Texts in Conversation
Deuteronomy 25 commands a surviving brother to marry his deceased brother’s childless widow. In Mark, Sadducees cite this Mosaic law to present a legal dilemma regarding resurrection.
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2500 BCE
1000+ CE
Deuteronomy 25:5
Hebrew Bible
4 You must not muzzle your ox when it is treading grain. 5 If brothers live together and one of them dies without having a son, the dead man’s wife must not remarry someone outside the family. Instead, her late husband’s brother must go to her, marry her, and perform the duty of a brother-in-law. 6 Then the first son she bears will continue the name of the dead brother, thus preventing his name from being blotted out of Israel.
Mark 12:19
New Testament
18 Sadducees (who say there is no resurrection) also came to him and asked him, 19 “Teacher, Moses wrote for us: ‘If a man’s brother dies and leaves a wife but no children, that man must marry the widow and father children for his brother.’ 20 There were seven brothers. The first one married, and when he died he had no children.
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Notes and References
... Single women were especially attracted to Jesus's new family, for the women who accompany him are not embedded in family systems. Mary and Martha, Mary Magdalene, the Samaritan woman, the adulterous woman, Anna, the Syro-Phoenician, Joanna, Susanna, Mrs. Zebedee—none is accompanied by a husband. In Jesus's family, relationship was determined not by marriage or biology but by faith: his "mother and brothers and sisters" are those who follow divine will (Mark 3:31–35)... Concerning the Sadducees who ask Jesus about the woman married to seven brothers (Mark 12:18–27), they quote Moses's command in Deuteronomy 25:5 regarding Levirate marriage... ...
Levine, Amy-Jill
The Misunderstood Jew: The Church and the Scandal of the Jewish Jesus
(p. 137, 143) HarperSanFrancisco, 2006
* The use of references are not endorsements of their contents. Please read the entirety of the provided reference(s) to understand the author's full intentions regarding the use of these texts.
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