Remarriage in Early Christianity by A. Andrew Das

Remarriage in Early Christianity Reviews

• 
  Zach Hollifield

  Enthralling. Authoritative. Upends Instone-Brewer (the presumed champion of the Remarriage Permitted view) in every way possible–both implicitly and sometimes explicitly in the footnotes. Highly technical, but for pastors and scholars wanting to dive deep into an incredibly complex question about one of the most sensitive topics in the church, this is the book.
  
  On Twitter (X.com), Tom Schreiner said this book may just be a game changer. He was entirely correct and the evangelical church in particular must reckon with it.
• 
  Vincent Waldron

  Doctor Das weighs into a field that is as full of papers and books as the North Atlantic has icebergs in winter. He has set before himself the task of addressing only the subject of remarriage in pre-Nicaean Christianity. He believes that much of scholarship has focused on divorce, but that it has assumed that in situations where divorce is allowed that remarriage is also allowed. Wenham and Heth weren't too certain about this (although Heth later changed his mind).
  
  It is no spoiler to say that Dr. Das concludes that in the early church, remarriage was strongly discouraged -- even for the innocent party. He believes that the exception clauses were applied only to divorces, but not to allow remarriage. He thinks this was even true for widows, who seem to have been allowed to remarry, but were encouraged to remain single after the death of a spouse. Interestingly, he found evidence that Greco-Roman society at the time of Christ also believed in an ideal of monogamous, lifetime relationships, even if the majority of them did not practice these.
  
  -- He spends time "reconstructing" what Jesus actually said. I am not sure how useful this is, but I think the main point is that the memory of the apostles was jarred by this teaching on divorce/remarriage. It was antithetical to anything that they had heard to this point. More than that, he makes the point that putting the Hillel/Shammai debate into the minds of Jesus and the apostles is anachronistic. The debate really peaked in the second century, after Christ, and probably wasn't in the mind's of those talking to Jesus.
  
  -- He addresses what is meant by the various Greek words used in the passages and how they were used in both the New Testament, Septuagint, and secular Greek writings. This is not just the word porneia, although he does spend time in analyzing this.
  
  -- He is certain the discussion of eunuchs that follows close on the heels of the teaching on divorce and remarriage in Matthew 19 is closely related. That is, Jesus was teaching that those who are divorced are forced into a celibate lifestyle for the sake of the kingdom. The apostles were notably shocked by this idea.
  
  -- He sees many people discounting the teachings of early church leaders as misogynistic or overly ascetic. He sees these same things as applicable to the teachings of Jesus and the Apostle Paul, both of whom at a minimum, valued singleness equally to married life. Paul certainly would have said that there are significant benefits to singleness with respect to kingdom service that are not present for married individuals.
  
  I think this is a really major point. It seems clear that at a minimum Jesus asks His followers to live lives of moral purity and to control even their thought lives. The idea that one cannot survive without sexual activity is antithetical to everything He taught, although it is highly prevalent in the society around us. I think it is difficult to even address these sorts of subjects if we come at them from the idea that God would not expect us to live in holy singleness. I believe that not only does He expect this of us, but if He asks this of us, He will also give us the power to live in such a state.
  
  -- At the end, Dr. Das is not certain "where we go from here." How does the church deal with divorce and remarriage when it is so prevalent in the society around us? Do we annul these marriages or allow them to continue? The only thing he is certain of is that the early church would not recognize today's landscape as anything approaching to the teachings of Jesus and the apostles.
  
  I found the book easy to read and quite challenging. It is well researched and foot noted. Dr. Das attempts to address points that have been brought up in favor of remarriage and deal with them in in an honest and forthright manner. This is highly recommended for anyone wanting to get beneath the surface on this subject, even if you don't come out at the same place as Dr. Das, it will make you think.