Does Scripture differentiate between ‘putting away’ and ‘divorce’?

38 thoughts on “Does Scripture differentiate between ‘putting away’ and ‘divorce’?”

1. May I humbly suggest that having a very strong opinion about something does not make it automatically ‘right’? Nor is it just to assert that all who disagree with me obviously have not done their homework, do not understand logic or are practicing faulty hermeneutics. It may be that when others look at all of the information that I have, and reason carefully upon it, they arrive at another opinion. At times, it may be an opinion that I now reject, but will someday embrace.

   This happens all of the time. Intelligent, thoughtful, godly men and women arrive at different conclusions than I have. And the fact that they do not choose to engage in debate with me, if I do not appear genuinely open to considering other viewpoints, may simply reveal their discernment and / or need to marshal limited time and energy.

   The arguments for both views have been fairly well laid out, so anyone can do their homework and consider the reasoning behind the various views people hold. Yet, each one must decide for himself what he believes is most reasonable. The challenge is to do our humble best to seek understanding, remain always open to more knowledge and wisdom and to be gracious with both those who do not agree [and those who do agree]. I personally do not feel I have ‘arrived’ at perfect understanding on any subject, and fully expect that my views will continue to be refined as long as I live.

   Our opinions might have more of an impact if not presented as the only possible way to think, when many have arrived at other conclusions. They, and their ‘experts’ might even be right, or more right than I. I offer this, not to be rude, but with the best intentions. Frankly, I am willing to consider varying opinions on this subject, because I genuinely desire to understand what scripture intends to say, and it has so often been used with great harm. I am, however, put off by strident defenders who appear unwilling to reconsider their own preferred theories. Now, if I can only learn to apply my own suggestions consistently. 😉

   1. Hello, TSOO, your comment seems to me to be a subtle ad hominem attack on me. You are critising my tone – which you label as ‘strident’ – rather than engaging with the substance of my arguments.

      I debated whether the publish your comment, but have decided to do so in order to call you to account.

      You said —

      Frankly, I am willing to consider varying opinions on this subject, because I genuinely desire to understand what scripture intends to say, and it has so often been used with great harm. I am, however, put off by strident defenders who appear unwilling to reconsider their own preferred theories. Now, if I can only learn to apply my own suggestions consistently.

      I think you nailed it that you are not applying your own suggestions consistently.

      Please defend your claim that I am not willing to reconsider my preferred theory.

      The arguments for both views have been fairly well laid out….

      So far as I am aware, I am the only writer — and certainly the only advocate working in the field of domestic abuse — who has laid out the arguments that I’ve laid out here and in Part 2 of this series.

      I wish it was not necessary to lay out my arguments against this ‘word meanings are the key’ theory. But I have chosen to do so because the theory that ‘word meanings are the key’ is a stumbling block to some victims of abuse who are coming out of the fog and are hearing it from people like Leslie Vernick.

      Many academic scholars who write about the divorce scriptures do not even bother to mention this theory; if they do mention it, it is only in order to dismiss it in one or two sentences, because they know the theory is ridiculous and it does not hold water.

      You claim that the arguments for both sides have been well laid out. I have trail blazed on this. You know not what you talk about.

      ….Yet, each one must decide for himself what he believes is most reasonable. The challenge is to do our humble best to seek understanding, remain always open to more knowledge and wisdom and to be gracious with both those who do not agree [and those who do agree].

      And that is your challenge, TSOO. Please apply it to yourself.

      Have you read Walter Callison’s Divorce: A Gift of God’s Love and Stephen Gola’s Divorce: God’s Will? And Leslie Vernick’s blog post? Those are all people who defend the theory I am rebutting. Then read Part 2 of this series. And then, if you wish, present your arguments against my theory.

      As the saying goes, if you can’t handle the heat get out of the fire.

   2. The above comment from TSOO is Rhetoric. Propaganda is almost always rhetoric. Politicians use rhetoric non-stop to promote their propaganda. Rhetoric is an appeal to our emotions to persuade us without using pertinent facts.

      Sometimes, as in the above comment, it sounds like it is instead an appeal to our reason by using the words ‘reason’ and ‘reasonable’ and stating things that are generally true but are, in fact, irrelevant to the case at hand.

      But rhetoric is not an appeal to reason and this is how you can tell. Reason presents facts and arranges them in a non-contradictory manner using logic to lead to conclusions that conform with reality.

      The above comment does not contain any facts. Therefore, unsurprisingly, there is no logic and therefore no valid conclusions in the comment. It does not address any of the facts laid out by Barb in her detailed argument. Therefore, as an argument, it has zero value.

      Instead, the comment is clearly aimed at Barb herself. Thus, it qualifies as an Ad Hominem attack. This is a well recognised logical fallacy and is employed when a person does not have a valid argument. When they cannot counter the message, they attack the messenger and hope that no one notices the switch.

      Did you notice that I employed a switch myself in the last paragraph? I switched from talking about the commenter, TSOO, and instead talked in a general manner by using the word ‘person’. I did this to protect myself from the reasonable counter that I cannot know the commenter’s motivation and thinking (and I can’t). But by making it general I can hide behind that and still make the charge that they don’t have an argument and this is the reason behind the personal attack!

      To say it another way, I can talk generally but still lead the reader into thinking I’m talking about TSOO. So I can attack him / her but avoid responsibility for doing so by not addressing him / her directly. Kinda underhanded, isn’t it?

      Well, that is what TSOO did with his / her entire comment. They spoke in a general way without addressing any of their comments or assertions to Barb personally. Indeed, they did not even use Barb’s name in the entire comment. So the arrows can be hurled at Barb from behind the cover of general statements and proclaimed humility using reasonable sounding assertions that do not employ any reason and have no facts supporting them. Neat huh!

      This is the world of rhetoric – the world of politics, all designed to lead you around by your emotions while sounding like reason.

      Over the years, I have had this sort of rhetoric used against me. It is really difficult to counter because if you answer by assuming they are criticising you (and they are), they act offended and say, “No, we are not. We are just proposing that you might not have considered everything.” It is all rather cowardly on their part.

      They are introducing doubt into your mind without offering counter-facts or argument. It is a form of gaslighting.

      Of course, we cannot know everything but that doesn’t mean we know nothing. No arguments or decisions would ever be made if this ‘reasoning’ was held to all the time. We move ahead when we know enough facts and used enough logic and arrived at conclusions that are true enough.

      1. Thank you for your concise wording, James. As I was reading your comment, I felt as if the curtain was being drawn back to expose the tiny wizard in the well-known movie, The Wizard of Oz. In this case, the wizard being, TSOO.

      2. Thank you, Seeing Clearly. I like the metaphor you used. It’s multi-levelled, too!

      3. Thank you, James! I had to study your comment to see how you switched in your fifth paragraph from the particular (TSOO’s comment) to the general (person). I appreciate you pointing that out.

         Last night when I first read your comment my brain was too tired to understand your ‘switch’ fully, but this morning I have re-read it carefully. And I now get it. Very neat.

      4. James commented:

         ….Propaganda is almost always rhetoric. Politicians use rhetoric non-stop to promote their propaganda. Rhetoric is an appeal to our emotions to persuade us without using pertinent facts.

         ^THAT!

         And when similar situations occur elsewhere in life, the frustration it causes can feel like I’m banging my head against a brick wall. (Omitting details for my protection.)

         For me, there are times the phrase bait-and-switch can ALSO feel like I am left banging my head against a brick wall. (Omitting details for my protection.)

         James also commented:

         ….It is really difficult to counter because if you answer by assuming they are criticising you (and they are), they act offended and say, “No, we are not. We are just proposing that you might not have considered everything.”…

         ^That.

         James also commented:

         They are introducing doubt into your mind without offering counter-facts or argument. It is a form of gaslighting.

         ^That.

         To paraphrase Seeing Clearly (19TH JUNE 2019 – 6:58 AM), I feel like a curtain is being drawn back to expose the man behind the curtain who non-verbally gaslit me from the day I was baptized in the hospital as a very sick infant.

         The man behind the curtain was my “dad” / “father”, creating a false picture in my mind of my Father, a false picture I am currently in the process of over-writing with the picture of my true Father.

2. I’ve been building a picture in my mind throughout this series of posts, and today’s post has added more detail.

   I don’t yet have words for the bigger picture in my mind for the overall series, nor words for the picture in my mind for today’s post.

   The only words I can find so far are to say I’m getting a clearer and truer picture in my mind of God.

3. Malachi 2:13-16….

   ….brings to light the “hold out” situation. A husband has given up on the marriage. He no longer contributes anything positive to the relationship. He behaves treacherously and hard-heartedly behind closed doors. However, he will not be the one to file for divorce. In his heart, he has left the marriage. He is a coward and will not expose his true colors by initiating divorce.

   We can imagine how this rejection is severely affecting his wife. With hardly any life left, she files for divorce. Ah ha! Now he takes on the roll of a martyr. He will fake broken-heartedness and abandonment. He claims to be the victim.

   I could write out a list of churched women in my town who are considered to be “the problem all along” and mostly because she told her now-ex, “no more lies and deceit”. There is not a place in these churches for women to carry out in public what her husband has already carried out in his own home.

   I hope I have not stretched the scripture too far out of correctness. But this is what came to mind when I read Malachi. You may correct me.

   1. I think that by extension Malachi 2:13-16 condemns the dead-beat unrighteous husbands who ‘hold out’ as you described, leaving it to the wife to apply for divorce, and then slandering her to the church – which ends up with the church accusing her of being the problem all along.

      In other words, Malachi 2:13-16 condemns not just men who treacherously divorce their wives, but also men who in effect abandon all their duties as a husband but don’t actually file for divorce.

      In the days when the Bible was written, their legal system was different. Our systems require one party to file at the state court for divorce. In Malachi’s day and Jesus’ day, the state court was not involved in any paperwork for divorce. The husband simply wrote a certificate of divorce, dated it correctly, and handed it to his wife.

      Dr Instone-Brewer has cited documentary evidence of the fact that Jewish women in those days sometimes asked their religious leaders (rabbis, scribes) to put pressure on the husband to make him write a certificate of divorce so the wife could be free (and she would then be able to marry another man if she so wished). Sometimes this pressure on the husband worked. But still, this is not the same thing as our modern court systems.

      1. I can’t imagine what would happen to many, many women (and children) today, if the state court was not involved in divorce.

         I am including a quote from my great grandmother’s diary, written prior to 1920. She was divorced after a short marriage, left with two very young children and syphilis.

         A divorcee definition: A woman shunned by good men, mocked at by bad men and all women alike. Wanted by no one, and always in everyone’s way. It may be that their children think lots of them, but for how long. Oh! my God will it be that they will love and revere their mother. Only until their father or some other sets them up against her. God pity every woman who has to go through what I have.

      2. Thanks, Seeing Clearly, for sharing that with us. Your great grandmother was a courageous and honest woman.

4. Seeing Clearly commented (18TH JUNE 2019 – 12:31 AM):

   I am including a quote from my great grandmother’s diary, written prior to 1920. She was divorced after a short marriage, left with two very young children and syphilis….

   Sadly, today’s “c”hurch would probably automatically blame Seeing Clearly’s great grandmother for having syphilis.

   And the end result would be (from the same comment):

   A divorcee definition: A woman shunned by good men, mocked at by bad men and all women alike. Wanted by no one, and always in everyone’s way. It may be that their children think lots of them, but for how long. Oh! my God will it be that they will love and revere their mother. Only until their father or some other sets them up against her. God pity every woman who has to go through what I have.

5. Dear Readers, can I have a show of hands for whether you’ve ever experienced from a church leader the kind of things TSOO said in her comment? –– the statements she made, the way it was ‘speaking generally’ yet subtly pointed at me.

   If you’ve experienced that kind of thing from a church leader, how did you deal with it? E.g., did you push back in any way? And how did the church leader respond to you then?

6. When my now-ex was in crisis mode in marriage and ministry career, another church stepped in for crisis intervention. I had a sense everyone was wasting their time, trying to help a man who did not want to change.

   I made an appt with the minister who would be coming alongside my ex, professionally.
   A well-respected Elder from the helping church joined me as I sought specifics of goals, approach and time allotted for the intervention. Each of my questions gave a specific example alongside a specific question as to this authority figure’s plan. The Elder knew my ex well and added to my questions.

   Over and over, an answer was avoided, just a brush off was verbalized.
   In the end, he directed one clear question at me, “Where’s your wedding ring?”. I clearly stated that my profession requires wearing latex gloves, changed often throughout the day. I could possibly lose the ring or the diamond. On that evening, I had not remembered to put it back on. The Elder spoke up that he too, did not wear his due to safety issues in his construction career. The appointment was ended by his question of me.

   The minister remained seated behind his big desk. We put our chairs back in their places and walked out.

   It took me three days to get out of my uncomfortable fog and begin to figure out what happened. I did not return to that man behind the big desk again.

   1. Thanks, Seeing Clearly. 🙂

      The man behind the desk brushed off all your questions and then asked you ““Where’s your wedding ring?” His question was designed to appeal to your emotions – to make you feel uncertain and guilty – but he did not use pertinent facts. So his question fits the definition of Rhetoric that James gave in his comment.

      This discussion and the examples are helping me understand and discern more about the tactics of manipulators.

      1. I wasn’t certain it would fit, but tried to highlight relevant points. Thank you for highlighting how it fits [the] criteria.

      2. Barbara, he was, physically, a small man behind a very big desk. He was second in command to a strong, charismatic [Charismatic?] senior pastor. Here is the thought that hit me on day #3. While I intuitively never used the word “abusive” to describe my ex, I recreated his abusive scenarios. I was, unknowingly, describing the small man, making him very uncomfortable. He must have felt he had been found out. So he pushed back on me very hard to silence me, once and for all.

      3. Thanks, Seeing Clearly.

         May I just ask you to clarify something?

         Where you said:

         While I intuitively never used the word “abusive” to describe my ex, I recreated his abusive scenarios,

         Does the word “his” refer to the man behind the desk? Or does it refer to your ex?

      4. “His” refers to man behind the big desk. I should add the word “perhaps” was creating his sceneries because it is only a guess.

         In previous conversation with [the] Elder, I used the word “abuse”. When I walked into the small man’s office, something inside me suggested I should not use the word “abuse”.

   2. Seeing Clearly, you wrote —

      Over and over, an answer was avoided, just a brush off was verbalized.
      In the end, he directed one clear question at me, “Where’s your wedding ring?”. I clearly stated that my profession requires wearing latex gloves, changed often throughout the day. I could possibly lose the ring or the diamond. On that evening, I had not remembered to put it back on. The Elder spoke up that he too, did not wear his due to safety issues in his construction career. The appointment was ended by his question of me.

      It took me three days to get out of my uncomfortable fog and begin to figure out what happened. I did not return to that man behind the big desk again.

      You were very wise to not go back. The minister was playing judge behind his big desk and was viewing you as the defendant. You would have picked up that power imbalance subconsciously if not consciously and reacted accordingly with an increasing sense of powerlessness. You were bullied; and it was a set-up. That’s my guess as I have been in similar situations.

      You answered his question about the wedding ring literally, not registering consciously the implications. You then went into a fog afterwards. Perhaps you felt like you got hit but you don’t know how and from which direction. If I may guess again, this was a dissociative fog brought on by a PTSD response to being accused of something you didn’t do or didn’t think (the implication).

      It is really, really hard to counter this sort of treatment, the implied ad hominem attack; especially if it plays into PTSD. I have found an answer to it, though.

      I used to be married to a clinical psychologist; and a very manipulative one at that. She would ask me questions that had hidden implications and do so usually when I was focused on something else such as leaving the room to go to the shops or engaged in reading or just after a discussion has seemingly finished.

      I am an open sort of person and think and talk literally as the default mode, as it were. So I would answer quite literally this question out of the blue and only realise later the hidden implications and that she would take these answers to others to ‘prove her case’ or validate her version of what I am.

      I finally got myself into the habit of stopping to think before I answered anything. Even if I knew what to say, I would count to 3 before opening my mouth. I would practice this whenever I could with whomever I was talking to.

      Once I could do that and break the impulse to answer straight away, I could then think to ask in return, “Why do you ask?” It worked a treat!

      That little question undoes all the manipulation. Now the manipulator has to explain themselves and you are now on the front foot instead of on the backfoot trying to keep your balance. You are now focused outwardly on them instead of focusing inwardly on yourself. Big difference.

      Whenever there is a power imbalance, you are in a boxing ring. You need to focus all your attention on your opponent if you want to stay on your feet and not get blindsided. A boxing ring is no place for introspection. You can do that later.

      If you suffer from PTSD, focusing hard on your ‘opponent’ and the power play will help you stay present and ‘en garde’.

      If anyone is interested, they can practice this with a friend. You will notice how different you feel doing it. You will be much more poised (like our French fencer!). First practice counting to three before responding to a question. After practising this for a bit, then add in you own question, “Why do you ask, Grasshopper?” ¹[For readers who might be unfamiliar with James’ quote “Why do you ask, Grasshopper?” and the name “Grasshopper”, we have added links providing some background at the end of James’ comment. Editors.]

      It is not aggressive and you don’t have to make it sound as if it is. Ask because you are curious.
      A usual response is, “I don’t know. I just thought I would ask”, or some such. To which you just nod or say, “Aha”, and don’t say anything and watch. After all, if they don’t have a reason to ask, you don’t have a reason to answer! There’ll be other responses but you will work it out. The attitude is key.

      Practice using a ‘resting smile’ while engaged with whomever it is but watch them like a hawk. Look at the bridge of their nose and you will see their whole body.

      Lessons I’ve learnt after many figurative broken noses. I hope this is helpful.

      ¹[June 9, 2022:
      Why do you ask grasshopper? [Internet Archive link], from the THEANSWERWEB: When you can grab the pebble from my hand? page. Scroll part way down the When you can grab the pebble from my hand? page for Why do you ask grasshopper?.
      The name Grasshopper is from: Kung Fu (1972 TV series) [Internet Archive link]. The Internet Archive links are copies of the THEANSWERWEB and Wikipedia pages. Editors.]

      1. James commented:

         ….I hope this is helpful.

         For me, your entire comment is helpful, James. I just need to learn how adapt it to my own unique circumstances. And yes, I need to find words for the pictures in my mind.

      2. James, I like your technique of answering with this 4 word question. I have been aware for some time that other people use that on me. But, duh, I never thought to use it myself. It will take practice, a lot of it. Thanks for sharing.

      3. If it helps you feel any better, Seeing Clearly, I have not thought to say, ‘Why do you ask?” when I sense someone is asking me a question with a manipulative hidden agenda.

         I have sometimes said, “Why do you ask?” when someone asks me a question and I think they are asking because they have jumped to a wrong assumption about what I have just said to them in the conversation we are having. But I’ve never done it to undo their manipulation & get the manipulator to explain himself / herself.

         James’s wisdom, learned from lots of painful experience, is helping me mentally rehearse and then eventually put into practice more skills of calm assertiveness in dealing with opponents.

      4. Along with learning to use “why do you ask”, I’ll need to recognize the type of question being asked.

      5. James commented on a possible use of the phrase Why do you ask?, followed by comments on the same phrase by Seeing Clearly and Barb.

         I’ve thought of additional ways the phrase Why do you ask? might be helpful for my own situation. I wish I knew then what I know now. (Omitting details for my protection.)

   3. Hi, Seeing Clearly, I’m interested in the well-respected Elder….

      He was from the helping church, so presumably he was a close colleague of the minister (the “man behind the desk”) who so mistreated you that it resulted in you being in a fog for three days after that interview.

      This well-respected Elder knew your ex well and he helped you formulate more questions to put to the minister. That suggests he was somewhat of an ally for you, someone you felt was understanding you and helping you.

      He and you both left the interview together. He didn’t stay on in the room with the minister when you left, he left with you. Did he debrief with you? Did he ask you about how you felt about the interview? Did he tell you that he felt the minister gave you the brush off? Did he in any way validate you? Or did he just let you stew in the juice, flounder in the fog?

      And on reflection, do you think he was intentionally and deceptively giving you the impression he was your ally and your witness / advocate, in order to get you to be more open and trusting with this minister whose whole plan was to intimidate and lay false guilt on you? Rather like the ‘good cop / bad cop’ routine.

7. James commented (19TH JUNE 2019 – 10:44 PM):

   ….You would have picked up that power imbalance subconsciously if not consciously and reacted accordingly with an increasing sense of powerlessness….

   I THINK ^That happens to me, first instilled in me by my “dad’s” extreme abuse of me when I was an infant.

   Encountering crucial moments when communicating the pictures in my mind is important / vital, I get more and more frustrated with myself if I cannot sensibly convey the picture(s) in my mind.

   An insight reached as I wrote that last paragraph: I need to re-write that last paragraph!

   Encountering crucial moments when communicating the pictures in my mind is important / vital, I feel more powerless if I cannot sensibly convey the picture(s) in my mind. I have past memories of anger directed at me during these moments of powerlessness.

   And my “dad” was the source of the anger, NOT my Father.

8. GOD wants us to live at peace with one another.
   If the man HATES his wife he has a heart issue.
   The ULTIMATE TREACHERY is when he doesn’t give his wife a bill of divorce!

   1. Thanks, Renata. 🙂
      Since this is your first comment at the blog, may I encourage you to check out our New Users’ Info and our FAQs.

      If you want to change your screen name that shows with your comment, you can email my assistant Reaching Out. Her address is reachingout.acfj@gmail.com

9. In Ezra 10:19 they pledged to put away their wives, does this mean divorce? Do women then also “put away their husbands” for the same reasons?

   1. Ezra 10:19, where they pledged to put away their wives, means they pledged to divorce their wives.

      You asked:

      Do women then also ‘put away their husbands’ for the same reasons?

      If you asking whether the women in Ezra’s time also divorced their husbands for the same reasons — i.e. because those husbands had married foreign (pagan) wives, I would say “no”, because the account in Ezra does not say the women did that.

      However, I think you may be asking whether women in general can divorce their husbands (not just the women in the political situation Ezra recounted). If you are asking whether women can divorce their husbands, the answer is yes. I believe that the Bible allows a married person (woman or man) to divorce their spouse when that spouse has broken the broken the marriage covenant by abuse, sexual immorality, or desertion. I present the reasons for this in my book. I sum up my arguments here: What does the Bible say about divorce?

      Thanks for asking the question, Mrs, 🙂 and welcome to the blog! You might like to check out our FAQs.

10. Though you thoroughly went through the Old Testament. Put away for the Greeks meant sending the wife back to her father’s home. Could it be that Jesus was talking about the Greek put away, as they didn’t necessarily give a bill of divorce. Just a thought

    1. Hello Pauline,

       Please present evidence to back up your assertion that “Put away for the Greeks meant sending the wife back to her father’s home.”

       By the way, I removed your middle initial and your surname from your comment. I did that in case you are at risk from any abusers who might identify you by your comment at this blog. 🙂

11. Thank you for sharing the verse in Malachi 2:16. I once thought like you, but after much prayer, study, and pastoral experience, I agree with those who differentiate between the putting away and divorce. Though I was very passionately against that idea, I cannot find a single Scripture or historical truth to refute it. I can find several to confirm it though.

    Amazingly, I would use Malachi 2:16 in an attempt to prove my position, which is opposite of yours. To act treacherously against someone is what God hates, which is why he commanded men who were putting away their wives to issue them legal writs. Due to the hardness of their hearts (hatred), they were forcing their wives into the status of being agunahs, which means the women were chained or in bondage and could not move on with their lives and remarry. It appears to me that Malachi 2:16 confirms what Jesus said and why God commanded men through Moses to issue legal writs.

    When Jesus meets the woman at the well He said she had had five husbands. He did NOT say she had one husband and four fake husbands that were actually adulterous relationships. When Paul says a believer is “not in bondage,” or that a believer who is “loosed from a wife,” is not in sin if they marry, he seems to clearly refute the idea that divorced people are in sin in they remarry.

    When Paul says that a widow cannot receive help from the church unless she was the wife of man, there is no way he is saying that any old woman who had a divorce in her past should be starved out. The term wife of one man in the Greek can be seen as “a one woman man.” I have no doubt it is dealing with her lifestyle and testimony at the time her husband passed away. The woman at the well got saved, no doubt. I can’t see the church refusing to help her if was widowed years later and had served the Lord, the church, and her husband for many years by that time.

    I am convinced that those who interpret the putting away and divorce as the same thing are being tricked by the enemy to condemn many, many people unnecessarily. I believe Jesus would never do what they are doing. He is adamantly against acting treacherously against anyone, but He lovingly forgives passed sins and says go and sin no more.

    1. Hello, Pastor JD,

       Firstly, you say you cannot find a single Scripture or historical truth to refute the theory that Scripture differentiates between ‘putting away’ and ‘divorce’. Have you not read David Instone-Brewer’s book Divorce and Remarriage in the Bible: The Social and Literary Context [Affiliate link]?

       Instone-Brewer is a Tyndale scholar and an expert in ancient texts (biblical and extra-biblical) that pertain to divorce around the time of Jesus. He says there is NO difference in meaning between the Greek words chōrízō and aphiēmi. Both words meant “divorce” in Greek documents that were written over several centuries around the time of Christ. The words were used interchangeably. They both meant a fully legal divorce.

       Both the verbs chorizo and afiemi have the sense of “to divorce” although they have been translated here by “to separate” and “to dismiss,” respectively. Differences between these words should not be exaggerated. There may be no significance in their use other than stylistic variation. In English one might use both “divorce” and “dissolution” in the same paragraph without intending any difference in meaning. There were more than fifty words used for “divorce” in Greek marriage and divorce contracts, and it was common to use several in a single document. It is certainly not possible to say that afiemi is a legal divorce and chorizo is just a separation. In Greco-Roman society, separation was a legal divorce, and chorizo is the most common of the words used for divorce.
       — Instone-Brewer, ibid, page 198-9

       For more on this, read my post The Bible uses different words for divorce but they all mean legal divorce. Those who tell you otherwise are mistaken.

       Secondly, you think Malachi 2:16 can prove your position. But you have not addressed the controversy about how to translate that verse. Please go here and look at all the posts on Malachi 2:16 and the mistranslation “God hate divorce”. If you do not do intensive research on the translation of Malachi 2:16, you are ill-equipped to use that verse to support any theory of yours.

       Thirdly, your argument about the woman at the well does not stand up. When Jesus told her to call her male partner, that word in Greek (Strong’s G435) can mean ‘man’. It does not have to mean ‘husband’. With reference to sex it can mean a male, a husband, or a betrothed or future husband; with reference to age it is used to distinguish an adult man from a boy. The KJV translates Strong’s G435 in the following manner: man (156x), husband (50x), sir (6x), fellow (1x), not translated (2x).

       Also, the woman might have had a series of marriages and cohabitation-relationships with various men. Cohabitation (aka common-law marriage) was pretty common in the Roman Empire in the first century AD (see Instone-Brewer’s book which I cited above).

12. Abandonment and clear putting away would be nice. Satan is much sneakier than this. We have people around us who practice Eastern religion, leaving their own bodies at whim, and other manipulators who dissociate people (split their minds / personalities) and hypnotize them for sport.

    It would be nice for someone to actually have to “leave” you instead of just leaving his body so you look like the Godless jerk for divorcing the abode of demons left sitting in front of you every “weekend”, as the Demonic songs teach them to do. Remember, it was Satan who tested Job, not God.

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    1. Dear Junia, I understand what you’ve said here and my heart goes out to you in compassion and sympathy.

       Thank you for your courage in submitting this comment. (I’m assuming it took courage; but if I’m wrong please forgive me.)

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