Jumpstarter 6 of 10

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Question 6

David repeatedly asks, “Does Jesus say anything about a wife divorcing her husband?” and argues Jesus did not expand divorce rights to women in Matthew 5 or 19; how does his argument confront modern instincts about “fairness,” and what do you think the early Jewish hearers would have assumed Jesus meant in that moment?

Another way to ask: How does David’s claim that Jesus did not give women new divorce rights challenge our modern idea of “fairness”? What do you think the Jewish crowd back then would have thought Jesus meant?

Direct Answer David’s argument confronts modern fairness instincts by insisting that we cannot make Jesus’ teaching symmetrical if He didn’t say it; Jesus narrowed divorce rather than expanding rights. David argues Jewish hearers would have assumed Jesus was speaking within their existing framework—husbands divorcing wives—so they would not have heard it as giving women new authority.

Support from Transcript:

David repeatedly asks the textual question: “Does Jesus there say anything about a wife divorcing her husband?… no.”
He criticizes rewording Jesus: people “change them to say” a wife divorcing a husband causes adultery—“He didn’t say that.”
He frames the options: Jesus either left it, narrowed it, or “expanded it” to women—but “He didn’t say that.”
He appeals to audience context: Jesus spoke to “primarily Jews,” who “certainly wouldn’t have heard his words” as expanding divorce rights.
In Matthew 19 Jesus blames Moses’ permission on “hardness of your hearts” and returns to “from the beginning it was not so,” showing restriction not expansion.

Discussion Follow-ups Where do you feel the strongest emotional push to “make it equal”? How do you balance fairness instincts with David’s insistence on sticking to what is actually written?

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