Tool Beta
The Ancient World Behind the Text
Pick a passage anywhere in the New Testament. See the customs and ideas a first reader knew without being told.
1 Corinthians 7:1-16, Married couples and unbelieving spouses
Replying to the Corinthians' letter, Paul tells married couples not to deprive each other, advises the unmarried and widows, repeats the Lord's word against divorce, and says a believer deserted by an unbelieving spouse is not bound.
1 Corinthians 7:1-16, in every translation this tool compares.
Paul turns to questions the Corinthians raised in a letter, beginning with the claim that a man does well to abstain from sex. He answers that married couples should not deny each other except briefly by agreement for prayer, and that the unmarried may stay single but should marry before desire consumes them. Passing on the Lord's teaching, he forbids divorce between believers, tells those married to willing unbelievers to stay, and says a believer whose unbelieving spouse leaves is no longer bound.
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- {"u":"https:\/\/jayms.com\/bible-study-tools-2\/ancient-world-ideas\/marriage-and-divorce\/","n":"Divorce and the certificate","s":"A Jewish husband ended a marriage, or a betrothal, by handing his wife a written certificate before witnesses that left her free to marry again, and the teachers argued over the grounds. In Greek and Roman law either partner could end a marriage by leaving.","r":""}
- {"u":"https:\/\/jayms.com\/bible-study-tools-2\/ancient-world-ideas\/sages-and-philosophers\/","n":"Philosophers and their schools","s":"Stoics, Epicureans and other schools taught a whole way of life in lecture halls and marketplaces. A traveling teacher with a message about God would be heard, and judged, as one more philosopher.","r":""}
Now about marks Paul's replies to the Corinthians' letter, and many scholars take the line about not touching a woman as theirs (Keener and his notes); Bailey, weighing the Syriac and Arabic versions, reads it as their question about the ascetic life, and Carson, Moo and Morris see the church split between the promiscuous and those who thought celibacy best. Most people valued marriage; only a few sages, mostly Cynics, and two small Jewish groups, the Essenes and the Therapeutae, rejected it, and later rabbis read Genesis 1:28 as a command to marry by twenty (the cultural backgrounds article Celibacy in Antiquity). Many Gentiles expected only the wife to be faithful, so the word that each has authority over the other's body runs both ways (the cultural backgrounds notes); Wright calls it a striking statement of mutual equality. Arnold reads verse 5 as Satan using long abstinence to tempt a partner to unfaithfulness. In Judean practice only the husband could normally divorce, while in Greek and Roman marriage either party could end it simply by leaving, and divorce was widespread in Corinth (Keener and his notes).
- Craig S. Keener, The IVP Bible Background Commentary: New Testament, introduction to 1 Corinthians 7:1-7, and on 7:1, 7:3 and 7:10-11
- NIV Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible, notes on 1 Corinthians 7:1, 7:3, 7:4 and 7:11, and article Celibacy in Antiquity
- Kenneth E. Bailey, Paul Through Mediterranean Eyes, section 2.5
- N. T. Wright, Paul for Everyone: 1 Corinthians, comment on 1 Corinthians 7:1-7
- D. A. Carson, Douglas J. Moo and Leon Morris, An Introduction to the New Testament, ch. 9, 1 and 2 Corinthians, The Character of Paul's Opponents in 1 and 2 Corinthians
- Clinton E. Arnold, Powers of Darkness, ch. 9, The Influence of the Powers on Believers, Temptation
