanding how the paper cites Torah as supplementary support). For a Matthean audience, Torah would have been hugely influential and would have shaped how the concepts operative in the key verses were understood, and how laws and social forms related to them functioned. Yet, according to the present argument, the basic meaning of the divorce clause would have been available to Matthew’s original readers/hearers even if Torah and Torah precedent were not at the forefront of their minds. That is to say, the basic meaning of the divorce clause was comprehensible even without direct, explicit appeal to Torah (which is not to say that its meaning ever was completely divorceable from Torah, or that there are not also available explicitly Torah-based arguments for its correct interpretation).
My thesis is limited. A wide array of further considerations requires analyses extending beyond the scope of a single paper to fully substantiate the BV as the best interpretation of the divorce clause. But my thesis demonstrates that the BV can avail of a straightforward and intrinsically plausible reading of the two relevant verses that points exclusively to it. To prepare for the paper’s positive argument it is first necessary to consider in detail the heretofore dominant clausal interpretation: the ‘adultery view’ (AV). Doing so simultaneously introduces the key terms πορνεία and μοιχεία while illustrating the failure of the BV’s main rival to account for the use of πορνεία in the clause. If this paper’s argument indeed carries, and it turns out that, unlike the AV, the BV can cogently account for the presence of πορνεία in the divorce clause, it would demonstrate that the BV has a much better antecedent likelihood than that of its main rival of being the correct clausal interpretation.
The Adultery View
Matthew would have been aware that πορνεία (and its Hebrew equivalent, זנות) can mean a wide range of things. He would also have been aware that, given the nature of the topic, readers would want to know exactly what the clause refers to. And yet both the clause and its immediate context are briefly stated—almost as if together they impart sufficient information to signify what is intended. The sense is given that there is something about the clause and its context that may bring precision to the meaning of πορνεία. This itself is a reasonable expectation, given (1) the explicitly halakhic setting of both Mt. 5.32 and 19.9, a legal setting calling for precision; (2) the import of the issue for Matthew’s community in its opposition to a group, the Pharisees, known for precise exegesis (Josephus, J.W. 1.110; 2.162); and (3) the practical need for clarity. It is due to this sense that commentators typically take seriously the idea that an important clue to the meaning of πορνεία is its seeming juxtaposition with the only other term designating sexual offence in the overall statements: μοιχεία, which means adultery. 1 The idea certainly merits consideration. The clause appears in legal, halakhic teaching where terminological precision matters considerably more than in exhortation or in parable or in some other form of discourse less directly concerned with the meaning and interpretation of Torah. There is also the fact that in both Mt. 5.32 and 19.9 the insertion of the clause, and thus the appearance of πορνεία, is framed precisely as an exception. The exceptive terms (παρεκτός in 5.32; μὴ ἐπί in 19.9) are inherently distinguishing. 2 Consequently, it is quite natural to read the overall statement as implying the contradistinction of πορνεία and μοιχεία. And there is the further point that when different terms with different semantic ranges are used in close proximity the consecutive usage implies that the terms signify distinct concepts in the given instance. This last point is particularly germane to Matthew’s Gospel, given the listing of the two terms side by side at Mt. 15.19 where they undoubtedly connote distinct referents.
All this creates a serious difficulty for the AV. It understands the clause as referring to adultery and as constituting an exception to the prohibition of post-divorce remarriage. While with appropriate contextualization πορνεία can mean adultery, it usually does not. In its literal, non-figurative sense μοιχεία exclusively means adultery and is the primary term for adultery in Greek. Matthew, who clearly distinguishes πορνεία from μοιχεία at 15.19, would on the AV be using πορνεία to mean adultery in the clause at 5.32, despite the fact that μοιχεία is used to mean adultery no less than four other times in the space of Mt. 5.27–32. Similarly, on the AV, Matthew uses πορνεία to mean adultery in the clause at 19.9 despite using μοιχεία to mean adultery immediately afterwards in the same verse and shortly thereafter again at 19.18.
It is difficult to avoid the conclusion that Matthew means by πορνεία something distinct from adultery. The idea that he does fits with the general biblical distinction between זנות/πορνεία and נאוף/μοιχεία, a distinction operative across both the Hebrew Bible 3 and the New Testament, 4 and also evident in early Christian texts. 5 זנות/πορνεία has a wider semantic range governed by the general idea of sexual immorality and encapsulated by such terms as ‘fornication’ and ‘unchastity’. 6 נאוף/μοιχεία on the other hand is much narrower: it means adultery specifically (per its central case meaning).
Thus for the texts most relevant to interpreting Matthew there is operative a distinction between πορνεία and μοιχεία. What helps sustain the distinction is that the former conveys a more general idea of sexual immorality than the latter. Such is how πορνεία operates per the apostolic decree of Acts 15.19–29 if, as is likely (Shin 2022), it there indicates the sweep of sexual immoralities outlined in Lev. 18.6–23 (dealing primarily with various types of incestuous sex, but also with ‘unclean’ [qua menstrual] sex, adulterous sex, male-homosexual sex, and bestial sex). 7 Use of πορνεία as a generic designator of sexual immorality is evidenced also by the Pauline corpus, 8 Revelation (9.21), and various Pseudepigraphical and Second Temple Jewish texts, 9 as well as the vice lists (already cited) which incorporate both πορνεία and μοιχεία. So while it is true that in classical Greek usage the πορν-group was restricted to meaning prostitution and associated activities/roles (Wheeler-Reed––Knust––Martin 2018: 384–87), the term had a more general and pliable meaning in the Jewish-Christian mind (Gaca 2003: 14, 18–20). Its pliability did not preclude πορνεία being specifiable. Notwithstanding how in isolation it denoted sexual immorality generally, πορνεία could be employed, through appropriate contextualization, to convey a wide range of specific offences (thus having a much wider semantic range than μοιχεία). It could mean premarital unchastity (LXX Deut. 22.21 10 ), virginity-destroying unchastity (LXX Lev. 21.14), illegitimate exogamy (Tob. 4.12, T. Levi 9.9), extra-marital sex (T. Jud. 13.3; by ‘extra-marital’ I mean sex ‘outside’ marriage that is not adulterous), incestuous relations (1 Cor. 5.1), male use of a prostitute (1 Cor. 6.13–18), and even lustful motive on the part of a (likely betrothed) bridegroom on the cusp of sexually taking his bride (Tob. 8.7). It could also, and quite often did, mean sexual immorality distinguishable from adultery (LXX Hos. 4.13–14, Mt. 15.19, Mk 7.21–22, etc.), which would negatively specify πορνεία as non-adulterous unchastity. With the right contextualizing it certainly could be used to indicate adultery (e.g., Jer. 3.1–9, Herm. Mand. 4.29.5, T. Reu. 1.6 and T. Jos. 3.8, where πορνεία by practical entailment indicates ‘contra-marital’ sex, i.e., sex with someone contrary to an extant marriage). Nonetheless, πορνεία retained a strong association with non-marital sexual immorality (offences that are not primarily specifiable in contra-marital terms, i.e., as adulterous offences against a marriage 11 ).
It remains the case, then, that in the Jewish and Christian texts most directly relevant for understanding Matthew: (1) πορνεία did not usually mean adultery specifically or even primarily; (2) πορνεία, as a general term for sexual immorality, had a strong association with non-marital sexual offences that μοιχεία, by definition, completely lacked (since it was indexed to marriage); (3) πορνεία is often distinguished from μοιχεία; and (4) μοιχεία was the specific, dedicated word for adultery. Together (1)–(4) indicate that a primary point of contrast between πορνεία and μοιχεία pertains to marriage. If they were to be juxtaposed, the juxtaposition would suggest that μοιχεία covers the marital offence of adultery whereas πορνεία indicates non-marital sexual offences. So when it comes to Mt. 15.19 πορνεία is best interpreted as sexual offences other than adultery. This is a serious terminological difficulty for the AV. As Wheeler-Reed et al. (2018: 393–94) comment in relation to the divorce clause, at the very least πορνεία seems to be something other than adultery (μοιχεία). If the writer had meant to indicate that divorce was permissible for adultery, why not employ the more specific term? … Given the care with which Matthew differentiates πορνεία and μοιχεία [citing Mt. 15.19], it seems to us safe to conclude that πορνεία refers to something other than extramarital [what I call ‘contra-marital’] sexual intercourse on the part of the wife.
Even this underplays the implication of Mt. 15.19 somewhat. In the only other place in Matthew (outside the divorce clause) where πορνεία and μοιχεία are placed in close proximity, πορνεία is best interpreted precisely as non-marital unchastity, i.e., unchastity not covered by μοιχεία.
AV’s Stylistic Response
Proponents of the AV have issued various responses in light of the difficulty. It is quite often claimed that an extra use of μοιχεία within the overall statement would be awkward and/or unnecessarily repetitive. 12 Πορνεία instead of μοιχεία makes for better readability and style, so the argument goes. That Matthew would sacrifice precision for style is difficult to credit, however, given the location of the clause within a controversial legal pronouncement on the meaning of Torah issued against a party attempting to pit Jesus against Torah, and given also the express concerns of the Gospel in relation to Torah subject matter: fidelity to and precision concerning the written word (Mt. 5.17–20). Whatever stylistic advantages accrue to use of πορνεία—fairly slight, surely—would come at the cost of unnecessarily misleading readers away from the clause’s intended meaning.
AV’s Gender Response
Lying halfway between the stylistic response and a fully substantive semantic response is what may be termed the gender response. The claim here is that in biblical Greek the μοιχ-root tends to be used of men whereas the πορν-root tends to be used of women. Since the clause refers to a wife’s actions it therefore makes sense that πορνεία rather than μοιχεία is employed. 13 But the tendency is no strict semantic law. As noted by Johannes Bauer (1980: 27), credited with being the first to make the point in relation to the divorce clause, the matter is one of relative association: merely a matter of πορνεία being ‘more closely associated’ with women. Thus there are numerous counter-examples to the general tendency in the LXX (e.g., Lev. 20.10; Prov. 30.20; Sir. 23.23; Ezek. 16.38), 14 Philo (Spec. 3.52, 57), Josephus (Ant. 3.11.6, 7.7.1), and the New Testament (Mk 10.12; Jn 8.3–4; Rom. 7.3). In each case the μοιχ-root is applied to a woman’s actions specifically. Matthew himself so applies the μοιχ-root in one of the verses in which the divorce clause appears (5.32: ποιεῖ αὐτὴν μοιχευθῆναι).
Against this, Kyle Harper (2012: 375–76) argues that μοιχεία means violation of a woman’s honour, and that using the term of a woman required the passive voice. In neither respect would the term imply female agency or female moral failing. 15 Hence it made sense to use πορνεία instead as it conveys what μοιχεία does not. His argument is unconvincing: (1) talk of the ‘passive voice’ is beside the point since the divorce clause uses a noun (πορνεία); 16 (2) because the behaviour of a ‘wife’ is obviously at issue per the divorce clause, if μοιχεία were used there could be no doubt that female agency and female failing would be communicated by it; and (3) as above, Mark, John, Paul and Matthew had no difficulty using the μοιχ-root to convey female agency and failing. Mark uses the same verbal form for the man and the woman (μοιχᾶται); John uses μοιχεία itself as well as the verbal form αυτοϕώρῳ μοιχευομένη; Paul goes with ‘adulteress’ (μοιχαλίς); and while Matthew does use a passive form (αὐτὴν μοιχευθῆναι), his use demonstrates comfort with associating μοιχεία with female agency specifically. In any case, Harper’s claim that New Testament usage of μοιχεία means ‘violation of a (respectable) woman’s honour’ cannot accommodate any of Mk. Mk 10.12 (where a woman commits μοιχεία by marrying another man); Mt. 5.28 (where a man invisibly commits μοιχεία simply through lust); Mt. 19.9/Mk 10.11/Lk. 16.18a (where a man commits μοιχεία against his wife by marrying another woman—the woman most plausibly ‘violated’ is not the female subject of the μοιχεία); and Mt. 5.32b/Lk. 16.18b (a woman divorced on account of a serious transgression no longer counts as ‘respectable’, in which case a man marrying her would not be able to violate her honour). On the supposition that the gender and stylistic responses do not overlap, the former is still subject to a variation of a critique levelled against the latter, viz., the implausibility of Matthew aligning with what is merely a general terminological tendency at the cost of halakhic imprecision and of unnecessarily misleading readers.
AV’s Semantic Response
The fully substantive semantic response can be presented in two versions, one more plausible than the other. The less plausible version is based on the simplistic assertion that πορνεία could be used to mean a wife’s adultery. 17 Though not strictly incorrect the assertion is misleading. It implies that πορνεία can easily mean adultery, either specifically or principally. In other words, πορνεία is nearly synonymous with μοιχεία. But this neither fits nor explains the biblical data given how the terms typically correspond to distinct referents. Their semantic ranges differ considerably in bandwidth and only partially overlap. Hence it is not credible to pole-vault from the premise that πορνεία ‘could’ mean adultery to the conclusion that it does mean adultery in a context where a deliberate decision has been made to use πορνεία instead of the only term that centrally and specifically does mean adultery.
The assertion thus criticized does at least act as a corrective to a similarly imprecise claim sometimes levelled against the AV, viz., that there is no significant biblical or rabbinic support for the view that πορνεία could be used to mean adultery specifically. 18 The claims err in opposing ways: the AV claim by supposing a straightforwardly synonymous relationship (or something very close to it) between πορνεία and μοιχεία; the anti-AV claim by supposing an almost mutually exclusive (or, at best, very distant) relationship between the two terms and their corresponding concepts. A far more accurate way to conceive of their relationship is as genus-term (πορνεία—sexual immorality) and species-term (μοιχεία—adultery). They do not of themselves operate on the same semantic level, which explains their different meanings and semantic ranges as well as why πορνεία but not μοιχεία requires further specifying contextualization to indicate a particular offence. And yet they do bear an intrinsic conceptual relationship to one another, which explains why—contrary to some criticisms levelled against the AV—πορνεία was sometimes used to mean adultery.
With this in mind a somewhat more plausible version of the semantic response can be constructed. Evald Lövestam (1981: 57–58) draws attention to biblical, extra-biblical, and later rabbinic passages where זנות/πορνεία and נאוף/μοιχεία are used ‘side by side’ to ‘express the same thing’. 19 That this occurs is hardly surprising given the relationship between the two terms as genus-term and species-term. It is no accident that for the passages Lövestam cites the context is obviously marital. This contextualization allows for the easy substitution of one root for the other. When a marital context obtains, the distinction between the two terms and their corresponding concepts is naturally blurred—though not thereby dissolved—because one is a necessary consequent of the other, i.e., adultery is a practical entailment of a married spouse’s sexual immorality with another. An improved semantic response could be fashioned thus: in the absence of an express explanation that πορνεία means adultery, πορνεία can straightforwardly act as a synonym for adultery if the context is marital. The minor premise would then be that the shared context of Mt. 5.32 and 19.9 is indeed marital.
There are, however, important differences between Lövestam’s examples and the cases of Mt. 5.32; 19.9, differences that undermine even the improved semantic response. One difference is that of textual form. None of Lövestam’s biblical examples is drawn from Torah. Yet Mt. 5.32; 19.9 are legal statements. And by far the best and clearest of Lövestam’s relatively few examples, Jer. 3.1–9, is heavily figurative. The passage’s focus is on Israel’s apostasy from Yahweh, and the significance of its use of זנה is part-constituted by allusion to orgiastic rites associated with sacral prostitution and idolatry. So the context is figuratively but neither literally nor legally marital. Hence stylistic and poetic concerns, as well as influence by themes only extrinsically related to marriage, feature prominently within it. The relevance of Jer. 3.1–9 to the divorce clause’s meaning is thereby diminished. Lövestam’s rabbinic examples are more relevant as they are concerned with marriage halakhah. But in all these cases, as also with all the biblical (and above-cited Pseudepigraphical and Second Temple) examples, there are acute differences of terminological relevance and terminological focus compared to the relevant Matthean statements. In Lövestam’s texts the use of זנות to signify adultery is made as a minor, almost casual background move behind the foreground topic at hand. No sense is given that the choice of זנות in particular possesses determinative legal significance or bears upon the question being addressed. The choice of that term is just not the focus of these passages. A representative example of the passages Lövestam cites is b.t. Kiddushin 66a: What if his wife (is charged with having) committed adultery (zintah) on the testimony of one witness, and he (i.e. the husband) is silent?
20
The issue here is the standard of proof adequate in a case of alleged adultery and whether one or two witnesses suffices to establish a credible allegation. Whether זנה or נאף is used is completely immaterial to this matter. The terminological choice is not part of the foreground issue and contributes nothing to it; the subject matter does not demand a great deal of terminological specificity regarding the unchastity in question. Now compare this rabbinic statement with Mt. 19.9: And I say to you, whoever divorces his wife, except for πορνεία, and marries another μοιχᾶται.
Here, in contrast to Lövestam’s rabbinic and biblical examples, the precise meaning of πορνεία is in the foreground and bears determinative significance. Its meaning is a fundamental issue raised by the statement and has the potential to radically alter the meaning of what is proposed. Not only that, given how an exceptive clause is embedded in the overall statement and how the exceptive keyword differs from the injunction’s keyword, there is here (and not in any of Lövestam’s examples) a real possibility, if not prima facie likelihood, that πορνεία is being distinguished from μοιχεία. In many of Lövestam’s examples (such as b.t. Kiddushin 66a) only זנה is used and thus there is no possible contrast with נאף. In the remaining examples (such as Jer. 3.1–9) nothing about the text suggests a contradistinction of זנה from נאף (and the terminological choice bears little extra-figurative conceptual significance). The very real possibility of terminological juxtaposition within Mt. 5.32; 19.9 which is suggested by the distinguishing function of the exceptive clauses is strengthened both by Mt. 15.19 (where the keywords are distinguished) and by expectation of terminological precision consequent upon the Torah context of Mt. 5.31–32; 19.3–9. Given the confluence of these three factors—the divorce clauses’ focus on the term πορνεία and the determinative question of its specific meaning; the contrastive effect of the exceptive clauses (and of Mt. 15.19) which raises terminological juxtaposition between πορνεία and μοιχεία as a very real possibility; and the emphatically legal context which calls for terminological precision—the Matthean statements stand apart from Lövestam’s examples. It is telling that rabbinic scholarship rarely if ever gives second thought to why זנה and not נאף is used in statements like the one from b.t. Kiddusin 66a. Nothing about the formulation of that kind of statement suggests the issue warrants prolonged inquiry. And yet—as presupposed by virtually all investigations into Matthew’s divorce clause—various elements of the Matthean statements cooperate to urge inquiry into the particular choice of πορνεία.
The improved semantic response on behalf of the AV can now be revisited. It holds that in the absence of an express explanation that πορνεία means adultery, πορνεία can straightforwardly act as a synonym for adultery if the context is marital. Even this is unsatisfactory. What can be reasonably agreed upon is the following. In the absence of an express explanation that πορνεία means adultery, πορνεία can straightforwardly act as a synonym for adultery if (1) the context is marital; (2) a distinction between πορνεία and μοιχεία is not implied as a real possibility; and (3) it is conceptually insignificant whether πορνεία or μοιχεία is used (unlikely when the context is legal or otherwise suggests a concern for terminological precision). Since Mt. 5.32, 19.9 do not satisfy conditions (2)–(3) the reader is left exposed to the background fact that πορνεία and μοιχεία have distinct meanings and distinct semantic ranges. Hence the improved semantic response fails. It is not true of the sorts of statements represented by Mt. 5.32; 19.9 that πορνεία can straightforwardly act as a synonym for adultery. It therefore remains an intractable problem for the AV that Matthew’s clause uses πορνεία instead of μοιχεία. And use of πορνεία can only appear minimally defensible per the AV on account of how the Matthean statements seem to at least satisfy condition (1): that the context is marital. But to be adequately precise that condition ought to read instead (1)*: either the context is exclusively marital or else it is immaterial whether the context is exclusively marital.
The Betrothal View
It is very widely assumed that the BV—which interprets the divorce clause as referring to betrothal unchastity—struggles to explain how πορνεία uniquely fits its interpretation. BVs have themselves contributed to this assumption. By far the most influential presentation, Abel Isaksson’s, suggests that πορνεία was never used to signify marital adultery specifically, and then argues that since the sexual offence at issue in the divorce clause is that of a married woman (thinks Isaksson), πορνεία must mean, as he puts it, ‘premarital unchastity’ (1965: 132–40). 21 The major premise is incorrect. And even if πορνεία does not mean marital adultery in the divorce clause this would not preclude it from meaning non-adulterous sexual offences distinguishable from and more specific than ‘premarital unchastity’, e.g., prostitution, incest simpliciter, and incestuous ‘marriage’ (nor would it seem to completely rule out πορνεία signifying something that falls under both adultery and a different category of offence, e.g., incest). David W. Jones, in a sympathetic (and informative) presentation of the BV, concedes the point and merely responds that specificity over the meaning of πορνεία is a problem for every interpretation of the clause, not just the BV (2008: 84). Let us call this the ‘specificity objection’. Pressed against the BV it argues that betrothal unchastity or premarital fornication is too specific a meaning for the genus-term πορνεία. William Loader (2015: 72) makes this criticism in saying that the equation of πορνεία with premarital unchastity is ‘too narrow for the context’. 22
The BV is often seen as having an extra, more severe difficulty in explaining how it coheres with the divorce clause. Due to the obviously marital context of the relevant Matthean statements, πορνεία either cannot mean or is very unlikely to mean premarital unchastity. Let us call this the ‘marital objection’ against the BV. Davies and Allison (2004: 529) advance it. Pointing out that πορνεία has generally been understood to have one of three meanings—which they label ‘fornication’, ‘incest’, and ‘adultery’—they comment that the first of these is ‘the least likely to be correct’ in large part because Mt. 5.31–32 (and 19.3–9) ‘most naturally presupposes a marital context’. 23 So there are two initial objections the BV must address. Either the wording of the Matthean statements precludes a premarital meaning to πορνεία, or else, even if a premarital meaning is not precluded as such, the wording of the Matthean statements does not function to specify πορνεία to mean premarital unchastity. The BV thus faces an extra hurdle to that faced by the AV: it, at least, obviously coheres with the marital context in which the clause is found.
Actually, the marital objection against the BV fails, and it does so in a way that allows the BV to offer a uniquely satisfying response to the specificity objection which has hitherto confounded every clausal interpretation. While the context of the clause is obviously marital the aforementioned statement pursuant to condition (1)* is simply not true, i.e., it is not the case that the context of Mt. 5.32, 19.9 is exclusively marital. Marriage began at nissuin but it was comprehensively, intrinsically related to betrothal (which began at erusin with the legally binding commitment to marry) to the extent that Jewish betrothal as it then existed can be rightly labelled ‘inchoate marriage’ (Cohen 1948: 78; Satlow 2001: 69, 75). 24
As indicated by Matthew’s Gospel itself (1.18–19), in first century Judaism ‘divorce’ was required for the dissolution of a valid betrothal 25 (Joseph, prior to marrying Mary, resolves to divorce [ἀπολῦσαι] her), and a betrothed woman was really called a ‘wife’ 26 (understandable given how the legal positions of betrothed and married women were so similar). And yet betrothal was distinguishable from marriage, principally based on how marriage was predicated on and commenced with sexual consummation and cohabitation.
At both Mt. 5.32; 19.9 the divorce clause is preceded by ‘anyone who divorces his wife …’. Absolutely nothing about this introductory clause precludes the betrothed state being addressed. Quite the opposite. Mention of ‘marries’ is only made subsequently in the relevant statements, i.e., after the introductory and exceptive clauses. The concluding moral judgment (commission of ‘adultery’) is contingent upon a subsequent marriage being enacted, but that marriage is conceptually and practically distinguishable from the action ‘divorces his wife’.
Given the practical Jewish meaning of ‘divorces’ and ‘wife’ these terms would not have framed the moral parameters of the overall teaching at Mt. 5.32, 19.9 as strictly delineated by marriage. Scholars today tend to automatically think in exclusively marital terms when they encounter those terms and hence infer from their use that the moral context at issue must pertain exclusively to the married state. Luz (2007: 254), as just one example, says that the context ‘clearly speaks of a married woman’. 27 But not so for Matthew and his Jewish contemporaries. They would naturally assume that the teaching’s normative parameters (as distinct from conclusory moral judgment viz., adultery) extended beyond marriage and into betrothal. Accurate interpretation of the clause requires awareness that the concepts of ‘wife’ and ‘divorce’ were perfectly applicable to the betrothed state and that the betrothed state would have been presumed relevant to the teaching.
Nor does the wider context indicate an exclusively marital frame of reference. Granted, Deut. 24.1, in particular its mention of the divorce certificate, does feature prominently within Mt. 5.31–32; 19.3–9 by virtue of its citation at Mt. 5.31 and 19.7. Granted too, Deut. 24.1 is concerned with marriage, not betrothal. But neither of the two references to the idea that Deut. 24.1 commands provision of a divorce certificate comes from Jesus. Mt. 5.31 is a thetical norm referenced by Jesus as ‘what has been said’, to which he antithetically responds in such a manner that cannot but be interpreted as seriously challenging the saying. Mt. 19.7, almost verbatim with Mt. 5.31, comes from the Pharisees, Jesus’ staunch opponents in Matthew. At Mt. 19.8 Jesus corrects the Pharisees’ interpretation of Deut. 24.1. It is not a command to provide a divorce certificate, as the Pharisees hold, but evidence of a concessionary permission to divorce.
At no point does Jesus affirm Deut. 24.1 as controlling the question at hand. Instead, the key principle he cites as foundational for Mt. 19.9 (and, we must assume, for 5.32 also) is drawn from Gen. 2.24: ‘one flesh’ (μίαν σάρκα) union, affirmed twice for emphasis at Mt. 19.5–6. This principle truly is a marriage principle, given that it evokes sexual union (1 Cor. 6.15–18). Yet nothing about the ‘one flesh’ principle precludes betrothal divorce being the referent of the divorce clause. On the contrary, the principle plausibly necessitates some kind of betrothal-based exception to Jesus’ divorce-adultery teaching. For if the underlying principle accounting for the adulterousness of post-divorce remarriage is that the subsequent marriage ‘separates’ the one flesh union of the initial marriage (Mt. 19.6: μὴ χωριζέτω), then marriage subsequent to betrothal divorce (or to divorce following a fraudulently conducted nissuin: Deut 22:13–21) would seem to differ materially from marriage subsequent to marital divorce (similarly: unchastity during betrothal and unchastity post-marriage would seem to relate differently to the marital ‘one flesh’ principle—the latter would illegitimately ‘separate’ an extant ‘one flesh’ union whereas the former would seem rather to obstruct, in a uniquely detrimental manner, the enactment of a vowed ‘one flesh’ union).
We might rule out a betrothal referent for the clause if indeed Deut. 24.1, with its exclusive focus on marital divorce, were controlling for Mt. 5.32; 19.9, but, as above, there is no indication that Jesus’ halakhic parameters are controlled by that particular Deuteronomic verse. Thus there is no non-circular reason to think that the divorce clause must pertain to some category of marital divorce.
With these preliminary clarifications made, it can now be shown how the clause as set in its immediate context delivers a specific meaning for πορνεία which comports exclusively with the BV.
Specifying πορνεία
If an author wished to refer to something specific by use of the genus-term πορνεία they would have to add additional content to do so. Thus in 1 Cor. 5.1 Paul explains the sort of πορνεία he is writing about: a man’s sexual involvement with his father’s wife (presumably his stepmother). Matthew’s clause does not signify so directly. Instead it signifies what it means by πορνεία similarly to how ψυχήν operates at Mt. 10.28; 10.39; and 16.25–26. In Matthew, as elsewhere, ψυχή can mean ‘soul’ as well as an individual’s ‘life’. Often the differences between the concepts are immaterial, but not always. ‘Soul’ communicates the sense of an enduring, identity-constituting ‘self’ in a way that ‘life’ by itself does not. In Mt. 10.28 ψυχήν is juxtaposed with σῶμα (body) thereby ruling out ‘life’ and instead signifying ‘soul’, with part of the point being that the destruction of one’s soul in Gehenna is an ultimate loss. While Jesus warns against the destruction of ψυχήν here a little further on at v. 39 he urges the loss of ψυχήν to find ψυχήν. This would be incoherent but for the fact that contextualization, including the juxtaposition of ψυχήν with σῶμα in v. 28, specifies ψυχήν in v. 39 to mean ‘life’, not ‘soul’. Such an interpretation renders v. 39 consistent with the use of ψυχήν in v. 28, and coheres nicely with the allusion to sacrifice in v. 38. A similar interplay involving terminological juxtaposition (between κόσμον [world] and ψυχήν) and specifying contextualization is operative in Mt. 16.25–26 which likewise brings intelligibility to statements otherwise unintelligible if the key term, by itself underdetermined, retained a univocal meaning throughout.
And a similar interplay is at work in Matthew’s divorce clause, I propose. If one pursues the idea that πορνεία and μοιχεία are juxtaposed in the relevant Matthean statements—an idea suggested by the fact that they are different words with different semantic ranges, by their being distinguished at Mt. 15.19, by the expectation of precision attendant upon the statements’ legal context, and by the inherently distinguishing function of the clausal exceptive terms—then one is left with the contradistinguishing of a wife’s πορνεία with μοιχεία. The latter’s primary, literal meaning is adultery, while the central case (if not indeed exclusive) meaning of adultery is marital (post-nissuin) infidelity. The former has an association with premarital and wider non-marital unchastity that the latter completely lacks. Indeed, every non-figurative LXX Torah use of πορνεία as applied to a woman is most naturally read in reference to an unmarried woman: Gen. 34.31; 38.15–24; Lev. 19.29; 21.7, 9, 14; Deut. 22.21; 23.18. Now: the only Jewish way in which a wife could seriously sexually offend against her husband outside of marriage was through pre-nissuin (pre-marriage) unchastity, and the only way she could offend against her husband qua wife while unmarried was through unchastity during erusin (betrothal). 28 A wife’s πορνεία—especially when juxtaposed with μοιχεία—specifies the πορνεία to mean pre-nissuin unchastity, and particularly calls to mind unchastity committed during betrothal while an unmarried wife. So while πορνεία could mean any number of things, a wife’s πορνεία—again, especially when juxtaposed with μοιχεία—implies pre-nissuin (particularly betrothal) unchastity on her part. Juxtaposition winnows out meaning via contrast. A primary point of contrast between πορνεία and μοιχεία concerns their relationship to marriage: the latter but not the former is directly, specifically indexed to marriage, while the former but not the latter has a strong association with non-marital sexual offences. When the contrast is contextualized to the activity of an ancient Jewish ‘wife’, it delivers the idea of a wife’s pre-nissuin unchastity.
Note that the contrastive juxtaposition my reading relies on is exactly the one evidenced by the only other place in Matthew where πορνεία appears in close proximity to μοιχεία (15.19). Listed side-by-side with μοιχεία, πορνεία is there best interpreted as non-marital sexual offences. This is the single most relevant precedent for the meaning of πορνεία in Matthew’s divorce clause. And it conduces exclusively to the BV: πορνεία in the divorce clause is a wife’s non-marital unchastity. 29 The relevant distinction is accentuated at Mt. 19.9 by the placement of the exceptive clause immediately after ‘divorces his wife’ (ἀπολύσῃ τὴν γυναῖκα αὐτοῦ) and immediately prior to ‘and marries’ (καὶ γαμήσῃ). 30 This has a double effect: of decoupling the conceptual pair divorce-wife from the concept of marriage, and of anchoring the exception to divorce-wife but not to marriage. 31
The proposed specifying operation of the clause per its immediate context is quite natural when one is clear that a betrothed woman really was a wife who could be divorced, and that πορνεία and μοιχεία relate to marriage in the ways that they do. On this reading Matthew does not use πορνεία in isolation. He employs it via terminological juxtaposition and wider specifying contextualization. The divorce clause cooperates with the basal statements of Mt. 5.32; 19.9; its meaning is not found simply by attending to a single keyword in isolation, but by reading the sentence as an integrated unit operating according to parameters set by the prevalent Jewish understanding of ‘wife’, ‘divorces’, πορνεία, and μοιχεία. In light of these considerations one can imagine the material’s originator thinking with real justification that his presentation of the πορνεία clause was sufficient to signal something specific: the case of a wife’s pre-nissuin unchastity. Contrary to a nearly unanimous assumption shared across all clausal interpretations, Matthew’s text at 5.32, 19.9 does in fact satisfy the expectation that the meaning of so crucial an exception is appropriately signalled in a manner graspable by the intended audience.
Considering Objections
Too Removed From Marriage?
A variation on the marital objection might concede that Mt. 5.31–32 and 19.3–9 are not exclusively marital in framing yet insist that they are nevertheless heavily concerned with marriage, and thus on the BV the clause appears rather out of place. Isaksson’s defence of the BV encourages just this criticism through its description of the clause’s πορνεία as ‘premarital unchastity’ (1965: 139). While the description is difficult to avoid, the phrase unfortunately implies to the contemporary mind that the unchastity in question is unrelated to marriage. A better, more Deuteronomic conceptualization of betrothal unchastity is ‘proto-adultery’. 32 Deut. 22.13–30 is the Torah’s single most comprehensive, integrated treatment of adultery and associated violations of marriage. It opens with its longest self-contained unit—examining, through different lenses, the (alleged) pre-nissuin unchastity of a young bride while ‘still in her father’s house’. 33 The overall section proceeds to further discuss betrothal: Deut. 22.23–24 concerns betrothal infidelity qua proto-adultery, while vv. 25–27 concern the rape of a betrothed. From its treatment within Deut. 22.13–30 it is clear that betrothal unchastity is intrinsically related to marriage even while not an anti-marital act in the same manner as adultery per post-nissuin unchastity (Deut. 22 distinguishes between marital infidelity, v. 22, and betrothal infidelity, vv. 23–24). Hence, contra the impression given by Isaksson’s phrasing, the clause’s πορνεία is ‘premarital’ in a way not tantamount to ‘maritally irrelevant’, and thus not at all alien to Jesus’ basal teaching on divorce, marriage, and adultery. In Deut. 22.13–30 betrothal unchastity is a subject in 14 out of the 18 verses. To a Torah-minded first-century Jew there would be nothing inherently remarkable about a divorce clause having as its object a wife’s pre-nissuin unchastity. Proto-adultery, and betrothal in general, would have been perfectly at home in teaching that revolved around the ideas of ‘wife’, ‘divorce’, ‘marriage’, and ‘adultery’. Deut. 22.13–30 proves it.
The Wrong Torah Referent?
The relevance of Deut. 22.13–30 to the divorce clause question has gone underappreciated. Scholars tend to think automatically of Deut. 24.1–4 as the most relevant Torah unit, largely due to the citation of Deut. 24.1 in the Matthean passages. On that basis it is assumed that the unit must contain the Torah referent for πορνεία. As already explained, though, those citations are not endorsed by Jesus. Compared to Deut. 22.13–30, Deut. 24.1–4 is a narrower and much shorter Torah treatment of marriage violations, dealing with a single, rather peripheral matter (a man remarrying a woman he previously divorced, which is not directly about adultery). Neither of the supposed divorce-ground terms in LXX Deut. 24.1 (ἀσχήμων and πράγμα) appears anywhere in the Matthean passages. Besides, Deut. 24.1 is not apodosis, but rather protasis to Deut. 24.4. In contrast, Deut. 22.13–30 is the key Torah text for unpacking the command against adultery (Deut. 5.18). Dealing with a host of practical issues impacted by application of Deut. 5.18, the unit deploys the divorce clause’s keyword in a striking manner. Deut. 22.21 says of the bride of whom pre-nissuin unchastity is alleged that she ‘fornicated’ (or ‘played the harlot’; לזנות; ἐκπορνεῦσαι per the LXX) while ‘still in her father’s house’. The reference encompasses both post-erusin/pre-nissuin unchastity and pre-erusin unchastity (in virtue of the allusion to ‘still in her father’s house’), and to that extent further distances its citation of harlotry from post-nissuin (i.e., marital) infidelity. It is the only Torah reference specific to a wife’s betrothal unchastity and the only instance of LXX Torah using πορνεία non-figuratively in relation to a wife’s unchastity. Thus, in terms of Torah—Matthew’s normative framework—there is direct semantic support for the juxtaposition-contextualization being claimed for the divorce clause by the present defence of the BV. Such support was a background interpretative aid for Matthew’s audience allowing them to more easily grasp the meaning of the divorce clause. It is independent evidence in favour of the thesis that the juxtaposition-contextualization claimed by this paper is indeed operative in Matthew’s text. The semantic support is lacking for the AV: the divorce clause uses πορνεία, and neither ἀσχήμων nor μοιχεία. 34
Extended Rather Than Restricted Meaning to πορνεία?
Alternatively, in the course of an important paper David Janzen (2000: 79–80) argues that Matthew used πορνεία in the clause because it did not, as μοιχεία did, convey an exclusively marital divorce ground: ‘it is not simply sex during marriage that constitutes a permissible reason for a man to divorce, but also sex during betrothal’. In other words, had μοιχεία been used it may very well have communicated the idea that betrothal unchastity did not constitute a permissible divorce ground. Janzen’s argument is unconvincing. He acknowledges that μοιχεία has the meaning of ‘extra-marital’ sex, as he puts it. Indeed, his argument relies on this meaning: if μοιχεία were to be used in the divorce clause it would suggest the exclusion of betrothal unchastity as a divorce ground. But by Janzen’s own logic, the use of only πορνεία—which has a strong association with premarital and wider non-marital unchastity, and which is distinguished from μοιχεία at Mt. 15.19—would suggest the exclusion of marital unchastity (μοιχεία). That is to say, since a primary point of contrast between πορνεία and μοιχεία relates to marriage, and since the appearance of only μοιχεία in the clause would seem to exclude non-marital unchastity (argues Janzen), then the appearance of only πορνεία in the clause would seem to exclude marital unchastity (i.e., μοιχεία). Janzen’s argument is thus self-defeating (and, moreover, is incompatible with the non-marital meaning of πορνεία implied by Mt. 15:19). His speculated solution to the hypothesized problem facing Matthew is also unsatisfying. If Matthew wanted to signal both betrothal and marital unchastity then there was an obvious way to do so: cite both πορνεία and μοιχεία (something he has no difficulty doing at 15.19). Matthew was not restricted to using just one keyword in the divorce clause.
Normative logic poses a further difficulty for Janzen’s thesis: it is unclear why use of μοιχεία in the divorce clause would serve to exclude betrothal unchastity. Surely if marital unchastity counted as a legitimate ground for exiting a marriage and thereafter being free to marry again, then betrothal unchastity would also count as a legitimate ground for exiting a betrothal and thereafter marrying. Though much closer to marriage than our contemporary practice of engagement, betrothal was still a less comprehensive partnership than marriage. So if unchastity was grounds for marital divorce then a fortiori it would have been grounds for betrothal divorce. No scriptural principle suggests otherwise. Note that this normative logic is unidirectional. It does not warrant the reverse judgment, i.e., that betrothal unchastity as a divorce ground implies marital unchastity as a divorce ground. For not only was betrothal a lesser partnership than marriage, and thus plausibly more dissoluble than it, but one of the key differences between the two states, ‘one flesh’ union, is presented by Jesus in the course of Mt. 19.3–9 as the fundamental principle on which the teaching at 19.9 is predicated. Sexual union part-constituted marriage and distinguished it from betrothal. It connotes a new, uniquely close form of bond, one by which a man is united to (κολληθήσεται) and joined to (συνέζευξεν) his wife, and one from which a man must not separate (μὴ χωριζέτω). In terms of normative logic, if the divorce-adultery teaching of Mt. 19.9 is predicated on the principle of ‘one flesh’ union, and if that union is constitutive of the marital bond, then there should be some significant sense in which betrothal divorce, and perhaps betrothal unchastity in particular, should be excepted from the basal statement, ‘whoever divorces his wife … and marries another commits adultery’. So while there is no normative principle which suggests that marital but not betrothal unchastity can act as a divorce ground, there is a normative principle which suggests the cogency of the converse idea—and it is enshrined in scripture in a manner directly relevant to the meaning of the divorce clause.
Finally, Janzen, in common with very many others, mis-frames the significance of what is being taught by Mt. 19.3–9 (and, in a less direct manner, by Mt. 5.31–32). For him (2000: 72–78), the precise context in which the Matthean divorce clause is set is that established by discussions in the ancient Near East and in first century Judaism of ‘just cause’ divorces whereby the dowry could be retained by the husband (and thus not repaid to the departing wife). In terms of Judaism, which is of more direct relevance to Matthew, he cites inter alia m. Ketubot 7.6 and the Hillelite-Shammaite divorce debate as transmitted by m. Gitten 9.10. But nothing in Mt. 19.3–9 suggests that retention or repayment of the dowry/ketubah is at issue. Those verses culminate in Mt. 19.9 when Jesus teaches, ‘whoever divorces his wife … and marries another commits adultery’. Commission of adultery (via post-divorce remarriage) is the primary norm at stake, a much more fundamental matter than financial penalty consequent upon an ‘unjust cause’ divorce. In rabbinism, husbands divorcing without ‘just cause’ were free to remarry; they were not judged adulterers for doing so. (In terms of the Hillelite-Shammaite divorce debate, there was no suggestion that the Shammaites deemed divorce on the wider Hillelite ground as invalidating a subsequent marriage. Thus there was no suggestion that a Hillelite divorce could lead to an adulterous remarriage.) Of course, mis-contextualizing the Matthean divorce material need not entail misinterpreting the meaning of πορνεία in the divorce clause. Yet the more one loses sight of the radical nature of Jesus’ teaching and how it is advanced via appeal to fundamental principle, the less alive will one be to the significance of the fact that πορνεία is chosen for the divorce clause instead of μοιχεία, and the less appreciative will one be of the need to account for this usage in light of the ‘one flesh’ principle. In neither respect does the sort of mis-contextualization highlighted above aid analysis of Matthew’s divorce clause.
Conclusion
It is usually thought that the meaning of πορνεία in Matthew’s divorce clause is underdetermined. Its generality is a problem for every clausal interpretation, for if the term can mean many things it is not clear how it can signal a particular clausal interpretation as uniquely correct. An extra difficulty faces the currently dominant interpretation, the ‘adultery view’, since it must explain why the clause uses πορνεία and not μοιχεία. Proponents of the ‘adultery view’ have offered various responses to this difficulty. After examining them this paper finds each wanting. The ‘betrothal view’, on the other hand, can offer a reading which simultaneously illuminates how πορνεία signals a specific referent (not in isolation, but through contextualization and juxtaposition) and why πορνεία is employed instead of μοιχεία. This reading trades on a Jewish understanding of ‘wife’ and ‘divorce’ as applicable to the betrothed state. It also trades on a Jewish understanding of a primary way by which πορνεία contrasts with μοιχεία: the latter but not the former is indexed to marriage, while the former but not the latter has a strong association with non-marital unchastity. The proposed reading is that which prompts the following inferences: the only way a Jewish wife’s unchastity could not be marital unchastity is if it were committed prior to nissuin, and the only way she could commit unchastity prior to nissuin while a wife was by doing so during betrothal.
Footnotes
1.
The idea is taken seriously even by some who think that πορνεία nonetheless principally equates to adultery (e.g., Betz 1995: 250) or who remain undecided on the matter (e.g., 
: 113).
3.
Often in the Hebrew Bible זנות does not refer to adultery or is even distinguished from adultery (e.g., Prov. 6.26; 23.27; Ezek. 23.43–44; Hos. 4.13–14). There are occasions where זנות and נאוף appear synonymous with one another, which is unsurprising given that in a certain context—sexual immorality within marriage—one is a practical entailment of the other. Yet even in some of these cases the sense is given that they bear logically distinct concepts. For example, in Jer. 3.1–9 likely part-constituting the significance of זנה is allusion to orgiastic rites associated with worship of other gods. Noting that as a general rule μοιχεία (not πορνεία) is used in the LXX for adultery, Meier (1976: 144) adds, ‘There are a few cases where porneia is used in the LXX in reference to the married, but usually this can be explained because of some additional idea (e.g. prostitution, religious infidelity)’. One verse sometimes thought of as an exception to the general rule is Sir. 23.23, though : 172–73) ascribes adverbial force to the term per ἐν πορνείᾳ ἐμοιχεύθη, thus rendering the phrase as ‘wantonly committed adultery’. If the phrase in Sir. 23.23 means ‘through her fornication she has committed adultery’ (NRSV), πορνείᾳ here would be practically coterminous with, though conceptually distinguishable from, adultery.
4.
The New Testament distinguishes the two terms, not just at Mt. 15.19 but also at Mk 7.21–22; 1 Cor. 6.9; and Heb. 13.4.
5.
E.g., Did. 2.2, 5.1; Barn. 19.4; Herm. Mand. 4.29.1, 8.38.3; and Theophilus of Antioch, Ad. Aut. 1.2, 2.34.
6.
‘Prostitution’ or ‘harlotry’ is another important meaning though this meaning is more important regarding the Hebrew Bible’s use of זנות than New Testament usage of πορνεία. Even then the sense of ‘prostitution’ conveyed by זנות is at least partly contingent upon the concepts of unchastity/fornication. Bird (1989: 78) argues that the primary meaning of זנה (‘to play the harlot’) is not harlotry qua professional prostitution but harlotry qua unchastity/fornication. Thus the prostitute is the habitually unchaste woman. Her analysis is supported by the comprehensive study of .
7.
Even if Lev. 18 is not the referent of the decree’s πορνεία it is nonetheless highly likely that πορνεία therein has a broad meaning, i.e., is not restricted to a particular transgression. Those claiming that in Acts 15 it means only incest per Lev. 18 provide no credible basis for restricting the referent to Lev. 18.6–18, which deals with incest offences, to the exclusion of Lev. 18.19–23, which deals with non-incest offences.
8.
1 Cor. 7.2 (possibly referring to, inter alia, 1 Cor. 6.16 and 1 Cor. 7.5, 9); 1 Cor. 10.8; 2 Cor. 12.21; Gal. 5.19; Eph. 5.3, 5; Col. 3.5; 1 Thess. 4.3 (even if behaviour towards a wife is in view, the sexual immorality contemplated is not very specific); 1 Tim. 1.10.
9.
E.g., T. 12. Patr. (T. Reu. 5.3, 5.5, 6.1; T. Sim. 5.3; T. Levi 9.9, etc.); Ascen. Isa. 2.5; Tob. 4.12 (ἀπὸ πάσης πορνείας); Sir. 23.16–17.
10.
Contrary to the claim that πορνεία and related words in the LXX are used ‘only for prostitution’ (: 387). The authors implicitly concede the point when they cite Num. 14.33, Jer. 3.2, Hos. 4.11 as referring to ‘prostitution or unfaithfulness likened to prostitution’ (emphasis mine), and Ezek. 16.15, 23.7, 11 as referring to ‘prostitution or lust’ (emphasis mine). Other LXX uses of πορνεία that seem better captured by the concept of unchastity than by professional harlotry include Gen. 38.24 (Tamar was not generally considered a prostitute) and Lev. 21.14 (viz. the reference to virginity at Lev. 21.13). In the Dead Sea Scrolls the Hebrew equivalent of πορνεία, זנות, is used to mean specific offences clearly distinct from literal prostitution: immoral sex with one’s wife (4Q270 [4QD] 7i, 12–13) and taking two wives in one’s lifetime (CD IV, 20–21).
11.
Marital (sexual) immorality can also refer to intra-marital offences, i.e., offences within one’s marriage. : 176–77) claims that from the Second Temple period only Tob. 8.7 and 1 Thess. 4.3 use πορνεία in the context of marriage. Even these citations are not certain, particularly the former. Tob. 8.7 concerns the prayer of a man only just betrothed (prior to both the consummation and wedding feast of his marriage) about his present motive for his future act of sexually taking his bride. 1 Thess. 4.3–6 is a difficult passage. Wassen’s reading requires σκεῦος (4.3) to mean ‘wife’, which is possible.
12.
E.g., Loader 2012: 247; Luz 2007: 255 (while Luz ultimately favours the ‘divorce-only view’—which holds that the divorce exception merely permits divorce on the asserted ground and not remarriage—he nonetheless interprets the clause’s πορνεία to principally mean adultery); Sigal 2007: 120; : 467 n. 19.
13.
E.g., Blomberg 1990: 178; Davies and Allison 2004: 531; : 209 n. 107.
14.
The gender response also implies that the command against adultery (which the LXX translates using μοιχεία) at Exod. 20.14; Deut. 5.18 (and Mt. 19.18) is to be read as directed exclusively at men—which is untenable.
15.
It is worth noting that the πορν-root could be used of a man, as Harper himself acknowledges (2012: 375). He lists 1 Cor. 6.9; Eph. 5.5; 1 Tim. 1.10; and Heb. 12.16 (he could just as easily have added πορνεία per Mt. 15.19 since its censure is hardly restricted to female agency, as well as LXX Num. 25.1; Tob. 4.12; 8.7, etc.).
16.
Harper overstates his passivity point. While it is true that Greek authors typically used a passive form as circumlocution for a woman’s μοιχεία, the passive form usually bore an active sense (especially when unaccompanied by a prepositional phrase specifying the male as the primary active agent). See : 110–14. Thus typical employment of the passive form for female μοιχεία is compatible with the idea of female agency and failing.
17.
E.g., Loader 2015: 72; Davies and Allison 2004: 531; Blomberg 1990: 177; : 119.
18.
This exaggerated claim is at least implied by Isaksson 1965: 132–34; Wenham and Heth 2002: 135–37 (cf. 176 where rabbinic support is conceded); and : 82 n. 42 (the references given clearly take this view; less clear is whether Jones supports it).
19.
It is not clear from his article whether Lövestam takes the AV or the ‘divorce-only view’, but certain comments (at 1981: 61 and 65) can be inferred as indicating the former. In any case, his article is regularly cited by AV proponents.
21.
Isaksson’s full treatment of the divorce clause (1965: 127–42) remains worthy of careful study.
22.
Luz (2007: 254) dismisses betrothal (and other) views for a similar reason: ‘The general meaning of πορνεία makes it impossible to define “unchastity” more narrowly. It cannot be defined more precisely as unchastity during the betrothal [or] as premarital sexual relations …’. More recently the same criticism against the BV is levelled by : 126.
23.
Blomberg (1990: 176) similarly states that ‘the Pharisees asked Jesus to respond to a debate concerning adultery and not premarital sex’. (Actually, at Mt. 19.3 the direct object of the Pharisees’ question is divorce.) : 466), too, assumes that the sexual unfaithfulness at issue must pertain to marriage.
24.
Essentially the same inchoately marital idea of betrothal was present in Hellenistic Judaism, as evidenced by Philo, Spec. 3.72–73.
25.
Attested to by rabbinic literature also (e.g., m. Ketubot 1.2, m. Gitten 6.2, m. Yevamot 2.6). See Cohen 1948: 108. On Greek papyrological evidence from Egypt (P.Polit.Iud. 4) see Kister (2002) and : 542–43).
26.
Implied by Mt. 1.19 which refers to Joseph as Mary’s ‘husband’ (ὁ ἀνὴρ αὐτῆς), and of course supported by the reference to divorce in the same verse. It is possible that the description of a betrothed woman as ‘wife’ is directly made by Mt. 1.20 (μὴ ϕοβηθῇς παραλαβεῖν Μαρίαν τὴν γυναῖκά σου) and 1.24 (παρέλαβεν τὴν γυναῖκα αὐτοῦ), which is how Cotton understands it (2022: 537) and how the RSV presents it (‘take Mary your wife’). In Deut. 22.24 a betrothed woman is described as a ‘wife’ (אשת; the word can mean ‘woman’ also but v. 22 uses it to mean a married woman), which is termed γυναῖκα per LXX Deut. 22.24. Deut. 20.7 references a man becoming pledged to a wife/woman without yet marrying her (לקחה ולא אשה ארש), for which the LXX has μεμνήστευται γυναῖκα καὶ οὐκ ἔλαβεν αὐτήν. Other biblical examples of a betrothed woman labelled ‘wife’ are 2 Sam. 3.14 (where David calls Michal his אשתי), Gen. 29.21 (where Jacob says the same of Rachel), and possibly Deut. 28.30 (אשה there works equally well as ‘wife’ and ‘woman’). Again, in each instance the LXX uses γυναῖκα. Other examples of designating ‘betrothed woman’ by γυνή are Jos. Asen. 21.1/20.8 (cf. 20.4/3, 23.3/4); Tob. 7.13 (Sara is given as ‘wife’ prior to both the consummation and wedding); and (figuratively) Rev. 19.7; 21.9. Examples of rabbinic application of ‘wife’ to the betrothed woman include m. Ketubot 4.7, m. Yevamot 2.9, t. Ketubot 8.1, and b.t. Ketubot 47b.
27.
Other examples of the same erroneous assumption are Collins 1992: 187; Köstenberger 2003: 260; : 572.
28.
The distinction suggested by the second statement in the above sentence is that between pre-nissuin unchastity which includes (legacy) pre-erusin unchastity—in other words, all unchastity ever committed by the woman prior to marriage—and unchastity that occurs only during betrothal, i.e., pre-nissuin yet post-erusin. A wife’s unchastity during betrothal is a direct offence against her present husband. Given considerations embedded in and associated with Deut. 22.13–21, a wife’s unchastity prior to betrothal also constitutes an offence against her betrothed husband (at least in principle, and especially if the husband is not forewarned about the unchastity).
29.
Aside from premarital unchastity, which is a form of non-marital unchastity, there is no more specific category of unchastity applicable to the wife that is inherently non-marital.
30.
The placement of the clause in Mt. 5.32 corresponds closely but not identically to its placement in Mt. 19.9. The same double effect is produced, but perhaps not quite as clearly since ‘marries’ does not appear immediately after the divorce clause in Mt. 5.32 (it appears therein in the final clause of v. 32b). In a separate unpublished paper I argue that the divorce clause was non-original to the statement of Mt. 5.32 which, if correct, would help explain why the double accentuation is not as pronounced at 5.32 as it is at 19.9. That paper also addresses the connection between the divorce clause and Mt. 1.19, a matter an anonymous reviewer of the present paper raised as worth addressing, but whose addressing is facilitated by neither the present argument nor available space.
31.
My reading differs slightly from : 135; cf. 140). He reads πορνεία in greater abstraction from its immediate context and does not understand the term as indexed to ‘wife’ while in juxtaposition with μοιχεία, such that the referent includes the betrothal unchastity (and betrothal divorce) of a woman qua wife. He says, ‘Since it is a question of a married woman’s crime and her extra-marital sexual intercourse is described as πορνεία, this word must mean a sexual offence committed by the wife before her marriage’. Here Isaksson understands the offence as that of a ‘married woman’ committed ‘before her marriage’ (whether before or during betrothal, presumably). But this interpretation (a) requires reading a strict temporal disjunction into the text (one between a now married wife being divorced having committed πορνεία prior to her marriage); (b) fails to see that reference to ‘wife’ applies to a betrothed wife as well as to a married wife, and thus there is no reason to think that ‘wife’ can only mean the latter; (c) omits to consider that one of the primary points of contrast between πορνεία and μοιχεία pertains to marriage and is thus a contrast directly relevant to distinguishing between the two stages of wifehood (premarital and marital) within Judaism; (d) artificially interrupts the mutually clarifying interplay of terminology: since the meaning of πορνεία in the divorce clause is part-delivered through juxtaposition with μοιχεία (a juxtaposition Isaksson largely passes over in preferring a more abstract consideration of πορνεία), it is reasonable to think that the meaning of ‘wife’ per the divorce clause also stands to be clarified via its pairing with πορνεία per the divorce clause; and (e) overlooks the double effect of the clausal placement. For these reasons Isaksson seems to miss how divorce due to a wife’s premarital unchastity naturally includes divorce during betrothal due to an unmarried wife’s unchastity. My reading can accommodate, as Isaksson wants accommodated, πορνεία discovered at the nissuin ceremony, while not being restricted to that referent, as Isaksson’s seems to be. Furthermore, Isaksson is not quite as well able to affirm that πορνεία means premarital unchastity solely. For on my reading the non-marital meaning of πορνεία (and ‘wife’) is part-delivered through juxtaposition with μοιχεία, which underscores that it is pre-nissuin unchastity that is the referent, and neither non-adulterous offences that are distinguishable from and more specific than pre-nissuin unchastity, nor offences that fall under both adultery and a different category of offence.
32.
Pre-erusin unchastity is also captured by this concept when it bears upon a betrothal contract entered into in good faith by the husband.
33.
34.
Πορνεία only very clumsily signifies the Deuteronomic term ערוה. Cf., : 158–59. Both the LXX and Origen (Comm. Matt. Book XIV.24) use ἀσχήμων, not πορνεία, to translate ערוה (which itself means ‘nakedness’ or ‘shamefulness’ or ‘indecency’, and not acute sexual immorality, which is what πορνεία means). The point holds against positions, like Instone-Brewer’s, that claim that πορνεία reflects the Shammaite position within the Hillelite-Shammaite divorce debate. In the relevant materials (m. Gitten 9:10, Sifre Deut. 269, etc.) the Schools only ever employed the terms actually found in Deut. 24.1 and not loose translations thereof. They were not having a free-floating philosophical discussion on divorce grounds; they were engaged in precise scriptural exegesis of key terminology in Deut. 24.1. Furthermore, the rabbinic materials are not at all clear that the Schools understood ערוה as equating to actual adultery (as distinct from lesser, flirtatious offences).