Divorce and Remarriage in the Bible: The Social and Literary Context

There's no denying Instone-Brewer's scholarship in this book is first rate, and for this reason I recommend the book without reservation.Instone-Brewer's basically permissive theory I found initially plausible when first exposed to it many years ago but over a long time I was more perplexed by the apparent malleability of the texts to both permissive and prohibitory readings. A topic of this importance should not be so indeterminate, and I was unsettled to leave it as an essentially debatable matter. This provoked me to study Instone-Brewer's theory in sufficient depth to either accept or reject it. In this review I set out why I reject Instone-Brewer's theory entirely and with confidence that comes from probing the topic deeply.Instone-Brewer's theory is based squarely upon two pillars:1. That the gospel debate accounts are severely abbreviated, meaning that we must unabbreviate them by supplying a very significant amount of background material and assumptions that essentially reverse the plain absolute prohibitory meaning and that gives us a permissive-but-for-adequate-grounds position from the Lord.2. That the Shammaite-Hillelite debate on Deut. 24:1-4 provides the context for the gospel debate account, and that, as with the gospel accounts, the accounts of the Shammaite-Hillelite debate are likewise severely abbreviated, again requiring us to quite carefully albeit speculatively reconstruct that debate, to understand it and thereby the gospel accounts and ultimately the Lord's argument and position.Whilst the abbreviation thesis is arguable and obviously to some extent abbreviation is present, the reconstruction and characterisation proffered by Instone-Brewer is destroyed by his extensive and good quality scholarship in pages 161-165, that shows that the Shammaite-Hillalite dispute was not about divorce but permission to remarry given in Deut. 24:1-4, depending on the grounds for the divorce: whether for 'indecency' from Deut. 24:1 or both 'indecency' from Deut. 24:1 and 'matter' from Ex. 21:10-11, or even for no grounds at all. The way Instone-Brewer's scholarship develops the debate background and content, the supposed difference in acceptable grounds for divorce between the schools evapourates, along with Instone-Brewer's theory.y Sota 1.2, 16b is the most abbreviated: 'The School of Shammai says: A man should not divorce his wife except if he found indecency in her.' Sure, it sounds like the Shammaites held a restrictive position on divorce, whilst the Hillelites held a more permissive position. But Instone-Brewer's argument and scholarship prevents us from jumping to this conclusion, by showing that the less abbreviated accounts of the debate may significantly qualify or even invalidate this result.The least abbreviated account sets out what the debate was actually about:'The School of Hillel said to the School of Shammai, Since it said matter, why did it [also] say indecency, and since it said indecency, why did it also say matter? Because if it said matter and it did not also say indecency, I would say: She who is discharged for a matter is permitted to remarry, but she who is discharged for indecency should not be permitted to remarry.And do not be surprised [that she should be forbidden to remarry]. If she is forbidden [to marry] him [her first husband] who had been permitted to her, [why should she] not be forbidden to him who had been forbidden to her? As scripture teaches: indecency ... and she leaves his house and goes and becomes the wife of another.' Sifre Deut. 269.Instone-Brewer's own scholarship and argument is that both the Hillelites and the Shammaites accepted divorce for a) 'indecency' based on Deut. 24:1 and b) 'matter' (or grounds) from Ex. 21:10-11. He also thinks that the Hillelites invented an catch-all easy divorce for 'matter' from Deut. 24:1 that could be for trivial grounds or 'any matter' such as burning the food or because he found someone more pleasing to him, which the Shammaites did not accept.This characterisation of the debate is the key to Instone-Brewer's theory, but the above source shows that the debate was about the scriptural basis of remarriage following divorce in Deut. 24:1-4. The Shammaites held that it only provided a source for permission for a woman to remarry following a divorce for 'indecency' but the Hillelites held that it provided a source for permission for a woman to remarry following a divorce for a) 'indecency' and b) 'matter'. Other sources have the Hillelites arguing for divorce based on burning the food or that he found someone more pleasing to him, and it is here that we must use Instone-Brewer's abbreviation thesis to understand that what was was being debated was scriptural basis for remarriage, and not permission for divorce itself. Instone-Brewer's approach and theory requires him to apply this technique to explain the Shammaite-Hillelite debate, but he never does this because it destroys his preferred result: that the Shammaites held a restrictive position on divorce while the Hillelites held a permissive position on divorce.Instone-Brewer's scholarship suggests that both schools held permissive positions on divorce, while disagreeing about which grounds of divorce Deut 24:1-4 included in its permission for the divorced woman to remarry. Considered in this light, the Hillelite exegesis of Deut. 24:1-4 is nowhere as bad as is commonly characterised: burning the food is not a trivial ground for divorce invented by the Hillelites, it is a reference back to a breach of the wife's duties implied in and accepted from Ex. 21:10-11 as a possible 'matter' or deed that Deut. 24:1 may have been intended to include in the two-word phrase 'nakedness thing' (or 'indecent matter'), and finding no favour in his eyes is in fact expressly mentioned by the text and so plausibly its apparent permission to remarry would apply to groundless divorces also. The supposed invention of the 'any matter' groundless divorce is a fabrication by Instone-Brewer: divorce at the will of the husband was an ancient Jewish legal practice long before Hillel ever started his school. Denial of this right of the husband was a protection for the wife accorded only in special circumstances such as Deut. 22:19 and 22:29.The Hillelites backed the Shammaites into a corner: the Shammaites taught that a woman could remarry following a divorce for 'matter' from Ex. 21:10-11, but that Deut. 24:1-4 fails to permit her to remarry, since their school held that the passage only referred to divorce for 'indecency.' If Christ was taking sides against the Hellelite interpretation of the passage, he gives no solution to this problem, meaning that he didn't win the debate, and there is no point including it in the gospels, where Christ makes, on its face, an entirely different point: a valid marriage is God's own institution and action joining a woman to a man, that man has no authority to separate them at all via a divorce action, and that attempt by man to do so is invalid and results in an adulterous and invalid remarriage.The principal argument Instone-Brewer develops to prove that the gospel passage has its apparent plain meaning reversed by the requirement to characterise it as originating from the Shammaite-Hillelite debate on Deut 24:1-4 is the alleged use by Matthew of the 'catch-phrases' of the debate 'any matter' and 'except indecency' as setting out the respective Hillelite and Shammaite positions. This argument could be weighty if Matthew actually used these terms but he does not: he wrote it up as 'every cause' and 'except prostitution.' Clearly if the Shammaite-Hillelite debate was the background for the test, Mark, writing for Gentiles, would be obligated to set that fact and context out in some detail, and to explain the result and meaning for his readers, which he obviously doesn't even hint at. All the material that exists on the debate is presented and discussed by Instone-Brewer in his book, and there is no use of 'any matter' or 'except indecency' as catchphrases or short-hand references to anything, and Matthew's supposed hints are a mismatch: they are not verbally exact, or frankly even close. A 'matter' is a deed, and a 'cause' is a legal charge. 'indecency' is something shameful, 'prostitution' (Greek: porneia) is the sexual relations of an almost-always unmarried woman with men for cash or otherwise used for unlawful sexual relations with unmarried women, in distinction with adultery, the unlawful sexual relations of a married woman with a man who is not her husband. And 'any' is not the same as 'every,' either.Whether the Shammaite-Hillelite debate on the topic was even contemporary with Christ is speculative.The argument Christ actually did present is that a legally valid marriage is God's doing and God's institution. If the marriage is valid, it results in a one-flesh kinship union, making the woman one family with the man. Such a relationship and identity is not conditioned on continued good behaviour. What God has joined in this way is not for man to separate. Any post-valid-marriage grounds for divorce destroys his own argument. The only divorce he accepts is for an invalidly contracted marriage: where the woman has prostituted herself before the marriage with another man or men, making her representations to being a virgin misrepresentation. Such an irregularly contracted marriage discovered after the contract is not a valid marriage that God has joined the spouses together, so upon those grounds there may be divorce, as Joseph intended for Mary (this explanation of the 'exception clause' Instone-Brewer considers in his book (p. 276) and finds it 'very plausible' but obviously doesn't embrace it). Other than that, Christ is to be understood as requiring no divorce, and that the divorced have only two choices: reconcile or remain single, as Paul explained the words of the Lord for his readers in Corinth. Paul prohibits divorce absolutely, but recognises that an unbeliever may divorce a believer without his consent: an believer is exculpated from the guilt of such divorce, but not freed to remarry.For bible students seeking a comprehensive analysis of the topic addressing Instone-Brewer's theory I have written a Critique of the David Instone-Brewer Divorce and Remarriage Theory that you may find by searching online.

This book review is for the book Divorce and Remarriage in the Bible: The Social and Literary Context by David Instone-Brewer, senior research fellow in Rabbinics and New Testament at Tyndale House in Cambridge, England.In this book, Instone-Brewer analyzes the language and context of the divorce debates in the Gospels and in 1 Corinthians 7 and compares them to their cultural and historical context. He does this by analyzing various marriage contracts throughout the centuries (primarily Jewish contracts, but also the contracts of the nations surrounding Israel, as well as Greek and Roman marriage contracts); giving a history of divorce, especially as it relates to Jewish and Roman practices; demonstrates how both Jesus and Paul were influenced by these debates and why they gave the grounds for divorce they did; and showing how the evidence backs not just two grounds for divorce (adultery, according to Jesus, and desertion by an unbeliever married to a believer, according to Paul), but at least four grounds for divorce as evidenced in both Deuteronomy 24:1-4 and Exodus 21:10-11.Instone-Brewer concludes these four grounds for divorce continue into the New Testament and eludes to the possibility of there being other grounds which might be connected to these four grounds (i.e. desertion being permissible grounds for divorce as it leads to one's "marital rights" being unfulfilled). He finally delves into how various church fathers understood these passages and then gives pastoral advice on how he thinks this understanding can be applied in a modern context.People who approach this book might think this might be another wishy-washy book advocating divorce without solid exegesis. Nothing could be further from the truth! Instone-Brewer cares more about the authorial intent and shows how the Greek language, especially in Matthew 19, mirrors the exact terminology the Shammaites and Hillelites used in their debate on Deuteronomy 24:1-4.The Shammaites taught that a Deuteronomy 24:1-4 divorce can only be initiated on the grounds of adultery, which they called "a matter of indecency" (flipping the Hebrew phraseology). Jesus agrees with them, using similar terminology, saying that divorce is only allowed on "a matter of porneia" (i.e. sexual sin, especially adultery).The Hillelites separated the Hebrew phrasing to be "a matter" and "indecency", thus allowing divorce for "any matter" as well as "indecency", which Jesus was criticizing and saying was incorrect. Thus, according to Jesus, anyone who obtained an "any matter" divorce (which was a divorce for any reason, equivalent to a "no fault" divorce) was guilty of adultery, for they broke their marriage vows.Instone-Brewer likewise concludes that Jesus only taught that divorce should be initiated when the person stubbornly refuses to repent (the original meaning of "hardheartedness"). He demonstrates that Jesus taught that Moses only allowed divorce, but never commanded it (unlike the Hillelites, who taught that divorce was mandatory), so that the decision to divorce for broken vows is in the hands of the offended party, if the other partner refuses to repent.This does not mean that Jesus was abolishing Exodus 21:10-11-type divorces. According to Instone-Brewer, Paul, in 1 Corinthians 7, spoke of "marital rights" in language that demonstrates that it is an obligation and in many places, including 1 Corinthians 7, uses divorce terminology found in divorce contracts that essentially gives the believer permission to remarry after a valid divorce. This language also echoes Exodus 21:10-11 itself. Instone-Brewer likewise shows that Paul was permitting a believer to remarry after a "divorce by separation" initiated by an unbeliever, which was the standard Roman practice for initiating divorce, on the grounds that a believer has no guarantee they will save an unbeliever. Paul was likewise condemning "divorce by separation" being initiated by believers, as they were equivalent to the Hillelite "any matter" divorces condemned by Jesus.As for the seeming contradictions between the various Gospel accounts on divorce and Paul's additional cause for divorce, Instone-Brewer demonstrates how Jewish exegesis often would omit unnecessary details in order to aid in memorization. Thus, early Jewish readers of these gospels would have known to include the details that were omitted in the gospels, which is why Paul was free to add them later in 1 Corinthians 7.Instone-Brewer likewise gives the Old Testament evidence that God Himself divorced Israel for violating these four vows. Instone-Brewer concludes from this evidence that not only is sexual faithfulness required in marriage, but that a believer is also obligated to feed, clothe and provide conjugal rights to their spouse and that any marriage which violates these vows, literally or in principle, may be valid grounds for divorce. He shows from this exegesis that the New and Old Testaments are in harmony when it comes to divorce and remarriage.As someone who used to believe that divorce was only permitted on two grounds only (adultery and desertion), I found this book a breath of fresh air. Instone-Brewer has proven to me that there are more grounds for divorce than the standard two and that a person who has a valid divorce is free to remarry, without having to take back the guilty partner, if the guilty partner was unwilling to repent before the divorce was initiated.I do have some gripes, though. One of those gripes is that Instone-Brewer uses Jesus' teaching in Matthew 19 to advocate monogamy as God's ideal situation and concludes that Jesus surely used Genesis 7:9 (which is missing) along with 1:27 and 2:24-25 (which is what He cited), as these triad of verses were used by the exegetes at Qumran to advocate monogamy. Thus, the omission of the third passage was because, according to Instone-Brewer, Jews already would have been aware of this triad and thus would have supplied the missing verse mentally and known Jesus was advocating monogamy.However, the Old Testament did allow polygyny (one man:many women), according to Instone-Brewer's own admission, and while I'm not necessarily advocating it as an ideal situation, I do not think Jesus is using Genesis 1:7 and 2:24 to imply monogamy as much as I do think He is using it to imply the eternity of marriage (i.e. of two people becoming one flesh). So while this is a moot point in his overall exegesis, as polygyny isn't common, at least in the West, I do think Instone-Brewer does stand on some dangerous ground in this area, for the simple reason that I do not see Jesus overturning any contemporary polygynous marriages if He ever ran into them. Since Jesus seems to hold a fairly conservative stance on interpreting Deuteronomy 24:1-4 as allowing divorce for adultery only, I would likewise conclude He would consider it adultery for a polygynous couple to break up without valid reasons for divorce.Another gripe I have is with his pastoral practice. He says that when he marries a couple where there's the possibility that one is a divorcee, he never inquires into the reasons for their divorce, although he would personally refuse to marry a couple if they had an affair with one another while the other was still married. I personally think that issues like these should come out into the open and approached in heavy prayer. I also think where a divorce is invalid, the divorcee should try to return to their former spouse if the former spouse will take them to preclude adultery. I also think there's potential for danger in Instone-Brewer's approach.In the end, though, no review of this book can do it justice and for this reason, I advise even the most staunch of critics when it comes to divorce to pick it up and read it. I think that we, as the Body of Christ, have been too staunch over the centuries when it comes to divorce. But that doesn't mean that I think divorce should be so easy: after all, marriage is a lifelong commitment and a covenant. We, as the Church, have to be sure that a divorce is permissible before we recommend it, lest we, too, be guilty of adultery by association. For this reason, I'm glad Instone-Brewer has shown us a new way of interpreting the passages, without opening the floodgates of invalid divorces. For that reason, I think he is to be commended.

great book.