ReformedBaptist said:
With all due respect brother, your statement here is contrary to the Word of God. It is also rather queer that you would scoff at a biblical doctrine of divorce. The Bible contains teaching on marriage and divorce, and therefore there IS a biblical doctrine of divorce.
My dear Brother RB:
You and I agree in many, many things, but this is not one of them.
I think to better understand what Jesus means we have to look at His words from the perspective of Jewish ways.
From what I understand, when a woman is betrothed to a man, they are as good as husband and wife, pending the official wedding when they publicly are pronounced man and wife.
Remember the good old days, when a man presented a woman with an engagement ring, and the woman presents the future husband to her family, and the engagement is announced to one and all ?
The principle, I think, is the same.
Now, if in the course of the engagement, before the actual marriage and the sexual consummation of the marriage, one of the party gets betrothed or has relations with another, then the issue is fornication and not adultery.
It is then that the husband (to be) is given the right to divorce the woman, equivalent to our breaking off the engagement.
That is exactly what Joseph's situation was, and why he was pondering to put Mary away (divorce her or break off the engagement).
But once the marriage is consummated, there is no more divorce.
For adultery (married individuals committing the act with other married, or unmarried individual) The old testament required death.
"'If a man commits adultery with another man's wife--with the wife of his neighbor--both the adulterer and the adulteress must be
put to death."
Leviticus 20:10 (NIV).
FWIW.