OK here, I feel the translators are imposing their world view onto the text instead of allowing the text to speak freely for itself in the context of Jewish Law. I'll present my translation, then present justifications for my variance from the standard English translations, then follow with my selected definitions of words from BDAG (Scholarly Greek lexicon). I won't delve into the other passages which the English translations here contradict as you obviously have a handle on those to be bothered by this in the first place.
Greek critical edition text used by modern bible translations today:
11 καὶ λέγει αὐτοῖς· ⸂ὃς ἂν ἀπολύσῃ τὴν γυναῖκα αὐτοῦ καὶ γαμήσῃ ἄλλην μοιχᾶται ἐπʼ αὐτήν· 12 καὶ ἐὰν ⸀αὐτὴ ⸄ἀπολύσασα τὸν ἄνδρα αὐτῆς γαμήσῃ ἄλλον⸅ μοιχᾶται⸃.
Aland, K., Aland, B., Karavidopoulos, J., Martini, C. M., & Metzger, B. M. (2012). Novum Testamentum Graece (28th Edition, Mk 10:11–12). Stuttgart: Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft.
What I think it means...
11 And He said to them, "he who sends away his woman; if she marries another, he himself causes her to commit adultery.
12 And if she releases her man, and if she marries another, she herself commits adultery.
justifications: if she marries another-this verb is in the Greek subjunctive mood which is used to express a possibility, in this case the possibility is that she may marry another man. The translations which say "he commits adultery against her" are taking liberty to 1) chose the shade of meaning to be "commit adultery" instead of 1b.
cause to commit adultery and they are choosing to translate ἐπʼ αὐτήν· "against her" when there is a range of meanings for
epi (upon, against, etc.). From a Hebraic perspective if one causes another to sin we would absolutely use the word "'
al" which is a semantic equivalent to
epi here meaning "on, upon, against" (think epi-pen). So it seems clear to me this can be translated either way but to a first century Jew, there is a very real danger of being the cause of another's transgressions. To this day a rabbi will refuse to convert a person to Judaism if he does not believe the person is capable of commitment because the belief is that after the conversion the proselyte will be required to perform laws x,y,z and if he doesn't its new sin introduced into the world and who's fault is it? The blame is shared with the rabbi and the convert.
Why "he himself"? This verb is either in
middle / passive voice (the forms are identical for this one). When a verb is in the "
middle" voice it can be translated as "he himself". There are other ranges of meanings but the
middle voice in Greek is a bit complex and I don't wanna get into that unless someone asks. It is, however, I believe the crux of the matter here...Yeshua is warning that she may be a real pain in the neck but if the guy puts her away for unbiblical reasons, he himself is the one responsible for her later adultery. That's the only new thing I see in these verses. He's curtailing what in context seems to be the prevalent flippant view towards marriage and he's leaning in on the thread of caring and concern which may be there in such relationships. It's one thing to divorce for a real reason; it's quite another to be flippant and end up being the cause of another person's soul who you promised to cherish to end up with a lingering death penalty from heaven hovering over.
There was also a common 1st century belief that if one escaped punishment from the san hedrin for a crime, heaven would still execute judgement in this life. In this sense, the wayward husband can be seen as a murderer by proxy. He forced his woman into adultery, then she has a death penalty lingering from "heaven" which means G-d.
Summary:
either way
SHE is the adulterer, but in one scenario
HE is the cause of it so he shares in her sin.
μοιχᾶται -
① be caused to commit adultery, be an adulterer/adulteress, commit adultery
ⓐ of a woman (Ezk 16:32) ποιεῖ αὐτὴν μοιχᾶσθαι (the man who divorces his wife)
causes her to commit adultery (if she contracts a new marriage) Mt 5:32a v.l. αὐτὴ μοιχᾶται she commits adultery Mk 10:12....
② be guilty of infidelity in a transcendent relationship, be unfaithful
ἀπολύω -
① As legal term, to grant acquittal, set free, release, pardon
② to release from a painful condition, free
③ to permit or cause someone to leave a particular location let go, send away, dismiss
④ to grant a request and so be rid of a pers., satisfy
⑤ to dissolve a marriage relationship, to divorce
Arndt, W., Danker, F. W., Bauer, W., & Gingrich, F. W. (2000). A Greek-English lexicon of the New Testament and other early Christian literature (3rd ed., pp. 656,117–118). Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
I don't have time to look at any variant manuscript now but that may be something interesting for one of you guys to do if you like that sort of thing...
One more note for those who care about Aramaic, the peshitta (Ancient Aramaic New Testament) translates the last clause with the 2nd man "commits adultery
with her"...
shalom (colors are for
@Shibboleth 
