Scholar says Jesus didn’t repudiate Moses marriage law

Friday, July 10th, 2015

A biblical scholar has concluded that Jesus did not repudiate the Mosaic concession whereby marriages could be ended because of ‘hardness of heart’.

Camaldolese monk Guido Innocenzo Gargano, a professor at the Pontifical Biblical Institute, put forward the theory in the Urbaniana University Journal earlier this year.

Now, in a new essay, he has reiterated the theory, and has replied to critics of his earlier work.

Matthew’s Gospel has Jesus saying: “Moses permitted you to divorce your wives because of the hardness of your hearts. But it was not like that from the beginning.” (Mt 19:8)

Fr Gargano has based his theory on what he sees as the possible proximity of Jesus to the “moderate Essenes” element of Judaism.

This group took their inspiration from two classes of laws – one written “in the stars” predating Abraham and Noah – and the more lenient one of Moses that addressed reality and humanity’s “hardness of heart”.

Fr Gargano also factored in the statement by Jesus that: “I have not come to abolish the law [of Moses], but to fulfil it.”

Therefore he has “come to the conclusion that Jesus did not intend to abolish the repudiation permitted by Moses and even indicated the possibility of using it to reach the objective intended by the Father from the beginning of the creation of man and woman”.

Fr Gargano asked if “we are truly legitimised by the words of Jesus not to offer any possibility to the repentant sinner who admits he has gone wrong, but is sincerely determined to start over again?”

“Anyone who has a minimum of pastoral experience knows very well how much suffering is hidden in so many personal situations of this kind.”

Fr Gargano’s work was cited in a recent German article by Cardinal Walter Kasper, which described how a penitential pathway for remarried divorcees might work.

But the biblical scholar’s work has also generated “lively reactions”, according to one report.

Sources