Divorce and Remarriage in the Bible

Divorce and Remarriage in the Bible

Alexander MAK

The traditional protestant view recognizes only two valid grounds for divorce and remarriage: adultery (Jesus) and desertion (Paul). This view has been challenged again and again in recent years. The works of three biblical scholars in particular deserve special attention. These three scholars use different approaches in their exegeses of relevant Bible passages, but they all conclude that there are valid grounds for divorce and remarriage apart from adultery and desertion. These scholars are Sprinkle (1997), Instone-Brewer (2002) and Zhekov (2009) .

Unlike many scholars who approached the issue by focusing on the dominical sayings, Sprinkle focuses mainly on Old Testament passages. He shows that there are many neglected Old Testament passages that deal with the issue of divorce and remarriage. He argues that marriage contract in the Old Testament Testament is essentially no different from other ancient business contracts in which rights and responsibilities of both parties are stipulated and that the contract can be broken once the stipulations are breached. These rights include the right to food and clothing, and conjugal rights. Sprinkle interprets Jesus ' reference to adultery as the only valid reason for divorce as a hyperbole.

Instone-Brewer takes a very different approach from that of Sprinkle. He traces the issue of divorce and remarriage from the Old Testament period down to the New Testament period, noting its development in the intertestamental period, both in the Jewish and the Greco-Roman context. Instone-Brewer's analyzes of the relevant background material shed many new lights on various biblical passages. For example, he points out that Paul's mention of “desertion” in Romans 7 has to be understood in terms of the Roman practice of “divorce by unilateral separation." On the basis of these historical data, Instone-Brewer concludes that, in addition to adultery and desertion, physical and emotional abuses are also valid New Testament grounds for divorce and remarriage. Physical abuse includes the failure to provide food and clothing , and emotional abuse includes the refusal of the spouse's conjugal rights.

Zhekov approaches New Testament teachings on divorce and remarriage through a method that combines both redaction and narrative critical approaches. Although his exegeses sometimes yield different results from those of Instone-Brewer, he also concludes that physical or emotional abuse is a valid ground for divorce and remarriage.

This article concludes with some hermeneutical insights and implications drawn from these authors and some suggestions on how the church should handle divorce and remarriage.