Jesus Remembered: Christianity in the Making, vol. 1

THE MISSION OF JESUS §14.4
simply attests how that teaching was handled and developed as it was retaught in
the differing circumstances of the various early communities. 149
The memory is of Jesus in debate with Pharisees with regard to the disputed
ruling in Deut. 24.1. 150 What distinguishes Jesus' stand on the question is
the way, once again, he cuts behind the Deuteronomic ruling to the more fundamental
characterisation of marriage in Gen. 2.24. The creation of humankind as
man and woman (1.27; 2.21-23) points to the conclusion, 'Therefore a man
leaves his father and his mother and clings to his wife, and they become one
flesh' (2.24). 151 Divorce is thus to be understood as a falling short ofthat ideal, 152
and Jesus probably pressed the logic of the ideal by turning his face against divorce
and remarriage in principle 153 — without thought, be it noted, of allowing
divorce as a way of maintaining covenant purity (as in Ezra 9-10). This was also
the version which Q (Q 16.18) and Paul (1 Cor. 7.10-11) knew, but it is noticeable
that both Matthew and Paul in their reteaching of the tradition qualify it, no
doubt as a result of being confronted by situations of marriage breakdown, and in
149. 'Jesus' rejection of divorce and remarriage is attested in the three earliest Christian
sources known to us, Q, Paul, and Mark' (Holmen, Jesus 167); 'unanimously acknowledged'
(162 and n. 433).
150. Matthew makes this still clearer by adding 'for any cause', thus indicating that the
debate was about the interpretation of the second clause of Deut. 24.1 — 'if then she finds no
favour in his eyes because he has found some indecency ('erwä) in her'. In effect he retells the
episode as a contribution to the debate between the schools of Hillel and Shammai on how rigorously
Deut. 24.1 should be interpreted. In adding 'except for unchastity (porneia)'', Matthew
shows Jesus supporting what was remembered as Shammai's more rigorous interpretation (see
my Unity and Diversity 247 and those cited in n. 31; further bibliography in Loader, Jesus 'Attitude
175 n. 93; see further Bockmuehl, Jewish Law 17-21). But in so doing, he changes a point
of ideal principle back into one of practical law.
151. Cf. CD 4.14-5.11, where remarriage is ruled out since 'the principle of creation is
"male and female he created them"' (Gen. 1.27); Sanders deduces from this parallel the overwhelming
probability that Jesus' original ruling also cited Scripture and that Jesus' teaching
sprang immediately from his eschatological sense of living in the last days (Jesus 257-60).
152. 'Jesus appears to assume that any appeal to exceptional circumstances is an attempt
to evade a completely unambiguous resolve to do the absolute will of God' (Keck, Who Is Jesus?
155). Wright deduces that the renewal envisaged by Jesus would contain a 'cure' for the
'hardness of heart' (which had been the reason for Moses' divorce ruling) (Jesus 284-87).
153. Mark 10.12 looks like an elaboration of the tradition, envisaging as it does the possibility
of a woman initiating divorce, something not permitted in the Judaism of Jesus' day
(Josephus, Ant. 15.259); discussion in Taylor, Mark 419-21; Westerholm, Jesus 117-18; and
further Schräge, Ethics 94-97. It should also be noted that in a society where only the husband
could initiate divorce and where the 'erwä of Deut. 24.1 could be interpreted liberally ('even if
she spoiled a dish for him' — m. Git. 9.10), an absolute prohibition of divorce was a way of
protecting the wife. See further J. L. Nolland, 'The Gospel Prohibition of Divorce: Tradition
History and Meaning', JSNT5& (1995) 19-35; A.-J. Levine, 'Jesus, Divorce, and Sexuality: A
Jewish Critique', in LeBeau et al., eds., Historical Jesus 113-29 (here 116-21).
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