{"id":374,"date":"2014-09-05T12:00:49","date_gmt":"2014-09-05T12:00:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/forbiblestudynerds\/?p=374"},"modified":"2014-08-27T20:44:27","modified_gmt":"2014-08-27T20:44:27","slug":"matthew-527-30-adultery-historical-backgrounds","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/forbiblestudynerds\/2014\/09\/matthew-527-30-adultery-historical-backgrounds.html","title":{"rendered":"Matthew 5:27-30; Adultery (Historical Backgrounds)"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The accusation of adultery in ancient Israel was no light thing, so it was significant that Jesus emphasized it in this portion of his Sermon on the Mount. In effect, Christ said to his audience, \u201cI accuse you of adultery. Your inward sinfulness is criminally damning\u2014regardless of your outward appearances of obedience.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Given the seriousness of the crime of adultery in that time, that message must have been sobering for many. Consider:<\/p>\n<p>\u2022 Adultery, according to Jewish law, was punishable by death, usually stoning (a grisly way to die).<\/p>\n<p>\u2022 The husband whose wife had been unfaithful could legally demand the execution of both his wife <em>and<\/em> her lover.<\/p>\n<p>\u2022 If the offended husband were merciful, he could have only his wife killed and accept a ransom payment from the wife\u2019s lover in exchange for that man\u2019s life.<\/p>\n<p>\u2022 The offended husband, if he were even more merciful, might also opt simply to divorce his unfaithful wife instead of killing her\u2014although that also meant cutting her off economically, socially, and religiously from her community. The result for women in this situation was often oppressive, unrelenting poverty.<\/p>\n<p>\u2022 Even the accusation of adultery carried legal and personal consequences in that time. A wife accused of adultery was often given a trial by ordeal where she\u2019d be forced to drink a mysterious, disgusting \u201cpotion.\u201d If she got sick from drinking that potion, she would be declared guilty\u2026and stoned to death.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/forbiblestudynerds\/workscited.html\">Works Cited<\/a>:<\/p>\n<p>[BKW, 213; JHT, 92]<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>\u2126\u2126\u2126<\/p>\n<p><a title=\"About: Bible Study Nerds\" href=\"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/forbiblestudynerds\/about-for-bible-study-nerds.html\">About: For Bible Study Nerds\u2122<\/a><\/p>\n<p><a title=\"About: Mike Nappa\" href=\"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/forbiblestudynerds\/about-mike-nappa.html\">About: Mike Nappa<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Copyright \u00a9 2014 to present by\u00a0<a title=\"Nappaland Communications Inc. official website\" href=\"http:\/\/www.nappaland.com\/\" target=\"_blank\">Nappaland Communications Inc<\/a>. All Rights Reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The accusation of adultery in ancient Israel was no light thing, so it was significant that Jesus emphasized it in this portion of his Sermon on the Mount. In effect, Christ said to his audience, \u201cI accuse you of adultery. Your inward sinfulness is criminally damning\u2014regardless of your outward appearances of obedience.\u201d Given the seriousness&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":571,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,2],"tags":[147],"class_list":["post-374","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-historicalbackgrounds","category-matthew","tag-adultery"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Matthew 5:27-30; Adultery (Historical Backgrounds) - For Bible Study Nerds<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/forbiblestudynerds\/2014\/09\/matthew-527-30-adultery-historical-backgrounds.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Matthew 5:27-30; Adultery (Historical Backgrounds) - For Bible Study Nerds\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The accusation of adultery in ancient Israel was no light thing, so it was significant that Jesus emphasized it in this portion of his Sermon on the Mount. In effect, Christ said to his audience, \u201cI accuse you of adultery. Your inward sinfulness is criminally damning\u2014regardless of your outward appearances of obedience.\u201d Given the seriousness&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/forbiblestudynerds\/2014\/09\/matthew-527-30-adultery-historical-backgrounds.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"For Bible Study Nerds\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2014-09-05T12:00:49+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2014-08-27T20:44:27+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Mike Nappa\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Matthew 5:27-30; Adultery (Historical Backgrounds) - For Bible Study Nerds","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/forbiblestudynerds\/2014\/09\/matthew-527-30-adultery-historical-backgrounds.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Matthew 5:27-30; Adultery (Historical Backgrounds) - For Bible Study Nerds","og_description":"The accusation of adultery in ancient Israel was no light thing, so it was significant that Jesus emphasized it in this portion of his Sermon on the Mount. 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He's a former youth pastor who shepherded kids on staff at Chuck Swindoll's church in Southern California\u2014and he's a bestselling and award-winning author with more than a million copies of his books sold worldwide. Plus, he holds a degree in Christian Education with an emphasis in Bible Theology. So, you know, he\u2019s got that going for him. Mike is also a pop culture dork who watches too much TV, reads too many comic books, utters too many bad words, laughs at all the wrong jokes, and often gets in trouble because he says whatever he happens to be thinking at the moment\u2014like quoting an R-rated movie in the middle of a sermon. Yeah, he\u2019s a mess (just like you!), but he kind of likes it that way. Most of all, Mike Nappa loves Jesus, and he figures that covers over a multitude of sins. Learn more at nappaland.com\/mikenappa.","sameAs":["http:\/\/www.biblestudynerds.com"],"url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/forbiblestudynerds\/author\/mnappa"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/forbiblestudynerds\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/374","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/forbiblestudynerds\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/forbiblestudynerds\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/forbiblestudynerds\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/571"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/forbiblestudynerds\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=374"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/forbiblestudynerds\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/374\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":379,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/forbiblestudynerds\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/374\/revisions\/379"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/forbiblestudynerds\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=374"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/forbiblestudynerds\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=374"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/forbiblestudynerds\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=374"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}