An Easter Message to the Scripturally-Challenged
Marriage is between one man and one woman. – Jesus, in some mysterious, unspecified scriptural passage, because …
… The biblical texts do not support the frequent claim that marriage between one man and one woman is the only type of marriage deemed acceptable by the Bible’s authors. – Robert R. Cargill, Hector Avalos & Kenneth Atkinson, biblical scholars
First, we should all understand that the New Testament gospels are works of fiction, written decades after the period during which Jesus was supposed to have lived. There is no historical record or contemporaneous account of Jesus, and there is no particular reason to think he was an actual person living in the early part of the first century C.E. The fabulous Jesus is based on numerous models – real and fictional – so it is not possible to know what “Jesus said” about anything.
One of the aims of the gospel writers was to provide “rules to live by” for diaspora Jews whom the Romans had driven from Palestine and for other followers of an emerging faith. Thus, the authors of all three synoptic gospels – Mark, Matthew and Luke – have Jesus discuss divorce, which for centuries had been a contentious issue among Jews, with some accepting divorce rather readily – thanks especially to Roman influence – and others finding it unacceptable, except in cases of a wife's infidelity.
Although the gospel writers themselves did not perfectly agree, the remarks regarding divorce which Matthew attributed to Jesus are the most commonly cited:
Some Pharisees came to him to test him. They asked, 'Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for any and every reason?'
'Haven’t you read,' he replied, 'that at the beginning the Creator “made them male and female,” [Genesis 1:27] and said, “For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh” [Genesis 2:24]? So they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let no man put asunder.'
'Why then,' they asked, 'did Moses command that a man give his wife a certificate of divorce and send her away?'
Jesus replied, 'Moses permitted you to divorce your wives because your hearts were hard. But it was not this way from the beginning. I tell you that anyone who divorces his wife, except for [her] sexual immorality, and marries another woman commits adultery.' [Matthew 19:3-9]
Of course, many of today's Christians ignore this particular pronouncement of Jesus. But even in the first century, wealthy Jewish men were polygamous, and Jesus does not condemn the practice here or elsewhere.
Women were chattel, and the primary purpose of marriage was not God-sanctioned true love but the conveyance of property from one generation to the next. Although Jewish men commonly took only one wife because they could not afford to maintain more, there was no taboo against their having sexual relationships with concubines or other women. A wife, on the other hand, had to remain faithful to her husband to ensure that the husband's property passed to his natural sons and not to the sons of the wife's lover. That is why Matthew permits divorce in the case of a wife's “sexual immorality.” When Matthew says, “... let no man put asunder,” he means “man.” Just as one of the Old Testament commandments prohibits the coveting of a neighbor's wife, the New Testament prohibits the taking of another man's wife. What is “immoral” about such an affair is not the sex part but the possibility a man will impregnate the wife of another man & allow his own son to inherit the other man's property.
I would add that Matthew's rule was a liberal one. Divorced women were considered “throwaways,” and unless the divorced woman's family agreed to take her back or support her, she was destined to become a beggar or a prostitute. The majority of divorced women died destitute – and young. By prohibiting men from casting off their wives, which Matthew characterizes as “hardhearted,” Matthew's Jesus was speaking up for women's rights in a culture where women had few legal rights.
That said, here is where Matthew gets interesting. And just how interesting Christian fundamentalists don't want to know. In Matthew 19:10, the disciples say to Jesus, “If this is the situation between a husband and wife, it is better not to marry.”
Jesus replied, 'Not everyone can accept this word, but only those to whom it has been given. For there are eunuchs who were born that way, and there are eunuchs who have been made eunuchs by others — and there are those who choose to live like eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of heaven. The one who can accept this should accept it.' [Matthew 19:11-12]
The term “eunuchs” here refers not only to castrati – “eunuchs who have been made eunuchs by others" – but also to celibate men – “those who choose to live like eunuchs” – and, first and foremost, to gay men – “eunuchs who were born that way.”
(Matthew doesn't mention lesbians, but I suspect that is because even educated Jewish men of the time were fairly ignorant of women's sexuality.)
The Jesus of the gospels does not describe marriage as being “between one man and one woman.” And, in Matthew's story, Jesus affirms that male homosexuality is natural: some men, he says, are “born that way.” Nowhere in the New Testament is there a prohibition against same-sex marriage. In a same-sex union, there would be no natural heirs, so there was no need to define a set of rules for such a marriage.
There is no reason we should cement our morals in a first-century timewarp. But those who prefer this pretense – at least when they find it convenient – should at least know what the text they pretend to cite actually says. It does not say what they claim it says.
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Reader Comments (2)
Wonderful run-down on biblical folderols. Here is an open letter to Laura Schleslinger (radio talk show host) by a James Kauffman who is responding to her message about homosexuality. I think this is an oldie, but very much a goodie and very funny. Happy Easter!
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2010/03/25/850561/-An-Open-Letter-to-Dr-Laura-Schlesinger?detail=emailclassic
Wonderful essay on Jesus, gay marriage, hetero-marriage, sexism and biblical texts! Thank you so much, Marie.