Christianity: Details about 'Matthew 5 28'
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Matthew 5:28 is the twenty-eighth verse of the fifth chapter of the Gospel of Matthew in the New Testament and is part of the Sermon on the Mount. It is the second verse of the discussion of adultery. In this verse Jesus states that looking at a woman in lust is equal to the act of adultery itself. In the King James Version of the Bible the text reads:
The World English Bible translates the passage as:
The equation of lust with adultery is very similar to the earlier equation of anger and murder in Matthew 5:22. Like the previous verse this is often interpreted as Jesus expanding on the requirements of Mosaic law, but not rejecting it. This sentiment was not original to Jesus being discussed in the Old Testament and in contemporary Jewish literature. Kittle notes that similar ideas are expressed in T. Issachar and Tractate Kalla. The word translated as woman is gyne in general this term means wife rather than just any woman. Most scholars thus feel that Jesus is only talking about lusting after another's wife, not the attraction of a man to his own wife. According to the laws of the time it was not adultery for a married man to sleep with an unmarried woman. Adultery was interpreted as a form of theft, and the harm came from stealing another man's wife. In Matthew 5:32 some feel Jesus will challenge this view. France states that lust is more precisely understood as "in order to do the forbidden with her." Schweizer notes that looking lustfully at a woman is specifically condemned, implying that it is possible for a man to look at a woman without lust. Important in that it rejects the need for absolute segregation of the sexes. References
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