RESPONSE TO BROTHER
SMELSER
By Maurice Barnett
Response
to this Article by Jeff Smelser
“Whosoever shall put away
his wife, and marry another, committeth adultery against her.”
I feel compelled to apologize
to the reader for the need to be so technical in this discussion. But, when differences go “deep,” it is most
times necessary to go just as deep in order to make a reply. There will be words and rules of grammar in
this article that may not be familiar to many readers. This may only be because it has been many
years since the readers studied these things in school. The discussion on Mark 10:11-12 has focused
on substantives, pronouns and antecedents.
A “substantive” may be a noun, pronoun, adjective or other word
that functions as a noun. An “antecedent
(‘going before’)” is a substantive that is replaced by a pronoun later in a
sentence. But, even a preposition can
have an antecedent. I have contended
that in Mark
My two recent articles in
Gospel Truths responded to a position now being advanced which claims that the
put away woman is the only substantive in the verse. Thus, the pronoun, “her,” absolutely must refer
to the put away woman and cannot possibly refer to the woman the man marries. It is further claimed that “against her” is
the correct and unchangeable translation of the prepositional
phrase. From these assertions comes yet
another assertion saying that the adultery, which is somehow committed
“against” the put away wife, gives her the right, in some sense, to “put away”
the man who put her away and marry again without sin. The proponents of this hypothesis must have
Mark 10:11 teach their assertions as it is vital to their conclusion. It is not clear just how far brother Smelser
goes along with this position but he clearly supports some of its premises.
I said in my last article that
there was more evidence on this verse than I had covered to that point. Before learning that brother Smelser was
responding to me, I had started on a third article on this passage. Brother Smelser has provided subjects and
passages that I had planned to cover in that article and an opportunity to
discuss the subject further.
Antecedents
Brother Smelser thinks that my
articles were too rigid an application of the nearest antecedent principle,
that I overstated the case. Yet, he
says:
“It is true that we will tend to look first to the closest eligible substantive as the antecedent.”
Why do we do that? We do that because it is a basic rule of grammar
regarding antecedents. But, notice the
key word in brother Smelser’s statement: “eligible.” In the passages he gives us, the closest
substantive is not “eligible” because the context shows that to be the
case. His passages are not parallel to
Mark 10:11. The context may require, as
in Matthew 1:20, that the nearest substantive cannot be the antecedent. Yet, in some New Testament passages the
context requires that the nearest substantive must be the antecedent. Notice again what brother Smelser says:
“Factors other than relative proximity and agreement in number and gender help to identify the antecedent of a pronoun, and in fact a more remote substantive may be the antecedent.”
What he is saying is that the context
determines how we take the passage.
However, when there is a context such as Mark
Brother Smelser thinks he
has a parallel to Mark 10:11 in John 9:16, which is supposed to show a remote
antecedent. He thinks the passages are
“very similar.” However, “similar” does
not mean identical. John
“Some therefore of the Pharisees said, This man is not from God, because he keepeth not the sabbath. But others said, How can a man that is a sinner do such signs? And there was division among them.”
It is true that the three
terms, “some,” “Pharisees,” and “others” are all masculine plural, as is the
pronoun, “them.” All of those involved
here are in a single class, the Pharisees.
Some Pharisees thought one thing and other Pharisees something else and
thus the Pharisees were divided. Both
the “some” and the “others” modify and are part of the class: “Pharisees.” The Pharisees are stated in the first clause
and implied in the second. Contextually,
the “some” Pharisees were divided from the “other Pharisees.” The only “eligible” antecedent is the
Pharisees. Notice that the pronoun,
“them,” is plural and not singular as in Mark
“The rule of Greek grammar is that a personal pronoun must agree with its antecedent in gender and number. It may also agree in case but not necessarily. But, seeing that both gune and allein (gune) are singular, feminine, accusative, either one, by the rule of grammar, may be the antecedent of ‘her.’ However, it cannot be said, by the rule of grammar alone, that the antecedent of the personal pronoun is definitely the first woman, the one who was ‘put away.’”
Let’s add to our information
on this some comments from two well known Greek scholars. The first is from Samuel Bloomfield in his
work, The Greek Testament With English Notes, Vol. 1, p. 229. The second is W. Robertson Nicoll, The
Expositor’s Greek Testament, Vol. 1, p. 409:
“The authn is by some referred to the repudiated wife; by others, to the newly married one. Either may be admitted; but in the former case the sense of epi will be ‘to the injury of,’ in the latter, ‘in respect of;’ i.e. in his connection with.”
“The ep’authn at the end of ver. 11 may mean either against, to the prejudice of, her (the first wife), or with her (the second). The former view is taken by the leading modern exegetes, the latter by Victor Ant., Euthy., Theophy, and, among moderns, Ewald and Bleek.”
Notice that the understanding
with these men is either/or, the first or second woman, but not both. Brother Smelser admits that there are two
substantives in Mark 10:11 that agree with the pronoun in gender and
number. He insists that the put away
woman is the antecedent, though he only asserts that. But, let’s look at it another way, analyzing
the clause, “(he) commits adultery against her.” The Greek phrase is moichatai ep’ autein. Moichatai is the verb, meaning
“commits adultery,” Ep’ (epi)
is the preposition, translated “against.”
Autein is the feminine, singular pronoun meaning “her.”
I ask the reader to bear with
me in a little journey into grammar.
I’ll not take the space to quote grammatical authorities on this, but
they are readily available. Also, this point
of grammar is equally true in both Greek and English. In contexts such as Mark 10:11, a preposition
is a relation word, showing how the verb connects to an object. Epi looks two ways, having both an
object and an antecedent. The antecedent
of a preposition can be a verb, noun, or pronoun. In the clause we are looking at, the object
of the preposition is autein, “her.”
The antecedent of the preposition is the verb, moichatai,
“commits adultery.” The preposition, epi,
joins the object and the antecedent together.
Moichatai is here a transitive verb, transferring the action of
the verb to the object of the preposition epi, which is “her.” This forms an inseparable connection between
the verb, “commits adultery,” and the object, “her.” Whatever moichatai means, it refers to
only one person, the feminine, singular, autein. If it referred to both women, then the
pronoun would have to be plural, but it is not. The prepositional phrase cannot be split from
the verb to mean something other than what the verb means because it is
connected to and identifies the object of the action of the verb.
Grammatically, “commits
adultery” cannot refer to both the first and second woman of the passage. If the pronoun, her, refers to the put away
woman, then moichatai is figurative and has nothing at all to do
with sexual relations nor with the second woman. The grammar won’t allow that. If moichatai means literal sexual
relations then it must refer to the woman the man marries and cannot refer to
the put away woman. It cannot be both literal
and figurative at the same time, regardless of the assertion of some theorists
and the position of some commentaries. Moichatai
means continuing unlawful sexual relations; it is durative. Continuing sexual relations is connected with
the “her” of the clause. That being the
case, the woman he marries is the only one to whom “her” can apply.
The current view, as we
previously noted, is that “commits adultery” is both with the second woman and
against the first one all at the same time. Actually, the current theory defines each
word in Mark 10:11—divorce, marriage, adultery, her—two different ways,
depending on what situation they want to justify. Brother Smelser says:
“It ought also to be noted that if we understand the second wife
to be the one against whom the man commits adultery, we have a problem. By
taking the her to refer to the second wife, we make the reference to
putting away the first wife merely an explanation of the occasion of marrying
and adulterating the second woman. The first wife disappears from view and the
second woman comes into focus as the primary object, the object of both the
verb translated marries and the preposition epi.”
That quote is classic human
opinion, tentatively stated. Matthew
Brother Smelser attempts to
create a dilemma for me with Mark 10:11-12
He says:
“The herself functions to call attention to the fact that the woman who was the object in the preceding clause is now the subject of the action, in contrast to the man who had previously been the subject of the action.”
He also says that I “end up
unwittingly making Jesus teach that the woman in the adulterous second marriage
must stay in it.” My, that really does
make me look bad, provided we accept his assertions.
Brother Smelser’s argument
centers on the identification of the antecedent of “She, herself.” There is here a variation in the Greek texts
to be considered. Both the Receptus, on
which the King James is based, and the Majority text have the noun, “gune”
(wife, woman), just as it is in the first clause of verse 11, instead of the
pronoun. So, the King James says, “And
if a woman shall put away her husband...”
That is certainly correct because the pronoun in the Nestle text is
referring to the wife of the first clause of verse 11.
But, brother Smelser’s mistake
is that he imagines that verse 12 continues the thought of verse
11. Rather, verse 12 is a parallel to
verse 11. It is stated from the point of
view of what happens if the woman divorces the husband and marries
another man.
So, brother Smelser’s
assertion is that, according to my reasoning, I must apply the “she, herself”
in verse 12 to the second woman the man married in verse 11. That is a false assertion for two reasons.
First, recall our discussion
about “eligible” substantives? The
context of Mark 10:11-12 requires that we understand that if the wife does what
the husband does, she suffers the same consequences. Second, and we will discuss this point in
more detail shortly, in accounts of this overall subject that are parallel, we
must transfer details of one account to the parallel. Brother Smelser, as he does throughout, is
isolating Mark 10:11-12 from the other marriage, divorce and remarriage
passages and thus misapplies the true context of what Jesus is saying. When combined with one another, the full
statement of Jesus on the very occasion
recorded in Mark 10:11-12 is:
“Whosoever shall put away his wife, except for the cause of fornication, and shall marry another, commits adultery against her, and whosoever shall marry (the wife) when she is put away commits adultery against (the wife). And, if (the wife) shall put away her husband, except for the cause of fornication, and shall marry another, commits adultery against him, and whosoever shall marry (the husband) when he is put away commits adultery against (the husband).”
That is the context of Mark 10:11-12. Now, what is the “nearest substantive” to
“she, herself” in the verse? It is the
same woman of the first clause of Mark 10:11, the gune of the
Receptus and Majority Texts.
I have asked the question before and it is
still on the board. What is there in
the context of Mark
Nigel Turner
Brother Smelser wrote in his
original email to brother Smith that I was leaning “on a bruised reed” in
referring to Greek grammarian Nigel Turner.
That seems very strange in light of his own multiple use of
Turner in the article on his website discussing Matthew 19:9. Apparently, he thinks that I had based my
entire case on Turner. If he could
discredit Turner, then my articles were also discredited. It didn’t work. He disagrees with Turner’s paper on this and
he is welcome to do so. I don’t agree with
some of the things other grammarians say on the subject. What we must do is be certain we have all the
facts before reaching a conclusion.
The first reference I made to
Turner was to present his comments on the meaning of “against” in this
passage. When used in translation of
some verses where the context clearly requires “against,” it means something done
with hostility or violence. All
grammatical and lexical authorities who comment on it say the same thing. Many could be cited. Brother Smelser quoted A.T. Robertson on
this, but here is what else Robertson says, page 602:
“In personal relations hostility is sometimes suggested though epi in itself does not mean ‘against.’”
And, how does one determine if
“against” is the proper term in a verse if it is not inherent in epi? The context will require its use. I ask again, where does the context of Mark
The second reference I made to
Turner was to show his conclusion that “with” should be the proper
understanding of epi with the pronoun.
But, Turner was only one of several grammatical authorities that
I referred to and I clearly said that Turner “was not alone in this”
position. I don’t feel any necessity to
defend Turner. However, under the
circumstances, I think some more information concerning him is appropriate.
In A Grammatical Aid To The
Greek New Testament by Robert Hanna, p. 77, his only comment on Mark 10:11
is as follows—“The preposition epi has the sense of ‘with’ after the verb
moikatai.” Hanna cites Turner’s Grammar
of New Testament Greek, Vol. III, page 272, where Turner says: “moikaomai with
Mk. 10:11.”
Zondervan’s Parallel Greek/English Testament translates epi, with. This work was done by Alfred Marshall. On page xxxv, in the preface, the first
comment under the heading of Notes On Particular Passages, Marshall says:
“Mark chp. 10, vs. 11 - An article by Dr. Nigel Turner in The Bible Translator for October 1956, gives good reasons for understanding the verse thus, autein referring to the last woman mentioned (allein).”
In the Gingrich and Danker Lexicon,
page 526, under the word, moichao, the authors give their opinion, and
nothing more than their opinion, supporting the first woman as the
antecedent. Yet, immediately following
that comment, they consider Nigel Turner to be important enough to make
reference to his 1956 article. They
obviously did not consider that Turner should just be ignored.
It should also be clear that
where there are several noted linguists who agree with what Turner said, there
are many others who also agree with him but have not put anything into print
that we can reference. Brother Smelser
may consider Turner a bruised reed but there are grammatical authorities who do
not.
But, let’s look at others who
also agree with Turner on the meaning of epi in this passage but do not
make reference to him. We have already
seen Bloomfield who says that if this refers to the second woman it means
“with” and Nicoll who points out others who insist that “with” is the proper
understanding, among whom he lists Ewald and Bleek. The Greek-English Interlinear New
Testament by Brown and Comfort translate this as “with her.” We have already noted
Further, there are many
authorities that list “with” as one meaning of epi with the
accusative. Robinson’s Greek And
English Lexicon, 1825, p. 245, says “after verbs which include the idea of
alliance, etc., with...”
Parkhurst’s Greek and English Lexicon, page 197, Bass’s Greek
and English Manual Lexicon, page 84 and Laing’s A New Greek And English
Lexicon, page 154, also include “with” as an optional translation of epi
with the accusative. Bullinger’s A
Critical Lexicon, page 28, says “2. moikaomai, to commit adultery, to be
guilty of adultery by causing another to commit it....Mark 10:11-12.” I said before, and it is still true, that
these authorities cannot be simply brushed aside as of no consequence. Turner was just one of several that I
referred to on this subject!
Now, brother Smelser insists
that there is not a single place where epi with accusative is translated
or means, “with.” Here is what he says:
“What context could we imagine wherein the root idea upon would
in effect end up meaning with, i.e., in concert with? In fact, there is no
other NT passage where epi is understood to mean such a thing.”
That’s quite a bold
statement. Of course, if there were no
other place in the New Testament where epi means “with,” it could still
be true that it means that in Mark 10.
However, let’s take a look at Hebrews 8:8:
“For finding fault with them, he saith, Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, That I will make a new covenant with (epi) the house of Israel and with (epi) the house of Judah;” ASV
Twice in this passage, epi with
the accusative is properly translated “with.”
But, let’s add I Corinthians
7:5. In the phrase, “may be together
again,” “together” is from epi to auto.
It is epi with the pronoun, autos, both in the
accusative case. It refers in this
passage to the man and his wife being back together, one with the
other. The same construction is also
found in nine other places. That makes
one verse where “with” is the translation twice and ten verses where epi with
the accusative means, using brother Smelser’s phrase, “in concert with.” But, Brother Smelser says this is not
possible!
Just how would brother Smelser
have Mark 10:11 to read? Given his
explanation of what it means, it would be thus: “Whosoever shall put away his
wife and marry another betrays his wife and causes her deep distress.” Talk about changing the translation and
injecting an hypothesis! I said in my
first article that if some insisted on keeping “against” as the translation, it
still wouldn’t mean the put away woman was the antecedent. Using brother Smelser’s language, does the
man not “betray” and perpetrate a “fraud” on the woman he marries seeing that
she thinks she has a right to be married to him when she does not? And, does the man not harm her by putting her
soul in danger? As Bullinger said, in
the quote above, “to be guilty of adultery by causing another to commit it.”
Commits Adultery
Brother Smelser says the
following at the beginning of his article:
“There’s no denying the man commits adultery with the second wife. But is that really what this passage is saying?”
He then spends his entire
article trying to deny what he says is undeniable, and implies in his statement
here that Mark
“...there is nothing left for the adultery to be other than the continuing sexual relationship with the second woman.”
Mark that statement well! I won’t take
time and space to present the evidence that moichatai is durative, a
continuing in adultery. That is not an
issue in this discussion seeing that brother Smelser accepts that to begin
with. But, here is something else he
says on his website about Matthew 19:9 that’s very interesting:
“It is quite petty to argue that ‘commits adultery’ cannot be referring to the relationship between the man and the second woman because Jesus said the man ‘marries’ her. This, however, has been the claim of some who wish to liberalize Matthew 19:9.”
Keep that quotation in
mind!
Just substitute Mark 10:11 for Matthew 19:9 in it. Note also that he uses the word “with” as
well as the phrase “relationship between the man and the second woman” to
explain his point. Isn’t that
interesting? Surely he wouldn’t
liberalize Mark 10:11! Let’s now move on
to some facts about moichatai that are pertinent to this
discussion.
First, Moichao,
from moichaomai, is the verb translated “commits adultery” in Mark
10:11-12, Matthew 5:32b and twice in Matthew 19:9. These are the only places in the New
Testament where moichao it is found and in each place it is the same
exact grammatical form, moichatai.
“Whosoever shall put away his wife, except for fornication, and shall marry another, committeth adultery: (moichatai) and he that marrieth her when she is put away committeth adultery (moichatai).” Matthew 19:9.
It should be obvious to
everyone that moichatai means exactly the same thing in both parts of
the verse. Brother Smelser has told us
on his website that it means in the first part of the verse, “continuing sexual
relations with the second woman.” It
also must mean that the man who marries the put away woman is guilty of
“continuing sexual relations” with the put away woman he marries. The same applies to Luke 16:18.
Second, Mark 10:2-12
is the exact same occasion as Matthew 19:3-9 and they are parallel
accounts. It is quite common in parallel
reporting of the same events or subjects to find one account giving details not
found in the other. Notice:
hós án apolúsee teén gunaíka autoú kaí gameésee álleen moichátai, Mark 10:11.
hós án apolúsee teén gunaíka autoú kaí gameésee álleen moichátai, Matthew 19:9.
No one has to know Greek
grammar in order to see that they are identical. I have left out the exception clause in
Matthew 19:9 and the prepositional phrase in Mark 10:11 to demonstrate that not
only the context of both passages shows a parallel event but the very structure
of the language of Jesus is the same. We
are viewing the same event, the same occasion, the same speaker, the same
subject and the same language in both Matthew and Mark. Therefore, whatever moichatai means in
Matthew 19:9 it means in Mark
Third, whatever differing details are in one account must
be supplied in the other to get the complete picture. Certainly, the exception clause in Matthew
19:9 must be injected into Mark 10:11.
But, we must also insert the prepositional phrase from Mark 10:11 into
Matthew 19:9. Thus, “whosoever shall put
away his wife, except for fornication, and shall marry another, committeth
adultery against her.” Matthew 19:9 and
Mark 10:11 are exactly the same.
Further, the second part of
Matthew 19:9 does not appear in Mark
“whosoever shall put away his wife, except for fornication, and shall marry another, committeth adultery against her; and he that marrieth her when she is put away committeth adultery against her.”
So, whatever meaning we attach
to Mark 10:11 must also apply to verse 12 and to Matthew 19:9. Further, it must also be supplied in Luke
16:18.
Fourth, “Maketh her an adulteress,” ASV, in Matthew
Whatever, moichatai and
moicheuo mean in one of these pertinent passages, they mean in each of
them. It means continuing unlawful
sexual relations with someone that a person has no right to. This fact of continual sexual relations is
readily seen in Romans 7:2-3. As long as
the first man is alive and the woman is married to another man, she is an
adulteress. If that situation exists for
fifty years, then she is an adulteress for fifty years. That is what the durative present tense means
in Matthew, Mark and Luke.
Fifth, words and phrases are to be taken in their literal
sense unless something in the context requires that we understand a
figurative meaning. Theorists have for a long time on many subjects, including
this one, changed the literal into figurative and figurative into literal to
suit them. Where in the context of Mark
10:11 are we required to understand that mochatai is figurative?
Sixth, in every single instance of the man putting
away his wife without the cause of fornication and then marrying another woman,
he continues in unlawful sexual relations with her. There are no exceptions to that. Mark that well. There are no exceptions! Now, brother Smelser says that the clause means
the put away woman is distressed by the man’s adultery and that is what
Mark is talking about. He defines moichatai
ep’ autein as betrayal/distress.
If brother Smelser is correct,
in every single case of a man putting away his wife and marrying another
woman, he is causing the put away woman emotional distress for as long as she
lives and the second marriage exists. If
that is fifty years, then the man is causing her the same kind and level of
emotional distress for fifty years. But,
I deny that in every single instance of divorce and remarriage that the put
away party feels emotional distress. I
personally know of some instances of divorce and remarriage where the put away
party was relieved at being put away and cared nothing about whether or not the
man remarried. And, if there is any
emotional distress it would be when the woman was put away whether there was a
remarriage on his part or not. Further,
does not the man who puts her away “betray” her by breaking his vows to
her? At the same time, with the current
view that the remarriage of the man releases the put away woman so she can
remarry without sin, she would more likely be really elated over his
remarriage; she would be free to marry
The position I mentioned at
the beginning continues its evolution.
It frequently changes as arguments are posted against it. Will its proponents eventually contend that
“commits adultery” is a single act and not durative? That would remove their problem about the
man’s continuing to commit adultery
“against” the put away woman for as long as his new marriage lasts. The next step after that, which some have taken
in the past, would then be that all the man must do is repent of the single act
of adultery and once forgiven can then be married without sin. After all, the first marriage is gone, the
bond is broken and he is forgiven of his single act of adultery. What is to hinder him from being married to
another? Consider the consequences of
that.
Conclusion
So, “Whosoever shall put away
his wife and marry another, continues in unlawful sexual relations with
her.” That is simple, direct,
understandable without human additions, hypotheses or speculations. And, first and foremost, it is the
truth! Why don’t we leave it there?