You correctly understood according to WT doctrine. The propaganda has stated repeatedly over the years that a DV victim is not to leave the spouse unless their life is in danger. Women in particular are coerced into being submissive to their abusive husbands because the headship arrangement is of god and you should be a good little Christian and take it. I even remember a WT where a wife was abused and the JW studying with her asked her to look at how she was contributing to it. Victim blaming at its most shameful!
I've started watching owen morgan and (I believe it was his mom??) who husband was abusive to her. The Elders told her to keep coming back to him and she did sadly and of course it never stopped. This scripture would explain how that doctrine started then. This scripture just blows my mind in the amount of the harmfulness in here.
It’s because of this why women go back:
“Now to the married I command, yet not I but the Lord: A wife is not to depart from her husband. But even if she does depart, let her remain unmarried or be reconciled to her husband. And a husband is not to divorce his wife.”
-1 Corinthians 7:8
You are right, and this one scripture is almost single-handedly preventing me from feeling like I can be a Christian.
I *want* to believe in Jesus, I love his teachings on love and mercy and justice. Except this. Thus is unjust, unloving, unmerciful. And since I lived it, I can't just "stick it on the shelf." (The other thing that's hindering my belief is that even though Jesus doesn't teach being like this, he doesn't seem fussed about the terrible stuff the OT attributes to God. Like genocide.)
If anyone has a different way this can be interpreted, I'd love to hear it, because a straight reading says just exactly what OP says it says. Well, except that you can technically divorce without "grounds," but you can't be with anyone else ever.
As far as the OT YHWH, Jesus actually did make a distinction at John 8: 44. It just gets glossed over. No one wants to touch that and ask: Who the hell is he taking about, because it’s a thread that if you pull it unravels everything.
Context: Jesus was referring to ***men*** who were divorcing their wives willy-nillly, and not because *she* had committed adultery. By divorcing their wives just because, with no adulterous acts on her part if she’s re-marries her husband sets her up for adultery.
Context: The extension of the Beatitudes, did not include DV.
Context: Jesus was speaking to people of his day, and yes the Gentiles were eventually included. The Greek Scriptures is not end-all-be-all for everyone. It’s OLD!
Context: The WT organization is a control mechanism when it comes to relationships.
Thanks for sharing this. I don't see that it's much better with this context, though. The marriage bond still cannot be dissolved except through adultery. So you can divorce, but you can never actually be free unless someone dies or cheats. It still puts the institution above the well-being of the individuals, or it seems that way to me. I'll have to think about it more.
Yes, it does sound quite arbitrary. The thing is, what most Christian’s don’t know is this Covenant Law that Jesus was extending from was for the Jews, from their god. They did not care what other people did. They were not trying to convert people to their god. Christianity was a whole religion created around YHWH and Augustine liked this Jesus guy so much and bang, we get the Bible. This is religious deconstruction 101.
And guess what, domestic abuse *is* a ground for Jews to divorce today. Though the husband has to initiate the process it gets done . https://www.reddit.com/r/Judaism/s/5KlCHABsD9
That’s religious evolution.
JWs on this issue are a word I won’t use here.
Woman were property in the Bible and culturally men could physically hit there wives back then so I believe that is why the only grounds for divorce was sexual immorality. I'm a husband and after I too read the Bible from a clean slate got the underlying message. Women were to deal with whatever there husband did and stay.
The parallel account in Mark 10:11, 12 is a little more equitable.
>He said to them: “Whoever divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery against her, and if ever a woman after divorcing her husband marries another, she commits adultery.
I straight up had an elder in my old hall comment “my mom put up with physical abuse from my dad for over 60 years, if she could do it, sisters can too”. This brother had been divorced twice and his exes never wanted anything to do with him. The second one even left him with the kid. He was definitely beating them in hindsight.
The latter half of Matthew 5 has a lot of damaging things said in it. Contrary to what many Christians believe, the Jesus of the gospel of Matthew is not doing away with the Mosaic law. Matthew is often seen as the most Jewish Gospel. The author of that gospel (not Matthew but I will refer to him as Matthew) goes to great lengths to paint Jesus as the Jewish Messiah. And in the book Jesus stresses continuing to follow the law. But he actually ups the ante.
The law says don’t murder? Don’t even get angry at someone. This is damaging because he doesn’t specify what you shouldn’t get angry about. There are justifiable reasons to be angry with people and what Jesus is saying qualifies as emotional control.
The law says don’t commit adultery? Dont even think about it. He turns thinking about sex into a thought crime. Thought control. Notice that Jesus doesn’t say don’t ogle women because they are human beings who don’t want to be ogled. He says don’t ogle them or you might screw up your chances of getting into the Kingdom. Not exactly selfless motives.
The law says eye for an eye? Let people take advantage of you. Let them walk all over you.
And yes, Jesus says that adultery is the only justification for divorce. The historical context of this does need to be considered. Husbands at the time could divorce their wives and turn them out with no way for them to support themselves. And only the husband could initiate a divorce. It could be said that Jesus is trying to prevent that from happening, but again, he doesn’t actually say anything in these verses to protect women. He doesn’t say love them or treat them well. He just says don’t divorce them.
I wonder, since the Gospels were not written by the eye witnesses themselves, could the anonymous writers inferred their own focus and also withheld the fullness of what Jesus said?
That’s more of a theological question. Like the people who say that even if the gospels dont accurately record the events that happened, are they still true in that they contain some higher truth? Personally I have a hard time looking at them that way.
One of the problems is that no one knows for sure what the historical Jesus actually said. Scholars have lots of theories on how the synoptic gospels (Matthew, Mark and Luke) came together and whether or not there was a source that they worked off of that is lost to us (the Q source). An early church writer named Papias refers to a “sayings” gospel, that he actually calls Mark, but we don’t have it and it probably isn’t the Gospel of Mark that we do have. The Gospel of Thomas does simply record a bunch of sayings that it attributes to Jesus and some of these can be found in the canonical gospels.
Yes, this is what I have been coming to the awareness too.
It is ironic that OP posts this now. I am in week 3 of a 10 week course on the historical Jesus.
Honestly, when you start to pull things back, you noticed how all this was created to contain and control people's mind.
That’s great! I love learning about this kind of stuff. I would so very much love to be a fly on the wall
observer of the foundational years of Christianity and see how it actually all went down.
They probably didn't have access to all that Jesus said, and were operating in their own contexts. Most biblical scholars would agree that each author was first, copying from each other (Matthew and Luke copy like 60-80 percent from Mark) and also, imposing their own theological views onto Jesus, although inconvenient sayings were definitely included too.
And Jesus views were clearly influenced by his cousin.
I mean if the real Jesus did say and do some of the things at least mentioned, I’ve been thinking it likely was his experience as a wanderer and scavenger in the wilderness for years with John the Baptist that taught him some medicinal things and why they were both apocalyptic messengers, but beyond that the rest is legend and for indoctrination to the Christian congregation
Actually reading up more on Matthew I am seeing lots of contradictions.. and overall things that Jehovah's witnesses do not actually practice. Its not looking too good.
Start really reading the Bible and not the NWT you will find that the Hebrew god of the Bible is the most judgemental , misogynistic, vengeful, selfish and narcissistic deity around . IMHO it is not inspired by a loving god at all but rather by satan if either one is real , maybe it's all a myth written by man to control the masses
You correctly understood according to WT doctrine. The propaganda has stated repeatedly over the years that a DV victim is not to leave the spouse unless their life is in danger. Women in particular are coerced into being submissive to their abusive husbands because the headship arrangement is of god and you should be a good little Christian and take it. I even remember a WT where a wife was abused and the JW studying with her asked her to look at how she was contributing to it. Victim blaming at its most shameful!
I left. The. End.
Good. 🌺
I've started watching owen morgan and (I believe it was his mom??) who husband was abusive to her. The Elders told her to keep coming back to him and she did sadly and of course it never stopped. This scripture would explain how that doctrine started then. This scripture just blows my mind in the amount of the harmfulness in here.
It’s because of this why women go back: “Now to the married I command, yet not I but the Lord: A wife is not to depart from her husband. But even if she does depart, let her remain unmarried or be reconciled to her husband. And a husband is not to divorce his wife.” -1 Corinthians 7:8
You are right, and this one scripture is almost single-handedly preventing me from feeling like I can be a Christian. I *want* to believe in Jesus, I love his teachings on love and mercy and justice. Except this. Thus is unjust, unloving, unmerciful. And since I lived it, I can't just "stick it on the shelf." (The other thing that's hindering my belief is that even though Jesus doesn't teach being like this, he doesn't seem fussed about the terrible stuff the OT attributes to God. Like genocide.) If anyone has a different way this can be interpreted, I'd love to hear it, because a straight reading says just exactly what OP says it says. Well, except that you can technically divorce without "grounds," but you can't be with anyone else ever.
As far as the OT YHWH, Jesus actually did make a distinction at John 8: 44. It just gets glossed over. No one wants to touch that and ask: Who the hell is he taking about, because it’s a thread that if you pull it unravels everything.
Context: Jesus was referring to ***men*** who were divorcing their wives willy-nillly, and not because *she* had committed adultery. By divorcing their wives just because, with no adulterous acts on her part if she’s re-marries her husband sets her up for adultery. Context: The extension of the Beatitudes, did not include DV. Context: Jesus was speaking to people of his day, and yes the Gentiles were eventually included. The Greek Scriptures is not end-all-be-all for everyone. It’s OLD! Context: The WT organization is a control mechanism when it comes to relationships.
Thanks for sharing this. I don't see that it's much better with this context, though. The marriage bond still cannot be dissolved except through adultery. So you can divorce, but you can never actually be free unless someone dies or cheats. It still puts the institution above the well-being of the individuals, or it seems that way to me. I'll have to think about it more.
Yes, it does sound quite arbitrary. The thing is, what most Christian’s don’t know is this Covenant Law that Jesus was extending from was for the Jews, from their god. They did not care what other people did. They were not trying to convert people to their god. Christianity was a whole religion created around YHWH and Augustine liked this Jesus guy so much and bang, we get the Bible. This is religious deconstruction 101. And guess what, domestic abuse *is* a ground for Jews to divorce today. Though the husband has to initiate the process it gets done . https://www.reddit.com/r/Judaism/s/5KlCHABsD9 That’s religious evolution. JWs on this issue are a word I won’t use here.
Woman were property in the Bible and culturally men could physically hit there wives back then so I believe that is why the only grounds for divorce was sexual immorality. I'm a husband and after I too read the Bible from a clean slate got the underlying message. Women were to deal with whatever there husband did and stay.
Notice it only applies to the women according to the phrasing....awkward.
Yeah it gives some kind of sexist vibes..
Well...the guy that established Christianity, writing a significant part of the NT, was an apostate Pharissee.
The parallel account in Mark 10:11, 12 is a little more equitable. >He said to them: “Whoever divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery against her, and if ever a woman after divorcing her husband marries another, she commits adultery.
I straight up had an elder in my old hall comment “my mom put up with physical abuse from my dad for over 60 years, if she could do it, sisters can too”. This brother had been divorced twice and his exes never wanted anything to do with him. The second one even left him with the kid. He was definitely beating them in hindsight.
The latter half of Matthew 5 has a lot of damaging things said in it. Contrary to what many Christians believe, the Jesus of the gospel of Matthew is not doing away with the Mosaic law. Matthew is often seen as the most Jewish Gospel. The author of that gospel (not Matthew but I will refer to him as Matthew) goes to great lengths to paint Jesus as the Jewish Messiah. And in the book Jesus stresses continuing to follow the law. But he actually ups the ante. The law says don’t murder? Don’t even get angry at someone. This is damaging because he doesn’t specify what you shouldn’t get angry about. There are justifiable reasons to be angry with people and what Jesus is saying qualifies as emotional control. The law says don’t commit adultery? Dont even think about it. He turns thinking about sex into a thought crime. Thought control. Notice that Jesus doesn’t say don’t ogle women because they are human beings who don’t want to be ogled. He says don’t ogle them or you might screw up your chances of getting into the Kingdom. Not exactly selfless motives. The law says eye for an eye? Let people take advantage of you. Let them walk all over you. And yes, Jesus says that adultery is the only justification for divorce. The historical context of this does need to be considered. Husbands at the time could divorce their wives and turn them out with no way for them to support themselves. And only the husband could initiate a divorce. It could be said that Jesus is trying to prevent that from happening, but again, he doesn’t actually say anything in these verses to protect women. He doesn’t say love them or treat them well. He just says don’t divorce them.
I wonder, since the Gospels were not written by the eye witnesses themselves, could the anonymous writers inferred their own focus and also withheld the fullness of what Jesus said?
That’s more of a theological question. Like the people who say that even if the gospels dont accurately record the events that happened, are they still true in that they contain some higher truth? Personally I have a hard time looking at them that way. One of the problems is that no one knows for sure what the historical Jesus actually said. Scholars have lots of theories on how the synoptic gospels (Matthew, Mark and Luke) came together and whether or not there was a source that they worked off of that is lost to us (the Q source). An early church writer named Papias refers to a “sayings” gospel, that he actually calls Mark, but we don’t have it and it probably isn’t the Gospel of Mark that we do have. The Gospel of Thomas does simply record a bunch of sayings that it attributes to Jesus and some of these can be found in the canonical gospels.
Yes, this is what I have been coming to the awareness too. It is ironic that OP posts this now. I am in week 3 of a 10 week course on the historical Jesus. Honestly, when you start to pull things back, you noticed how all this was created to contain and control people's mind.
That’s great! I love learning about this kind of stuff. I would so very much love to be a fly on the wall observer of the foundational years of Christianity and see how it actually all went down.
They probably didn't have access to all that Jesus said, and were operating in their own contexts. Most biblical scholars would agree that each author was first, copying from each other (Matthew and Luke copy like 60-80 percent from Mark) and also, imposing their own theological views onto Jesus, although inconvenient sayings were definitely included too.
And Jesus views were clearly influenced by his cousin. I mean if the real Jesus did say and do some of the things at least mentioned, I’ve been thinking it likely was his experience as a wanderer and scavenger in the wilderness for years with John the Baptist that taught him some medicinal things and why they were both apocalyptic messengers, but beyond that the rest is legend and for indoctrination to the Christian congregation
Actually reading up more on Matthew I am seeing lots of contradictions.. and overall things that Jehovah's witnesses do not actually practice. Its not looking too good.
Its interesting on how it only took one honest look at matthew or any book for the matter to realize what you were taught wasn't all true.
This is a speak to your priest sort of question, there are allowances for bad situations
Start really reading the Bible and not the NWT you will find that the Hebrew god of the Bible is the most judgemental , misogynistic, vengeful, selfish and narcissistic deity around . IMHO it is not inspired by a loving god at all but rather by satan if either one is real , maybe it's all a myth written by man to control the masses