The impact of fundamentalism

[ena]

ENA brought up the issue of divorce. The Bible is crystal clear on that issue. The one and only reason God allows divorce is for adultery. If the wife is the guilty offender,

You missed the point! The point is the Bible does not list every possible reason for divorce. It cannot and should not be used that way.

The Church of Christ thinks it has the right to define who are sinners and what is sin. That's God's job. I don't thinks he likes others taking his job. There is no one in the Church of Christ qualified.

[agricola]

Actually the Bible - the Torah law Jesus was interpreting for his followers - is far from clear. It says 'if he finds anything unclean'. SOME schools of Jewish law interpreted that as 'committing adultery' but OTHER schools of Jewish law did not. The school of Hillel says, a wife can ask her husband to give her a divorce simply because she thinks he smells bad because of his profession!

Yes, he says the wife can initiate a divorce. She just can't 'make it happen'. The husband is the one who has to write the document of divorce and give it to his wife. He can't divorce her without her knowing about it and he can't do it on the spur of the moment just by kicking her out. A divorce document gives a woman legal status and rights. Rights to a settlement, rights to take back her own possessions she brought with her into the marriage. Rights to remarry.

Remember, conviction of adultery was a capital offense. 'Divorce' was the least of it.

During the first century,the topic of exactly what 'he finds some uncleanness in her' actually MEANT, kept a lot of scholars happy. And when folks came to Jesus to seek his opinion on the matter, they weren't seeking his opinion as if it were somehow important, they were trying to place him and his teachings on the spectrum of scholarly opinion. For the record, Jesus in this case held by the strict constructionist rule of the School of Shammai - which is rather odd, given his record on almost every other subject with the more lenient and social-justice concerned School of Hillel. Both those schools had been in existence for about 100 years by that time and their positions were well established.

[Cootie Brown]

ENA brought up the issue of divorce. The Bible is crystal clear on that issue. The one and only reason God allows divorce is for adultery. If the wife is the guilty offender,

You missed the point! The point is the Bible does not list every possible reason for divorce. It cannot and should not be used that way.

The Church of Christ thinks it has the right to define who are sinners and what is sin. That's God's job. I don't thinks he likes others taking his job. There is no one in the Church of Christ qualified.

I didn't miss the point ENA. I don't take the Bible literally, or even seriously for that matter because I'm not a religious person. I do enjoy, however, pointing out all the historical inaccuracies, inconsistencies, contradictions, & absurdities that are replete through out the Bible in the hope that others will not take the Bible literally, or at least as literally as fundamentantalist typically do & as groups like the c of c does.

[ena]

Actually the Bible - the Torah law Jesus was interpreting for his followers - is far from clear. It says 'if he finds anything unclean'. SOME schools of Jewish law interpreted that as 'committing adultery' but OTHER schools of Jewish law did not. The school of Hillel says, a wife can ask her husband to give her a divorce simply because she thinks he smells bad because of his profession!

Yes, he says the wife can initiate a divorce. She just can't 'make it happen'. The husband is the one who has to write the document of divorce and give it to his wife. He can't divorce her without her knowing about it and he can't do it on the spur of the moment just by kicking her out. A divorce document gives a woman legal status and rights. Rights to a settlement, rights to take back her own possessions she brought with her into the marriage. Rights to remarry.

Remember, conviction of adultery was a capital offense. 'Divorce' was the least of it.

During the first century,the topic of exactly what 'he finds some uncleanness in her' actually MEANT, kept a lot of scholars happy. And when folks came to Jesus to seek his opinion on the matter, they weren't seeking his opinion as if it were somehow important, they were trying to place him and his teachings on the spectrum of scholarly opinion. For the record, Jesus in this case held by the strict constructionist rule of the School of Shammai - which is rather odd, given his record on almost every other subject with the more lenient and social-justice concerned School of Hillel. Both those schools had been in existence for about 100 years by that time and their positions were well established.

Thanks for your input? I did know that Jews were allowed to divorce. Jesus was working within his historical context which you cannot get from a straight reading of the Bible. The CoC tends to sieze a point and run with it. I found the results very troubling.

[B.H.]

Here is the thing. You get tricked into marrying a nutjob who beats and abuses you later. He was all nice and kind when dating (or she was was if you are a guy)

You divorce other than for adultery but can't remarry.

In my opinion a wife who beats and abuses her husband or a man who beats his wife is doing much more physical and psychological harm to their spouse than screwing the mailman or maillady though that is a bad thing.

Imagine what the world would be like if you were manager of a store and could no longer be manager (forever) if you accidentally hired someone who turned out to be a thief.

Or imagine you are a doctor and the surgery would be routine, no signs of any problems in the pre surgery tests, and your patient has a heart attack and dies on the table. Because you lost a patient you can't be a doctor again, ever.

Why be like this about picking a spouse who turns out to be a bad apple but doesn't cheat on you. What is so magical about it having to be adultery before you can divorce and remarry. And this "except for fornication" clause in the gospels we have in our bibles today is actually missing in many manuscripts. I do not know how many compared to those that have it in it but some have speculated the orginals did not allow divorce, period, and the phrase excepting fornication was forged in later.

[Cootie Brown]

Religion was not built on logic & reason. Many of the Bibles laws,rules, & commandments make absolutely no sense. That is why cherry picking scripture became popular. Pick out the laws, rules, & command that make sense to you & ignore the rest. That seems to work for a lot of believers.

[FinallyFree]

B.H., you made some great points!

[ena]

Here is the thing. You get tricked into marrying a nutjob who beats and abuses you later. He was all nice and kind when dating (or she was was if you are a guy)

You divorce other than for adultery but can't remarry.

In my opinion a wife who beats and abuses her husband or a man who beats his wife is doing much more physical and psychological harm to their spouse than screwing the mailman or maillady though that is a bad thing.

Imagine what the world would be like if you were manager of a store and could no longer be manager (forever) if you accidentally hired someone who turned out to be a thief.

Or imagine you are a doctor and the surgery would be routine, no signs of any problems in the pre surgery tests, and your patient has a heart attack and dies on the table. Because you lost a patient you can't be a doctor again, ever.

Why be like this about picking a spouse who turns out to be a bad apple but doesn't cheat on you. What is so magical about it having to be adultery before you can divorce and remarry. And this "except for fornication" clause in the gospels we have in our bibles today is actually missing in many manuscripts. I do not know how many compared to those that have it in it but some have speculated the orginals did not allow divorce, period, and the phrase excepting fornication was forged in later.

You expanded it well. What Jesus says in Matthew seems to be consistent with Jewish views. They could get divorces but God was not happy about it. See Agricola's comments above.

There are many issues. The CoC way is not complete and that is rather obvious. Granted God did not want divorce for men and women. But humans being humans it does not always work out that does not change what happens. About half on the kids I grew up in the CoC with have had divorces. I have seen many failed marriages. People that wish to remain in fellowship go through gyrations you would not believe. The classic one is to accuse your wife of fornication. Actually the opposite was true. I know of a case like that. What looks good on the surface may in fact be a lie. I know of a couple than lived together for the kids while the wife wanted to leave and take up with other men. The man as a result had to run damage control and wife control. The wife died eventually and he remarried with a better relationship. The problem was he had to live in private Hell created by CoC rules. I've seen people at church try to determine who is at fault in a marriage. That's God's job. There are thousands of issues. The one acting out may in fact goaded into it by the other. How can you know? Marriages are complex. The issue is Matt 19:7-9. The CoC seizes verse 9 when the principle is verse 8. Jesus is talking principles. There's the ideal and then reality

Matt 19 7-9 KJV

7 They say unto him, Why did Moses then command to give a writing of divorcement, and to put her away?

8 He saith unto them, Moses because of the hardness of your hearts suffered you to put away your wives: but from the beginning it was not so.

9 And I say unto you, Whosoever shall put away his wife, except it be for fornication, and shall marry another, committeth adultery: and whoso marrieth her which is put away doth commit adultery.

[Cootie Brown]

Christianity, whatever version a believer favors, is all about living a disciplined life style aka being obedient to God's will. That's okay as long as it doesn't become too difficult or places an unrealistic burden on a believer. When that becomes too difficult then we have a cognitive dissonance problem. In order to fix the dissonance we have little choice other than to rationalize the dissonance away.

In the case of marriage and divorce the c of c follows the Bible as literally as possible, but that results in burdens nobody anticipated. In order to fix that problem some serious rationalization has to take place. About the only way to solve the problem is to reinterpret the Bible using logic & reason. With divorce rates around 50% both in & out of the Church this is a real problem, and nobody wants a Biblical solution that requires going without sex for the rest of their lives, so any solution has to address that problem & make it go away. And religious people have been doing that quite successfully for eons now.

As a non-believer that is an easy problem to solve. The Biblical marriage & divorce issue was created by the culture that wrote it. In other words it is a human mandate not a divine one. It's kind of interesting how religious folk suddenly become logical & rational when their religious laws, rules, & commands become to burdensome, but that is just our human nature.

[Cootie Brown]

An obvious solution for all of these issues with Bible laws, rules, and commands is to stop reading the Bible literally. Read it in the context of allegory, myth, & parables. The Bible has worthwhile messages & teachings, but those teaching become distored when the Bible is read in a wooden literal contex.

John Domonic Crossan, a recognized Bible scholar, said, "The ancients were smart enough to write literal stories symbolically, but we are dumb enough to read their symbolic stories literally."

Just something to consider.