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Loading...In this week’s Readers’ Mailbag I’ll be addressing two questions having to do with marriage: first, is it possible that Jesus was not actually celibate but was married and second whether the Bible allows for multiple wives and/or husbands. Hot topics!
QUESTION
Why do so many NT scholars (most recently John Meier) state as fact that Jesus took a lifelong vow of celibacy? Wouldn’t it be more historically accurate simply to say that the NT is silent on the topic?
RESPONSE
I have dealt with this issue on the blog before but here let me simply give the brief version, by making a couple factual points and then making a specific argument
Factual points:
- No ancient source of any kind indicates that Jesus was married. The recent “discovery” of the so-called “Gospel of Jesus’ wife” has been shown to be a modern forgery. No Gospel (or any other writing from antiquity) indicates or even suggests that he had (or ever had) a wife (let alone that he had any kind of sexual relationship with Mary Magdalene)
- Throughout the NT Gospels, the important members of Jesus’ family are mentioned: his mother Mary, his father Joseph, his brothers James, Jude, Simon, and Joses, and his sisters (left unnamed). If he were married, and the authors of the NT mention his family members, why would his wife never be mentioned?
- It is not true, as is often said, that Jewish men in the days of Jesus were always married. For one thingTHE REST OF THIS POST IS FOR MEMBERS ONLY. If you don’t belong yet — you’re losing out BIG TIME!!! Join the blog. It doesn’t cost much, gives lots, and raises money for charity!
//And what is the Bible’s view of parents and children? Leviticus indicates that children who disobey their parents are to be stoned to death. That’s hard to imagine on the lips of Jesus. //
What about Matthew 15:4?
Good point. My sense is that Jesus is simply quoting Scripture here in order to trap his opponents, not in order to urge the stoning of children. At least he himself never draws that conclusion.
“For one thing, they couldn’t be, since there were almost certainly more women than men among most populations in antiquity, except in times of serious war (when men would die), since women so often died in childbirth. ” … I think you meant to say that “there were almost certainly more men than women…”
Ah, thanks. I changed it.
I’ve often heard people use Mark 10 as Jesus “defining” marriage between one man and one woman (to negate polygamy and same-sex marriage). Is there any legitimacy to any of this being Jesus’ motive or thought process, or is this about divorce only and people today use it for their own purposes? Or any else I’ve missed?
He doesn’t define marriage, though that is certainly how people in his day understood it.
It is so amazing that so many people take the Bible literally. I was reading a Dan Dennett book at work this week, and a coworker read the cover, and apparently took offence and started inquiring as to my beliefs. After a few questions, I found out that he thought the Earth was only 7000 years old etc… I asked him how he explained dinosaur fossils…he said he had no idea… I swiftly ended the conversation, because what can you say to someone like that?
I almost stoned my child to death…I don’t know what stopped me!
I also have friends who believe that Genesis is the true word of God and that the planet is approximately 6000 years old and that Dinosaurs coexisted with humans. I attempted to explain the KT boundary which shows there are dinosaur fossils below this line and human fossils above the line. As yet no human fossil has been found below the KT boundary. Further they (creationists) argue the exitance of Dragons and that carbon dating is inaccurate,
Very good arguments re Jesus having been celibate! I’ve imagined at times that he might have been one of the many young widowers – or that he’d had a breakup with a wife who disagreed with his teachings, and that was why she was never mentioned. But it makes sense that if he was urging others to prepare for a Kingdom without sex by already living without it, he would have remained celibate himself.
But I find it puzzling that large numbers of men could seemingly accept an eternity without sex as a good thing! Sex as experienced by women may have been unpleasant in those days…but men?
Yeah, go figure.
Bart,,,,,,,,could Iesus have been married or have been in a relationship but the Church later deleted or altered any reference to it.
No, he was almost certainly not married (I’ve talked about it on the blog before; probably you can find it if you search for Magdalene or wife)
Dr. Ehrman, not only do I think Jesus was celibate, I strongly suspect Jesus was born gay. Of course, this is mere speculation on my part, but it would certainly explain what Jesus meant when he said some men are “born eunuchs” (Matt. 19:12) and why Jesus would even know that men could be “born eunuchs” (assuming that quote goes back to the historial Jesus).
Two comments. First, I know I’m being picky here, but I don’t like seeing the term “gay” used for homosexuals in an earlier era. I happen to think the term is undignified and ridiculous. If present-day people *want* to be called that, fine! But I won’t use it for anyone in an earlier era, and I try to avoid using it for non-English-speaking people in our era.
And about being “born eunuchs”: Could that be a reference to a significant number of Jewish men in Jesus’s day having been castrated due to botched circumcisions or subsequent infections? No, they wouldn’t have been “born” eunuchs; but they’d never remember having been anything else.
Am I right in thinking that it is you who do not want to appear undignified? I don’t think homosexuals put a lot of stock in appearing dignified.
This is one of your best…
Interesting view and much i agree with. However where does it forbid polygyny, i’ve seen many verses that allow it but i don’t think i’ve seen one that bans it.
Well, I suppose one place would be in 1 Timothy 3:2, where the leaders of the church must be “the husband of one wife.”
I recently went to a Bible class where people quoted different Bible scriptures to support different positions on immigration. I finally got up and left because I thought the idea that the Bible could say anything useful about complicated American immigration policy was totally absurd.
Yikes.
To answer your question, “If he were married, and the authors of the NT mention his family members, why would his wife never be mentioned?”, I assume the answer is because the authors of the NT were writing so long after Jesus had died, that they now find it inappropriate for Jesus to be married since is believed to be divine and in heaven with God. Is that at least a reason why they would not have written about a possible wife?
Peter was apparently an apocalyptic Jew and he was married so I’m guessing that not all apocalyptic Jewish men stayed unmarried.
The idea that celibacy was to be preferred did not come along for centuries. And yes, absolutely, most apocalypticists were married.
Am I correct in assuming that the NT authors would not think that a divine Jesus could be married and would choose to withhold any information regarding a wife even if they had the information?
I don’t think we can necessarily assume that. Other divine men in antiquity (e.g., the emperor) could be married, with children!
I meant from the view that pagans had their gods having sex with women. The Jewish writers made sure that their god did not have sex with Mary but sent the Holy Spirit. My thought was that the same idea was put upon Jesus. He was divine like the Jewish god and therefore did not have sexual relations.
We don’t know what Jewish writers would have wanted to say. (Also: most of the writers of the NT, for what it’s worth, were not Jewish)
Sorry. I did not mean to say Jewish writers. The writers of Matt and Luke made sure to not have their god have sex with Mary. So my point is that I would assume that in general, the NT writers would not have wanted their divine individuals to have sex including Jesus. I am saying that this is a reason that the NT writers would not have mentioned a wife for Jesus even if he was married. They would have written the wife out.
I think the problem is that you can’t assume the answer to your question — since otherwise it’s not a question! (That’s known as “assuming your conclusion”)
Ok. Am I correct that the writers of Matt and Luke definitely wanted to differentiate their god from the pagan gods in that pagan gods actually had sex with earthly women and the god that fathered Jesus did not have sex with Mary?
I”m not sure they were focused on making their stories different from pagan accounts; my sense is that they simply didn’t conceive of their God has one who would become human temporarily to have sex with a woman.
in judaism was it allowed for mary to apply expensive ointment on jesus even if she wasn’t his wife?
There were no laws about it.
My book, The Greatest Bible Study in Historical Accuracy by Steefen has a Facebook page. Someone has asked me there to explain Luke 23: 36–it was not Jesus who bore the cross, it is Simon.
My response:
Very important that you bring this to our attention because we do not see the biblical story depicted that way. I looked at verse 25 which when read with verse 26 tells us Jesus did not start with carrying the cross but Simon of Cyrene started and went all the way.
Have you commented on this topic before?
11And even Herod and his soldiers ridiculed and mocked Him. Dressing Him in a fine robe, they sent Him back to Pilate
Chapter 23 does not give us the Mel Gibson version and it does not give us the Stages of the Cross depicted in stained glass in so many great churches.
Again I ask you , Have you commented on this before? Verse 11 puts the mockery and ridicule on Herod and his soldiers, not on Roman soliders. You must have chosen one over the other or at least brought it to the attention of your students.
At first I was going to say Simon carried the cross for Jesus because Jesus was whipped so badly, but Luke does not give us a whipping in Chapter 23. Luke does not give us the miracles of the Via Dolarosa.
(In all honesty, I explain fully that the reader referenced the book by an author who passed away, in the last five years. I was in correspondence with him. This author made a case, based on a statement by Josephus that Herod did not kill every child of his predecessor. A daughter survived and gave birth to Jesus. Hence, given Jesus’ royalty, he would have an audience with Pilate and would not have to carry his own cross.)
Correction in the second sentence: Luke 23: 26
I know this might sound bazaar to you but I am going to tell about it so the truth will be clear when that time is here. Well, in our life time what is said to happen is a star planet, named in Quran as Saqar but it’s common name is Nibru as western world named it, will pass by earth coming in it’s rottations via the poles of Earth. According to imam Nasser Mohamed Alyamani:Jesus body is lying in a cave in Yemen in a province of zamar in village of Migdasha. Jesus peace be upon him and the three huge extraordinary giant men sleepers who according to Quran are messengers that are from the era after Noah but before Abraham , all will come back from there long sleep to testify and be a testimony on the true word of GOD the creator. The event of Jesus return as well as these giant men will be after the passing of planet Saqar which is a great tribulation on earth because fireballs(meteors)will be effecting all earth. What is called today as climate change and exterme nature distasters is caused by this contionous approach by planet Saqar toward earth. Then the facts will be set straight by Jesus son of Mary.
Do you have any evidence to support this? “An Iman said,” is not a form of evidence.
This prophecy is similar to the Nibiru Cataclysm and has been scientifically rejected.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nibiru_cataclysm
Where is this story of Jesus and the three huge extraordinary giant men in the Quran?
I just finished reading it (in English, unfortunately) and don’t remember anything like this.
According to Quran.com “saqar” is one of the names of hell. Can you give us the Sura where this story is found?
The world is full of stories. If you want anyone to believe that yours is true and others are not, you need to provides good reasons. Belief is cheap.
We can gain crucial insights from the thoughts of people who lived long before us, and we’d be fools not to–civilization is based precisely on our ability to draw on the wisdom and experience of past generations, and there is no civilization without that ability. But we do have to remember that they lived in different times, and we know many things they did not–and vice versa.
I view the OT more as a running debate between various sects of Judaism than anything else. The people who wrote it would have vehemently disagreed with each other on many things. To a considerable extent, this was also true of the NT, but less so, since it was written over a shorter period of time.
But what a loss to world civilization if we didn’t have these texts. And all the other great religious texts of the world, and the philosophical texts as well (which are no less opinionated and based on speculation of matters we can never be factually sure of).
And anyway, I’m sort of confused by the notion that we’ve put patriarchy behind us. Donald Trump says married women shouldn’t have jobs. 🙂
Dr. Ehrman is this true?
Matthew 8:5-13 and Luke 7:1-10.
“The Greek word that the Roman centurion uses in this passage to describe the sick man – pais – is the same word used in ancient Greek to refer to a same-gender partner.”
Not to my knowledge. The world means “child” or even “servant”
Dr. Ehrman, someone is saying doulos means slave. A slave who must perform sexual favors is not a same-gender partner (disagreeing with the gentleman who made the initial assertion). That said, can we really rule out servant/slave performing some favor of bathing, massage, affection or sex?
http://www.textkit.com/greek-latin-forum/viewtopic.php?t=7376 :
I know very little about Greek but quite a lot about the Roman army and politics. The short version is that Centurions were not allowed to be married. They were not allowed to have ever been married. Therefore they did not have children. No Centurion would EVER admit to having an illegitimate child either, because at best they would lose their position, and perhaps be banished or exiled. However, it was not unknown for a Centurion to fall in love with a woman in the area he was serving in, and after his “commission” expired he would marry her. The reasoning was both practical and political. Firstly & most importantly, Centurions were selected from the general geographic area in which they served, were made Roman citizens if they weren’t already, and marriage would potentially involve a high military officer in local political intrigue which the Romans didn’t think would encourage loyalty to Rome rather than to local political intrigues.
Centurions were high-ranking officers, and had servants; in the ancient world, including Jews in Judea/Israel, servants were almost always slaves (often indentured, “bondservants”, those who couldn’t pay their debts; just as often, captured during a military operation and kept as a slave rather than killed). Often, a Centurion’s slaves were servants to the men under his command as well, including for “sexual favors”.
So “pais” in Matthew could not possibly be the Centurion’s child. I would think it would be understood as “boy” in the sense of having a particular fondness for the person, and a sexual relationship would certainly be implied. Elsewhere in the Matthew passage the pais is referred to as “doulos”, the formal word for “slave”, but the Centurion himself uses a term of endearment. This endearment is also clear in how others describe the sick slave to Jesus.
= = =
“Emperors Trajan and Hadrian were dedicated to boys.” – the book, Homosexuality and Civilization by Louis Crompton, ps105-106
Same gender partner, no: same gender servant of non-sexual and sexual duties cannot be ruled out.
Where did you find that centurions could not be married? (Do ancient sources say this?)
I checked the url at the top of the section dealing with Centurions marrying. I would have to become a member of that forum to hope I could contract the person who posted in 2010. Next, I googled Ancient Roman Military Centurion and Marry (or something like that). A result was “Were Roman Centurions permitted to marry?”
Best Answer: From Augustus reforms of the army in 25 BC till the reign of Septimus Severus (193-211),serving Roman soldiers were not allowed to marry until after discharge.This included centurions.
However, Augustus did not intend his soldiers not to have families.Long term liasons with women and having children with them were permitted.Soldiers got a plot of land on discharge,usually near the base where they were stationed.As this was usually near the frontiers of the empire,
Augustus expected the soldiers to marry these women (emphasis, I’m adding) on discharge (emphasis, I’m adding), thus giving the children citizenship.
The Romans thus got military settlers on the borders of the empire,providing both a reserve of trained ex soldiers and potential future recruits from amongst their sons.
Punishment for desertion was crucifixion, the deserter first having to ‘run the gauntlet’ between 2 lines of soldiers who would beat him with heavy sticks.
Next Answer:
It depends on what era of the Legions you’re asking about. Prior to the advent of the Empire yes, they were allowed to Marry. They were citizen Soldiers who served during the campaigning season and then went back to their farms or homes afterwards (usually). During the time of the Empire they were denied the right to marry for a while.
Next Answer:
Serving soldiers could not marry till the time of Septimius Severus 193-211. But many had informal unions which they confirmed on retirement.
Okay, here’s something that you may find meatier because its from Stanford/Princeton
https://www.princeton.edu/~pswpc/pdfs/scheidel/110509.pdf
Just see the first two paragraphs of this paper.
Interesting. I wonder what ancient sources say this.
Centurion and pais.
Sir Kenneth Dover, a heterosexual, is the former President of Corpus Christi College, Oxford University, and Chancellor of the University of St. Andrews, Scotland, from 1981 until his retirement in 2005 and a noted authority on ancient Greece. In his book, Greek Homosexuality, he informs us that the younger partner in a homosexual relationship is called pais or paidika. This information impacts our Centurion and pais discussion.
“The pais in a homosexual relationship was often a youth who had attained full height.” p. 16.
“The Greeks often used the word paidika in the sense of ‘eromenos.’ ”[Meaning “the boy you are in love with]. p. 16. Paidika is the diminutive of pais.
“The junior partner in homosexual eros is called pais (or of course, paidika) even when he has reached adult height and hair has begun to grow on his face.” p. 85.
What about concubines? Were they primarily house servants or were they for the sexual pleasure of the patriarchs? What about children born of concubines? Did they have any status? This practice along polygamy seems to have died out after the split between Judah and Israel probably because of the invasions of the Assyrians and the Babylonians.
If you’re asking about ancient Israel, I’m afraid I don’t know!
Just curious, in regards to sexual relations, is rape actually banned in the bible? I know NT talks a lot about being loving and against fornication but does it ever directly address rape and condemn it? I’m assuming in those times arranged marriage was normal therefore you would sleep with someone because its your obligation.
There is certainly legislation about illicit sexual relations in the book of Leviticus. I’m away from my books, but maybe someone else on the blog can give the references.
Ok, ill look into it. I find it interesting that Lot is willing to give his daughters away however God never corrects him about that later on. Also, why is it ok for the first humans to be having sex and making the human race then there is a ban on the act and labelled incest…aren’t we all descendants of incest? So God made something ok, then he made it a sin? If it’s a sin then its bad, which is against Gods perfect nature…so how could something bad have been something good?
Yes, there is a lot of rape in the Hebrew Bible; sometimes the problem is that a man has taken another man’s property. There are some hugely patriarchal parts of the Bible.
Bart, is there anything in the Tanakh or the NT that we today would even call a definition of “marriage”? I don’t think so. Many religious Christians looks at Genesis 2-3 and declare, “See! I told you it defines marriage!” I don’t it defining marriage. What so many now call the “re-defining” of marriage, seems to me nothing more than a way of doing something that is at odds with the way that something has been done traditionally. People have always confused the way things are with the way they are supposed to be.
A “definition”? No, I don’t think so.
Aren’t the Judeo-Christian texts claiming to present an unchanging God with timeless, unchanging ethics? I agree that there is a danger in taking things out of context. But too often, I think the “out of context” claim is made incoorectly by those who simply don’t like the teaching.
Depends which of the texts you’re talking about! Most of the authors of the Bible don’t think about it that way! (My sense is that these authors do not think about what is timeless and unchanging; they are writing to their own contexts and have a fairly narrow vision)
I know the information regarding John the Baptist is very scarce in the NT, but there is also no mention of him having a wife. In addition, asceticism and marriage/sex do not seem to go together. Could John the baptist be included in the list of celibate man or would it be a stretch due to lack of information?
Thanks!
There are obviously degrees of asceticism; some ascetics are single and celibate; some are married and celibate; some are married and only occasionally celibate; others are not single and occasionally celibate. Very occasionally if they’re really ascetic! But in direct answer to your question, I think it’s impossible to know if John the Baptist was married, but I’d be very surprised to learn that he was not celibate. The other apocalyptic preachers we know about (Essenes, Jesus, Paul) appear to have been.
So one thing that seems to leave the issue (was Jesus married) unsettled is that later it became unacceptable to consider that Jesus actually had siblings. Because Christians came to accept the nativity narratives of Matthew and Luke, they reasoned that Mary would have remained pure without any sexual relations with Joseph to have any other children. Hence the siblings must be cousins or children Joseph had via a prior wife.
If the early Christians got in such a tizzy over this matter, it’s not so hard to imagine that they might have deliberately obscured Jesus having any relationship with Mary M., such as marriage. in reading books by Bart Ehrman, I’ve certainly learned that early Christian scribes were not above taking liberties with the text.
Then there is the matter of Mary M. being mentioned as the (or one of the) women going to the tomb to perform funeral rights on the body of Jesus. Seems a bit odd that in those days a women that had no kinship with the deceased would presume to be a person that could do this.
(Course one can just dismiss this tradition because one doesn’t believe there was a tomb involved – despite that the gospels all multi-attest the tradition. Am still working on that one – how it is that scholars decide what they pick and choose from what is multi-attested. After all, the tradition has a ring of truth about it given that certainly the men would have not gone fearing they’d be rounded up and crucified as well, and so all accounts report women going to the tomb. Hmmm…)
Bart, One argument I’ve heard on the Magdalene question has to do with her appearance at Jesus’ tomb, with the intent of anointing his body and preparing it for a permanent burial. The argument goes that this was a very intimate activity (washing and anointing the naked body) only done by members of the family of the deceased. Thus, so the argument goes, Mary Magdalene must have been “family” to Jesus, and since she was not a sister or cousin, she must have been his wife.
This at least seems like a smoking gun. What are your thoughts on this argument?
Chuck
I’m afraid it doesn’t make sense even from a New Testament point of view. In John’s Gospel it is Joseph of Arimathea who goes to anoint Jesus. Are we supposed to think he was his husband?
Hm, excellent point! What then do you make of the fact that Mary M is the first or one of the first to visit the tomb on Sunday morning, with the intent of preparing the body for permanent burial?
BTW, I’ve read most if not all of your books and enjoy them immensely. I identify myself as a “skeptical Christian”, in that I am an active member of a (liberal) Christian church but one who believes that the Biblical writers were people like you and me, not overpowered somehow by God. I grew up in a denomination that identified itself as “conservative evangelical” and even taught at one of their colleges for a while.
My view is that Mary had some kind of vision/dream of Jesus after his death, told others that she had seen him, and concluded he had been raised from the dead. From that experience there sprang up stories about her seeing him soon after his burial.
Jesus was speaking to Sadducees when talking about “being like angels that do not marry”, when they sarcastically asked jesus the question since they did not believe in an afterlife. The interesting thing ive never heard anyone mention is that the Sadducees also didnt believe in angels, so the answer wouldnt have been satisfactory. I think the author mentions that they didnt believe in heaven, but doesnt mention they didnt believe in angels either. As far as the bible and polygyny, humans are naturally polygynous (one man multiple female) which is evident from the species’ “sexual dimorphism”, and by the fact that virtually every civilizations (and presumably pre-civilizations) were polygynous. The jews had polygamy, not because of a panel of women-hating men wishing to oppress women (women didnt care as long as the man provider his resources and protection) decreed it, but simply because humans were polygynous. The religous/social convention is actually the invention of monogamy. It could be argued that even the NT doesnt teach monogamy with the exception of a verse about bishops. Lastly, I dont know if jews in the first century had polygamy, but if they didnt, it was most likely because it was too expensive (people with multiple wives were wealthy) or because the romans or some other group had forbade it.
Dr. Ehrman,
Do you believe that Jesus and Paul believed that all divorced people *had* to remain unmarried? I was raised in a conservative Christian environment where we taught that divorced people couldn’t remarry and that people who had divorced and remarried (regardless of the reasons) had to divorce their current spouse and remain unmarried.
Is this what Jesus and/or Paul taught? I always had a problem with this view because of passages such as Mt. 19:11; 1 Tim. 4:1-3; 1 Cor. 7:8-9; 1 Cor. 7:28; etc.
I’m curious what your thoughts are. DID Jesus and/or Paul believe/teach that all divorced people *had* to remain unmarried and that people who had remarried after divorce were living in a constant state of adultery and needed to divorce their current spouse and then remain celibate the rest of their lives?
For Paul it was a preference, not a requirement (he hismelf says so); that appears to be true of Jesus as well, thought it has to be inferred since we don’t have his direct statements on the matter.
Dr. Ehrman,
It’s crazy to me to look back and see the damage the Christian sect I was a part of caused – teaching things the Bible doesn’t even teach in the first place; making women who were physically beaten by their ex remain unmarried after their divorce; or telling remarried couples they had to divorce in order to “be saved.” It pisses me off to no end.
Would you say Jesus’ statements about marrying a divorced person and it being “adultery” are more theoretical and hyperbolic statements, similar to…
lust = adultery
Cut your right hand off
Do not take an oath at all
If anybody slaps you, turn the other cheek
If someone sues you, don’t defend yourself (give them more!)
Give to anybody who ask
Do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing
Do not pray in public
Do not be called teachers
Etc., etc., etc…
I’d say it’s hard to know how many of thee Jesus meant literally, but I assume most of them. I’m not sure he actually *said* most of them, though (e..g. cutting off your right hand).
Dr. Ehrman,
Would you say that in addition, another layer one has to consider (especially as it pertains to the marriage/divorce sayings and money sayings) is the fact that Jesus was an apocalyptic Jew who thought the world would be ending soon? If the world is about to end, then not much need for money or marriage. I mean, it seems like that is also Paul’s whole point in 1 Corinthians 7, too. Am I correct?
Yup, I think Jesus apocalyptic message played a huge role in his ethical teachings….
Dr. Ehrman,
So back to the original question…did Jesus condemn men from marrying a divorced woman and did he require all divorced women to remain celibate based on Matthew 5:30 – “ whosoever shall marry a woman that is divorced commits adultery.” ?
If you think Jesus meant this literally, then what do you think he meant? This verse is the reason why my past church told a woman who was beaten and left by her husband that she can’t ever remarry.
Thoughts?
I’m not sure I’m following your question. You’re asking what he literally meant if he meant it literally? He meant it literally. The verse has been horribly applied and still is today. But if the literal meaning is right (as you’re saying) then the literal meaning is right (as you’re asking)!
But if that’s what he meant, how do you think he wanted it be applied?
He wanted people not to get divorced. Part of that is because the end is coming right away. Paul has a similar view. Devote yourself to the kingdom, since it’s almost here; don’t worry about your social situation. It’s not what matters.
But you would agree it’s a misapplication to forbid divorced women (especially those who were beaten and/or cheated on and were left), from remarrying? After all, Paul sure didn’t apply Jesus’ teachings that way, right?
The problem is that even the words of Jesus on divorce are reported differently; so most any view of divorce and remarriage can be found in the bible if you look hard enough….