In Matthew 19, Jesus cites texts from Genesis 1 and 2 ("male and female he made them" and "for this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife") in order to show that "what God has joined together no one should separate." In other words, this is his response to the question about if and when divorce is appropriate.
However, in current discussions, this text is more likely to be applied as an effort against marriage equality; sometimes even within traditions and by people who do not hold fast to the opposition to divorce which appears to have been the point of Jesus' teaching.
This assertion of a subtext, removing the prooftext from its context, strikes me as a pretext.
Tobias Stanislas Haller BSG
Delicious!
ReplyDeleteIf there is a subtext to this passage, it would seem to me that it is more about the abuse women that was going on in the culture, based on this permission from Moses to divorce a woman and move on to the next, while leaving her in shame and poverty.
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