Concerning Dennis Prager's Commentary On Pornography and Whether Lust Is Adultery

As part of a series on the Old Testament book of Exodus, Jordan Peterson recently posted a clip of a discussion he had with Dennis Prager and Os Guinness, among others, on the question of God's commands regarding lust and adultery.In the course of the discussion, a number of points of interest came to light, wherein questions of what to make of pornography and lust resulted in Prager pointing out that, as a Jew who sees only the Old Testament as authoritative Scripture, adultery is not the right term for the sexual interest a man might take in an unmarried woman.Christians, by contrast, have often in the last 2,000 years pointed to what Jesus says in Matthew 5:27-28.“You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’ But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart.In the course of their discussion, Guinness noted that the tenth commandment has to do with coveting anything which belongs to your neighbor. And that is a good place to go with any claim that the Torah is not concerned with the internal world of our hearts and minds.Yet this brings up an interesting detail regarding lust, that it is not just desire in the abstract; rather, the lust Christ is teaching about in the Sermon on the Mount is clearly, based on the context, to do with fantasizing about taking another man's wife.Consider the fashioning of the tabernacle, furnishings, and utensils in Exodus, and how God commanded they be made out of physical things."Bezalel the son of Uri, son of Hur, of the tribe of Judah, made all that Yahweh commanded Moses; and with him was Oholiab the son of Ahisamach, of the tribe of Dan, an engraver and designer and embroiderer in blue and purple and scarlet yarns and fine twined linen."- Exodus 38:22-23Now remember Proverbs 5:18-19. "Let your fountain be blessed, and rejoice in the wife of your youth, a lovely deer, a graceful doe.Let her breasts fill you at all times with delight; be intoxicated always in her love."Note that a man is encouraged here, as elsewhere in the Old Testament and New Testament, to delight in his enjoyment of the body of his wife instead of "the forbidden woman," an adulteress who is by definition married to another man. Therefore, an overly broad interpretation of lust as sexual interest, and subsequently associating it with sexual immorality renders the whole counsel of God regarding human sexuality chaotic and disordered.This is to say nothing of Esther 2:7, where it is said of the young woman Hadassah that she "had a beautiful figure and was lovely to look at." Was the author of the book of Esther guilty of committing adultery for noticing or making mention of the fact? Surely not. Yet we would do well to consider Galatians 5, particularly verses 16-26, and its ramifications for understanding the potential for conceit, as well as provocation and envy, being as bad of sins as sexual immorality, since all alike are called "evident," and "works of the flesh."Thus we return to what Dennis Prager actually said, which was not that pornography is a good thing, as Todd Friel claims; nor either did Prager say that Judaism is wholly unconcerned with the internal person, as Todd Friel alleges.Rather, what Prager said was that he is less concerned; moreover, he said that pornography is sometimes awful, and other times "not awful" - which is not quite the same thing as saying that it is good.Yet something like this is said in Leviticus 20:10-21 as well, where one paragraph lists sexual sins which carry the death penalty, and the next paragraph merely threatens barrenness and exile.This Episode's Links: Is Lust Adultery? | Biblical Series: Exodus - Jordan B Peterson, YouTube Dennis Prager Explains Why P*rn Can Actually Be a Good Thing - Wretched, YouTube Revelation 22:18-19 Matthew 11:20-24