Matthew 19 does not permit Divorce because of Adultery.

As someone who’s Politically a Leftist while being Theologically Conservative I want to clarify this discussion of what The Bible says about Divorce should have no impact on Civil Laws, Civil Marriage as a Legal Contract should have no restriction on how to enter it or leave it (besides Consent and being old enough obviously but those are restrictions only to entering it), forcing people to stay in unhappy marriages is not the way to inspire Christian Morality.

Matthew 19 is the core of why Christian Morality is traditionally Anti-Divorce and yet even the most Conservative commentators are forced to concede Adultery as a valid excuse for Divorce here because of their other Conservative agendas in how to treat a certain word.

Matthew 19:9 in the King James Version uses the word “fornication” for what the only allowable reason for Divorce is.  I’ve proven before on this Blog how that word and the Greek word Pronea are words for specifically Prostitution.  But because casual usage watered down that word to mean any perceived Sexual sin or any sex “outside of marriage” that part of the verse is often quoted as if it used the word Adultery even by people saying they are going off the KJV. 

The problem with thinking that reading is valid is the way even Jesus’s own Disciples reacts to it in verse 10.  Their reaction only makes sense if this is some utterly unprecedented restriction even though Adultery as a good enough reason for divorce is about the most precedented allowance imaginable.

According to the Talmud the Pharisees had an internal disagreement about Divorce at this time, Hillel’s school was more permissive while Shammai allowed it only for Adultery. Jesus seeming more like Shammai here is the exception to the general trend, on everything else Jesus sounds a lot more like Hillel.  But His break from Hillel here is based on very Hillelian principals, Mercy and Forgiveness.

Yes words for Prostitution are often used euphemistically to call someone a Whore for being Sexually Active at all.  But that doesn't change what the word means, the word should be Translated as what it means and let the reader interpret how literally it’s being used. And Euphemistic references to Prostitution sometimes go the other way, they are sometimes about the concept of “selling out” and not actually Sexual at all.  The core Greek Root behind Pronea means “to sell off” the sexual part is not in the actual Etymology.

Adultery is explicitly mentioned in this passage but not as a reason for Divorce, rather as a consequence of it.  This is the only passage in all of Scripture that defines Adultery as a Crime a Husband can commit against his Wife, in The Torah Adultery is always defined only as a Wife sleeping with someone other than her Husband.  Why is explained earlier in Matthew 5:32 where it’s clarified that a Husband causes his Wife to Commit Adultery when he divorces her, because women in that society usually needed a husband to survive.