Mark 10
| Mark 10 | |
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Image of page from the 7th century Book of Durrow, from The Gospel of Mark. Trinity College Dublin
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| Book | Gospel of Mark |
| Bible part | New Testament |
| Order in the Bible part | 2 |
| Category | Gospel |
Mark 10 is the tenth chapter of the Gospel of Mark in the New Testament of the Christian Bible.
Jesus begins his trip to Jerusalem. Mark says that Jesus traveled into Judea across the Jordan river. After condemning sin just before in Mark 9 Jesus condemns divorce. He is teaching a crowd and they ask him if divorce is lawful; the comment that this is done to test (perhaps trick) Jesus may imply the presence of e.g. Pharisees in the crowd. Deuteronomy 24 allows a man to divorce his wife if he finds her "indecent" with simply a written writ of divorce. This is seen as a trap where Jesus either agrees with Moses and is seen as submitting to him or disagrees and shows himself in opposition to Moses. Also, Jesus has just moved into the region of Judea, across the Jordan. Both the Pharisees and Jesus would be aware that this was John the Baptist's old ground, and that John had recently been imprisoned, and then put to death as a result of his pronouncements on the topic of Herod Antipas' illegitimate marriage to his brother's wife. It is possible that the Pharisees are trying to entrap Jesus into making similar statements.
Jesus does not deal specifically with Herod's situation, but says that Moses only gave legislation concerning divorce because men's hearts were hard. Moses recognised that marital breakup was going to happen, and would rather have regulated divorce than unregulated abandonment.
Jesus answers by combining quotes from Genesis 1:27 and 2:24 to show that divorce is not part of God's plan:
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