In Matthew 5 and 19, does ‘porneia’ refer to premarital unchastity within the (unique) Jewish engagement or to unchastity in a wider sense?

This text is from a letter written by David Gooding in 1994.

The matter about which you write continues to be vigorously debated, and, as you know, no agreement appears to be in sight. It is true that the word porneia in Matthew 5:32 and 19:9 is taken by many students to mean premarital unchastity. Indeed, there are those who say it can mean nothing else in these contexts, where it is used in close association with the Greek word for adultery.

It cannot be correct, however, to say that it only means premarital unchastity on the part of a woman already betrothed but not yet married. Premarital unchastity is surely seen in God's sight as sinful, whether the person who commits it is betrothed or not betrothed. Indeed, the very word porneia means either (a) to act as a harlot, or (b) to use a harlot. Harlots are not necessarily betrothed, nor are those who use them.

Next, it seems to me to be very arbitrary to say that in Matthew 5 and 19, or wherever else porneia is used in close association with the Greek word for adultery, it can only mean premarital unchastity. I repeat that the word porneia is formed from the noun porne, which means a prostitute. Porneia therefore means, as I have already said, either (a) to act like a prostitute, or (b) to use a prostitute. It is obvious, surely, that a married man could use a prostitute just as he could before he was engaged to be married. It would not be appropriate to reply that if a married man uses a prostitute he is guilty of adultery, because adultery in the Bible is to take somebody else's wife; and a prostitute is not necessarily somebody else's wife. The Bible, therefore, would not classify this sin as adultery, which is porneia, that is, as using a harlot. The same thing is true, mutatis mutandis, of a wife.

Some scholars suggest that porneia in Matthew 5 and 19 is to be understood in another Jewish sense of the term, that is, marriage within the 'forbidden degrees'. You will find this view put forth by F. F. Bruce, I think, in his commentary on Acts, chapter 15. It is also adopted by some Catholic exegetes on the basis of the Qumran material. Bruce points out that the Jews had a more extensive list of forbidden degrees than Gentiles would have done; and that, therefore, Gentile believers are asked in Acts 15:29 to abstain from marriage within the degrees prohibited by the Jewish law. To marry within those degrees would, in Jewish eyes, be porneia.

The trouble with all these views is, while you can make out a case for them, you cannot prove that any one of them is necessarily the one intended by our Lord in Matthew 5 and 19. You rightly point to the case in the Revelation 2:21, and this echoes the usage in the Old Testament where Israel's unfaithfulness to God and her going after idols is at times represented as spiritual porneia and not simply adultery, even though Israel was God's wife.

Moreover, elsewhere in the New Testament, porneia has a very wide sense. Consider the instance in 1 Corinthians 5:1, where a man takes his father's wife. It is the wider term compared with adultery, which, as I have said before, means taking somebody else's wife. What does surprise me from time to time is the strength with which certain exegetes and scholars lay it down that their interpretation of the word is the only possible one, and is beyond all doubt.

I hope these remarks are of some help to you over this thorny, serious, and much disputed matter.

Yours very sincerely in Christ,