Mark 10:11 is confusing to many students of the Bible. In that verse, Jesus presents us with a syllogism. A syllogism is a logical argument that has the form; If A and B, then C. Here is the syllogism Jesus presented in Mark 10:11:
Whosoever shall put away his wife, and shall marry another,
[A] [B]
committeth adultery against her.{DBY}
[C]
Notice that the Bible DOES NOT SAY:
Whosoever shall not put away his wife, and shall marry another,
[NOT A] [B]
committeth adultery against her.
[C]
Since this example is not found anywhere in the Bible, we lie if we claim that a man who has not put away his wife, and marries another, commits adultery. Only when a man marries a new wife, having put away another wife, has he committed “adultery against her.” But wait, it’s not that simple. William Tyndale, the first English translator of the Bible, renders it, “breaketh wedlocke to her warde” which is synonymous with “causeth her to commit adultery.” Mark 10:11 is simply one of the many examples of putting away “for reasons other than fornication.” Putting away, “saving for the cause of fornication,” sounds like it is forbidden here. I’ll touch on that below, but marrying a new wife, without putting away another wife, is definitely not forbidden in this verse.
Matthew 5:32 But I say unto you, That whosoever shall put away his wife, saving for the cause of fornication, causeth her to commit adultery: and whosoever shall marry her that is divorced committeth adultery.
For those of you who are having a hard time grasping this, I am adding additional material here that I did not place here at the original publication of this article.
Let’s look at a real life example of a logical syllogism.
[Whoever borrows his friend’s car] and [sells that car as his own]
A B
[commits fraud.]
C
From this syllogism, we can infer the example below is true:
Henry borrowed his friend’s car and sold that car as his own.
A B
Henry committed fraud.
C
But when one of the antecedents (A or B) is not true then the conclusion (C) does not follow.
Henry bought his friend’s car and sold that car as his own.
NOT A B
Henry committed fraud. (NOT CORRECT)
C
In the second example, A is not true and therefore C cannot be proven. Henry bought his friend’s car. He did not borrow it. So although B is true, he sold it as his own. Selling your own car is permissible so to charge Henry with fraud is unwarranted.
NOW LISTEN: The only people who think that Henry committed fraud in the second sentence are people who grew up in communist countries where strict laws against buying and selling have short circuited their brains into making them think that any activity involving buying and selling is forbidden.
Look at where you live. If your country has strict laws against polygamy, or if your culture or church has taboos against it, then your brain has likely been short circuited to make you think that even an illogical argument against polygamy is logical, simply because you’ve been improperly brought up to believe that is is forbidden. Remember, on the topic of buying and selling a car, you completely understood that the change of A to Not A (not borrowed but purchased) made the sale completely legitimate. Apply that to the topic of putting away and marriage. Only putting away for the purpose of marrying is forbidden. Marrying without putting away is not forbidden. Of course a woman who takes another husband commits adultery and there are verses against a married woman being with more than one man.
Romans 7:3 So then if, while her husband liveth, she be married to another man, she shall be called an adulteress: but if her husband be dead, she is free from that law; so that she is no adulteress, though she be married to another man.
So why isn’t there an identical verse to the one above that states the same about men? “if while his wife liveth, he be married to another woman, he shall be called an adulterer?” There isn’t an identical one because the law on marriage places the man as master and the woman as suitable helper. And as Jesus said, it is not possible to have more than one master because you will hate the one and love the other.
“No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon.” Matthew 6:24
If your woman is your master, like most Englishmen, read that also, Americans, then of course you can’t conceive of having more than one. That is called matriarchy and it is the situation most men in Western cultures find themselves in shortly after marriage, if not from the moment they begin the relationship with their future wife.
The following is a typical course description for Philosophy 101 for a first year Pre-Theology student. It includes an introduction to syllogisms. You do not have to be a theologian, or a linguist to understand that [If A and B then C] DOES NOT PROVE [If Not A and B then C.] In fact, it doesn’t even hint at C. You simply must have studied one paragraph from any first year logic book or even a dictionary to understand this.
PHIL101 An Introduction to Philosophical Argumentation
3 credits. This is an introductory course in logic and critical thinking as practiced by Western philosophers since the time of Aristotle, including the nature and uses of formal arguments or syllogisms; truth, validity, and soundness; the distinction between deduction and induction; and the nature and misuses of informal fallacies.
Now, the question of whether putting away, “saving for the cause of fornication,” is forbidden by Jesus words.
Who was Jesus speaking with? The Pharisees who “asked him, Is it lawful for a man to put away his wife? tempting him.” Now, what does Jesus do when tempted, either by Pharisees or Satan himself? He answers cryptically. The woman caught in adultery, “he who is without sin.” But the matter at hand was that the man who committed adultery with the woman was absent, and absent the other person who would receive the punishment, you cannot prosecute the case. Rather than state that, and be forced to adjudicate a case of adultery when they brought forth the man, he simply answered with the “he who is without sin” verse. They knew the game they were playing and he didn’t have to be specific. Another case was when Jesus answered the Pharisees after they “took counsel how they might entangle him in his talk.” “Render unto Caesar” came from that interchange. Now let’s look at the interchange here in Mark 10. The gospels are synoptic, which means, there are verses in the gospels that describe the same event and sometimes more elaboration is given. In this case, Matthew 19:9 describes a reply Jesus gave the Pharisees who again, “came unto him, tempting him, and saying unto him, Is it lawful for a man to put away his wife for every cause?” And what does Jesus do? He mocks them privately with his disciples, stating, no the pharisees can’t divorce their wives for just any reason because their privies must be cut off because they’re moral paragons.
“For there are some with no balls, which were so born from their mother’s womb: and there are some with no balls, which were made to have no balls of men: and there be those with no balls, which have made themselves eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven’s sake. He that is able to receive it, let him receive it.” Matthew 19:12
Well, I ain’t a gonna receive it. Nobody’s gonna cut on me, and besides, I wasn’t the one He wanted to receive such treatment but the ones he was speaking with prior to this side discussion with his disciples for “he said unto them, (his disciples) All men cannot receive this saying, save they to whom it is given.”.(the Pharisees.) Matthew 19:11
So in the end, Jesus refused to answer the Pharisees in the way they wanted, for they were tempting him to answer in a way that would either make him outside the law, take sides between the Pharisees and the Sadducees, or make a statement that would affect his popularity.
Beyond this, Jesus reply, could simply be a statement of fact, not blame. The meaning of the word “adultery” is more than the English language provides. William Tyndale translates it at times as “break wedlocke.” You can read his version of these verses with the Bible program on this website and see if it gives you any new insight into these verses. Simply choose his Bible and do a search for “wedlocke.”
But I say unto you: whosoever put awaye his wyfe (except it be for fornicacion) causeth her to breake matrymony. And whosoever maryeth her that is devorsed breaketh wedlocke.
If we’re considering the plumbing only, it is a fact, that a man who divorces his wife without cause, does break the wedlocke by placing her back into the marriage market, so that when a new man comes along, it can truthfully said, it was the man who put her away who broke that wedlocke. And he did it through the new man who is also said to have broken wedlocke in Tyndale’s version. When you use the word break wedlock instead of adultery, it removes the penalty for there is only a certain type of breaking wedlock for which stoning was the punishment.. It was the kind where no man had given the woman a bill of divorcement before she went with another man.
Note: Pastor Don Milton graduated from the University of Washington in 1987 with a Bachelor of Arts in Linguistics. He applies his knowledge of linguistics and logic to analyze and preach the Bible.
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385 footnotes. That’s got to be a record for a novel.
