Divorce and adultery

[Nikud]

Lol. I need to break down and by a computer this tablet hates me and always wants to change what I'm saying.

I ment question.

 

[The Revolting Man]

You have to remember that if porneia only refers to some specific act; prostitution, fornication or what have you, then there is no comprehensive list of prohibited sexual acts in the New Testament. There are scattered and disparate references but no definite enumerating. And things like incest and bestiality aren't mentioned anywhere at all.

However if porneia means "prohibited sexual acts" then it strongly points to the Old Testament list of sexual sins and we see those protections (and the Law) strengthened in the New Testament. But if you "fulfill" all the Law and only have NT sexual rules (we can't use the use the "L" word in this case) then you have some embarrassing gaps in the moral code. So either way you tend to break, the definition of porneia is very important. If you're a Law and order man then you get some powerful affirmation. If you're Hellenized you only have one sexual sin other than adultery and male homosexuality. So choose wisely. I figure you almost have to choose incest or bestiality but I have no idea how you would make that choice. Prostitution just can't compete, heck it sounds down right wholesome by comparison. And "sex before marriage" sounds like a Sunday school activity . If you have to pick one to prohibit I would definitely go with forbidding either incest or bestiality if I had to chose.

 

[Joleneakamama]

If you have to pick one to prohibit I would definitely go with forbidding either incest or bestiality if I had to chose.

To have to choose, and let either one be practiced without objecting is really impossible to imagine. We have seen first hand the effects of incest, and the other is unnatural in every way. If it was a death sentence then, it is hard to imagine it ever being OK with an unchangeable God.

 

[andrew]

It's surprising to think that anyone with the Spirit of Christ would assume that incest or bestiality is now okay just because it's not repeated in the New Testament....

You can make porneia mean whatever you want, Zec, if it makes you happy, but in Greek it means buying and selling sex, and does not include by imaginative necessity a "list of prohibited sex acts". The only way to have a list of prohibited sex acts is to list them all.

 

[The Revolting Man]

I'll double check but the last time I looked it said prohibited sex acts, which indeed would need to refer back to a complete list. That's my whole point.

And obviously I don't believe that either practice is allowed and I don't think any serious person does. I also don't think any serious person thinks that none of the Old Testament Laws apply anymore. The most rabid of new covenant crowd will cling to the 10 Commandments.

But it does illustrate the point. Everyone will agree that some of the Law is still in effect. We're all arguing about how much of it.

Now I know this thread isn't about that and I was not trying to hijack it but when you start talking about New Testament restrictions on sex you start having to ask some hard questions.

All of these questions can be answered very easily if porneia equals prohibited sex acts and points back to the Law. Now that raises some hard questions of its own but not as many as the other options.

 

[The Revolting Man]

So I double check the meaning of porniea. It's Strong's 4202. The root word does mean to "sell off" although it seemed to be just in a generic sense.

According to Strong's though porneia itself means to surrender sexual purity. It can also idolatry and the less than descriptive fornication.

That's not a slam dunk for my argument but it certain seems to favor porneia being a general class of acts, not a class act, that are prohibited.

 

[Mojo]

The only way to have a list of prohibited sex acts is to list them all.

Maybe, if your target audience had never heard of them. If he was speaking to Jews, or established believers, would that be necessary?

The concept of an inside joke comes to mind. Between two close friends, often just a single word will cause a snicker or a full laugh because they already know the implications of that word.

Amongst believers, we can just say "the 10" and we know what 10 things it's referring to.

 

[andrew]

All of these questions can be answered very easily if porneia equals prohibited sex acts and points back to the Law. Now that raises some hard questions of its own but not as many as the other options.

Zec, think about what you're saying. "All my problems can be solved if porneia can just mean what I want or need it to mean. That creates problems for other people, but that's not my problem."

Porneia was a word in Greek before anybody in the Western world had heard of Christ or cared much about the Jews or their laws. It means what the people who used it at the time thought it meant. If Paul was writing in Greek he was using the Greek language to communicate concepts his Greek readers would understand in their language (wait for it... Greek). Either that or he's belligerently stupid or did not intend to communicate truth to his readers. I'll stick with the plain meaning and adjust my doctrine to that.

 

[andrew]

@Mojo , same drill. You can make it say what you want/need it to say or you can just read it the way an ordinary 1st century Greek speaker would read it (best we can figure that out now). Again, y'all have fun but I'll stick with plain translation, not hidden meanings and secret jokes.

 

[The Revolting Man]

Zec, think about what you're saying. "All my problems can be solved if porneia can just mean what I want or need it to mean. That creates problems .

Whoa brother! That's not at all what I said. I said those who take a certain position have some problems that a different position would solve. That sounds nothing like what you said I said. And the plain reading of the Greek doesn't necessarily point prostitution.

 

[andrew]

What you said was:

All of these questions can be answered very easily if porneia equals prohibited sex acts and points back to the Law. Now that raises some hard questions of its own but not as many as the other options.

All I did was make this substitution:

All of these questions can be answered very easily if porneia equals [the thing I'm arguing it means]. Now that raises some hard questions of its own but not as many as the other options.

Not much of a stretch....

Meanwhile, start checking some lexicons other than Strong's and see what you come up with. The fact that "fornication" (direct English translation of porneia) has evolved over time to include general "sexual immorality" (as you see more of in newer translations) is unfortunate, because then it just means "whatever I disapprove of". In your case is anything in Leviticus, but not in everyone's, so it's a bit dangerous to allow "sexual immorality", because that just starts a big pointless discussion (like this one) over what somebody has in mind when they use a vague term like "immorality".

The word has an etymological sense and working definition from 1st century usage that is pretty specific. I choose to let it say what it says and not try to get it to say more than it says.

I'm content to agree to disagree unless you think we've missed something somewhere.

 

[Mojo]

@Mojo , same drill. You can make it say what you want/need it to say or you can just read it the way an ordinary 1st century Greek speaker would read it (best we can figure that out now). Again, y'all have fun but I'll stick with plain translation, not hidden meanings and secret jokes.

Since none of us are first century Greek speakers, we can't say for sure, can we?

My usual approach is like yours, which is to take the plain translation and not get caught up in fanciful suppositions.

With that in mind, what did Paul mean about women leaving the natural use of their bodies? Would a first century Greek speaking believer understand the implications? I think 21st century believers need to consult OT there, lest they be caught up in modern thinking.

And you know "inside jokes" was just an example, not a literal approach to scripture. The attempt at humor fell flat on my end.

 

[andrew]

Since none of us are first century Greek speakers, we can't say for sure, can we?

Well, right, which is why I said "best we can figure that out now"....

 

[Joleneakamama]

With that in mind, what did Paul mean about women leaving the natural use of their bodies?

We actually addressed that question once on another site. Definitely off topic here.

 

[Mojo]

We actually addressed that question once on another site. Definitely off topic here.

I agree that it's off topic, but I don't expect an answer here on that question.

It's just an example of how sometimes face value might require more digging, and the first place to look for context is OT.

 

[Mojo]

Well, right, which is why I said "best we can figure that out now"....

I know what you said, but I just wanted to emphasize my point.

Since we are not 1st century Greek speakers, we should probably rely on the background of Paul. I don't think he was trying to add or take from Torah. He was trying to use their language to express concepts from another language/tradition. Dynamic equivalence comes to mind.

I realize both of our positions are opinions, so I don't want to kick dust up over it.

 

[The Revolting Man]

The root word that another word comes from can have very little direct connection to the meaning of the second word. Our words march and marsh come from the same root word that meant boundary or borderland. There is a connection to its original meaning and to how it evolved but its not direct.

In our discussion the application would be that while the root word of porneia means "to sell" it doesn't mean that completely constrains and informs porneia. The simple definition of porneia is surrending sexual purity. The sexual purity being surrendered is not specified and so must be found somewhere else.

 

[IshChayil]

I've been a little leery of the sense of the phrase "commit adultery", as with the English word "commit" one associates in one's mind the idea of "committing" a particular sin or "committing" a particular crime, and it makes "committing adultery" seem to be a matter of whether or not one "breaks the rules" of marriage. I wonder whether a better reading might be "adulterate" rather than "commit adultery". It seems to better fit the sense of Deuteronomy 24, where Moses speaks of a man's wife being defiled when another man marries her.

And it also seems to fit the pattern of our Lord Jesus taking the laws given by Moses and working toward the sense. Then the sense of these passages would be something like "You have heard that it was said, 'do not adulterate'. But y'all ought to know that divorcing your wives for 'any cause', just because you want to marry someone else is really just adulterating your wives, so don't think y'all are really keeping the commandment."

I'll throw that out there as what I think He means in these passages, but I'd like to hear what some of you with more knowledge of the original languages think.

In Hebrew: "you will commit adultery" is just 1 word תנאף "tinaf". I imagine the "commit" must be a hold over from an older flavor of English?
The Greek mimics the Hebrew (putting it in future):
μοιχεύσεις (moicheuseis) - you will do adultery

 

[andrew]

Mojo, let's go have a beer.

Zec, you're looking through the wrong end of the telescope. Check some Greek sources. The word meant harlotry/prostitution in the first century. It was used mostly to translate Hebrew words for prostitution/harlotry in the LXX. The etymology is just a cherry on top, and helps explain why the other stuff is what it is.

 

[The Revolting Man]

Harlotry is not the same thing as prostitution. It's a broader category that prostitution can fit into.

You still have the problem of God going out of the way to forbid a sin in the New Testament, prostitution, that didn't previously carry as harsh of penalties, death, as the sins He didn't forbid in the New Testament.

I'm assuming that your explanation would be that incest and bestiality are such egregious sins that there was no need to forbid them and that prostitution was a little more of a gray area that He felt the need to clarify. This would be inconsistent with how I think God operates but I could be wrong. I frequently am.