FIVE HUSBANDS AND TWO MEN: Christian Divorce and Re-Marriage? (Part 5 of 18)

10. Was it a Parable?

If the encounter with the woman of Samaria had been a parable, we might have had theological pathways to ease the puzzle, but it was a real-life encounter with an actual woman who had had FIVE HUSBANDS – one, two, three, four, and five!  It was a real encounter with an actual woman at an authentic location witnessed by all twelve disciples of Jesus as well as the villagers, especially the men whom she invited to “come see.” 

If the story had been of a man who had had five wives, we might also have bothered differently, even in that New Testament passage.  What did Jesus mean in Matthew 5:32 about legitimate divorce strictly on grounds of fornication, that did not seem to apply in John 4:18 with the Samaritan woman and her five legitimate ex-husbands and five apparently legitimate divorces from each of them?

If it had been a disciple or a Pharisee who had called those men “husbands,” one would have bothered less than when those words came from the same holy lips as had ruled apparently differently in a previous case that is generally interpreted to suggest that all four subsequent men, apart from the first of the five, should have been called “adulterers,” and the woman, an “adulteress.”  If the interaction with the woman had been in the book of Hosea, or even in Malachi, we could easily have compartmentalised the story into the ‘Old Testament’ with little worry, but five marriages (or four consecutive remarriages) in the New Testament, and the same Jesus had no problem in calling those men “husbands”!

11.  Men or Husbands? 

The word translated as “husbands” in the story of the woman of Samaria is the Greek word aner.   We find that word in Matthew 1:16 and 19 where Joseph is called “the husband [aner] of Mary.” It is the word translated “husband” and “man” in Mark 10:2 and 12 where it had been asked if “it is lawful for a man [aner] to put away his wife” and if a woman could “put away her husband [aner].”  The contexts were usually explicit, whether the reference was to a male or a husband.

As shown above, there are instances in the English Bible where the same Greek word is translated as “man” (singular) or “men” (plural), as in Matthew 14:21 where Jesus fed “five thousand men,” and in Mark 6:20 where John the Baptist is called “a just man.”   In any case, the context often made it clear what was meant.  The reference in John 4 was clear: “husbands,” especially as Jesus was also careful to distinguish the five ex-men (husbands – aner) from the sixth man (no-husband; co-tenant), designated by the Greek pronoun hos, meaning “that one,” “the other,” etc.

What did Jesus mean in the case of the Samaritan woman that seems different from what He had said to the Pharisees?  Did He mean something else to the Jews in Judea than He meant to the Samaritan in Samaria, in the same New Testament?  Could we have missed something in our interpretation of either of the cases?  If so, what?

12. Contradictions?

Did Jesus contradict Himself by saying something about the woman of Samaria that seemed different from what He had said in Judea to the Pharisees?  No.  The first point is to agree that the Lord does not contradict Himself, and that the apparent contradictions in the Bible come from a faulty comprehension of truths.  For example, some Jews were persuaded that, given their understanding of history and the scriptures, Jesus, being “a Galilean” (as they considered Him), could not have been a messiah, because no prophet ever came out of Galilee.  Their deduction was correct, and their argument was verily based on the scriptures, but they were wrong.  It was a skewed understanding of valid scriptures.  Their error arose not from the scriptures but from their imperfect alignment of truths (John 7:41, 52).

Also, it used to be the ‘scientific’ position in Medieval times that the earth was flat.  To think otherwise was to challenge the ruling powers and risk painful death.  Even though it was at that time the popular view, and went by the reputable name of science, it was an error.  In other words, truth is not determined by the number or nobility of its followers; not by how many people believe it, or how nobler they are than others who do not believe it, or for how long it has been believed.

If the Samaritan case in John chapter 4 appears to contradict the general comprehension of Jesus’ other teaching on marriage and divorce, we should look for a resolution in our interpretation of the scriptures rather than conclude that they were a contradiction.  The broader approach to a more wholesome interpretation would take a consideration of the historical and social contexts of the statements.

13. The Shammai and Hillel Schools

In Jesus’ days, there were two famous theological camps among the Jews: the school of Shammai and that of Hillel.  On the matter of divorce, the Shammai school held that a man could not legally put away or divorce his wife except for infidelity.  The Hillel school was more liberal on the subject.  Their position was that a man might put away his wife on many other grounds, “if she find not favour in his eyes,” which could also mean if he found another woman prettier, or if the wife dissatisfied him even in preparing and presenting his meals.  That was the basis of the question posed to Jesus, whether it was “lawful for a man to put away his wife for every cause” – note that: “for every cause” (Matthew 19:3).  The woman of Samaria might have been a victim of this situation, where a man could divorce the wife for trivial reasons, which made divorces then rampant in the society.

As would be found in their interaction with Jesus, both schools based their position on “Moses,” by which they meant the laws of Moses (Matthew 19:7), the reference being to Deuteronomy 24:1, which states that if, in the course of a marriage, the wife “find no favour in his eyes, because he hath found some uncleanness in her: then let him write her a bill of divorcement, and give it in her hand, and send her out of his house.”  Moses never said that the wife could be divorced “for every cause,” as the liberal Hillel school taught.  The exception he made was, if he found “some uncleanness in her,” meaning a whorish act, which could be adultery or some conjugal infidelity.

It is apparent that in Matthew 19 Jesus was addressing a specific case, or offering insight to a given scripture, specifically Deuteronomy 24, while He engaged the Jews in Judea, and He did not seem to have applied that case universally to the Samaritan woman in John 4.  If He did, He should have called her next four husbands “adulterers,” not “husbands.”  We shall return to this.

From The Preacher’s diary, 

July 20, 2021. 

• A link to the e-book version of these posts shall be provided in the last three ‘Parts’ of this series.
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