Another look at the Erasmian view of divorce and remarriage

Abstract

""And I say to you, whoever divorces his wife, except for immorality, and mar- ries another woman commits adultery; and whoever marries a divorced woman commits adultery"' (Matt 19:9). NT scholars have long debated the content and form of Jesus' multiple and apparently contradictory pronouncements on divorce and remarriage.' Within evangelical Protestant circles, however, the harmonization of the divorce texts appears to be settled with the interpretation that was first set forth by Erasmus, that was then taken up by the reformers, and that subsequently found its way into the confession of faith drawn up at Westminster in 1648.3 Certainly this is the predominant view among contemporary evangelical authors.' On the other hand, the evangelical or Erasmian interpretation of Jesus' divorce logia is not even counted a viable option by the vast majority of nonevangelical scholars."