Dear Louis, I have read, with interest, an article by Wayne Jackson in the December 2001 issue of Gospel Gazette. In the second paragraph under the heading, Matthew 19:8-9 he has; “And I say unto you, Whosoever shall put away his wife, except for fornication, and shall marry another, is committing adultery.” I have searched every version in my computer and did not find a version that reads ‘is committing adultery.’ If there is such a version would you please enlighten me? Is it OK to change the reading to what we would like for the Bible to say? Is this any less dishonest than the Baptist when they insert ‘only’ after faith in Eph. 2:8? Is the cause of ‘TRUTH’ served by misrepresentation of what the Bible says? I think not! Too much has been said and written by uninformed brethren on this and many other subjects to try to impose their conclusions on others! I hope you will be more careful as to the content of articles appearing on your website. Sincerely, Ralph M. Roe
“Committeth adultery” (KJV, ASV) or “commits adultery” (NKJV, NASV, RSV, NIV) in Matthew 19:9 is translated from the Greek, moichatai, which is the present tense verb for “adultery.”
The present tense is the main tense for present action, and since it overlaps with the speaker’s comment on it, it will normally refer to a continuing present action or state. It may be translated as a Simple Present (“I loose”) or as a Present Progressive (“I am loosing”) depending on what fits the context and the word used. (Chapman, Benjamin and Shogren, Gary Steven, Greek New Testament Insert, (Quakertown, PA: Stylus Publishing) 1994.) [emphasis added, ler.]
Hence, irrespective of what one wishes the Bible to say, or rather what one wishes it did not say, Matthew 19:9 teaches “…Whosoever shall put away his wife, except for fornication, and shall marry another, is committing adultery.” That is precisely what the present tense words “committeth adultery” or “commits adultery” properly indicate, as does the Greek word, too.
Therefore, representing Matthew 19:9 to read “is committing adultery” is not dishonest, but rather it is biblically accurate as well as clearly understood. Further, representing Matthew 19:9 to read “is committing adultery” does not involve adding any words that are not represented by the Greek word moichatai. Instead of a misrepresentation, the phrase “committing adultery” in Matthew 19:9 faithfully represents the truth contained in that verse.
Ironic, isn’t it, that one who is obviously “uninformed” regarding fundamentals respecting the Greek language, which underlies the New Testament, would hasten to label as “uninformed” a learned student of God’s Word for many decades, and castigate his scholarly treatise on a timely biblical subject, which is of critical importance to the happiness and spiritual well being especially of western society, which is beset with marriage-divorce-and-remarriage. As Editor of Gospel Gazette Online, I select every article carefully and purposely for inclusion in the pages of GGO. I only wish that every article that I write and each article of other writers included within GGO were always of the same high caliber with the same faithful reliance on God’s holy Word as the article by Wayne Jackson with which one has taken exception.
