GREAT THINGS ENTERPRISE
CLAUDE BLACK
Mark 12:19
Arguments v. Quarrels
 In law, cases often focus on the interpretation of a single word or phrase. In a Supreme Court case, Yates v. United States (2015), the justices wrestled with the meaning of “tangible object.” A careful definition of that phrase was not included in the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, which criminalizes the destruction or concealment of tangible objects to obstruct a federal investigation. In this case, a fisherman threw undersized fish overboard to avoid penalties. The law banned destroying “any record, document, or tangible object,” but the statute did not clearly define “tangible object.” The court ruled that “tangible object” applied to objects used to record or preserve information, not physical objects like fish. Cases of this type occupy much of a court’s time.
 The issue of a missing or problematic word or phrase is evident in the Sadducees’ attempt to snare Jesus over an interpretation of the law. The Sadducees framed their argument on what was called a “levirate marriage” (Deuteronomy 25:5-10). This law describes a situation in which “brothers are living together,” a phrase conveniently omitted when the Sadducees approached Jesus and said “Teacher, Moses wrote to us, that if a brother of someone dies, and he leaves a wife, and he does not leave a child, that this brother should take his wife and raise up seed for his brother.” (Mark 12:19)
 The Deuteronomic law was intended to ensure that a family name continued and that property remained within the family. Whether the case the Sadducees cited was actual or hypothetical is somewhat beside the point; they purposefully or perhaps ignorantly left out an important phrase in their presentation. Their design was to snare Jesus.
 An argument is a series of statements, each evolving from the previous to reach a conclusion. A quarrel is a series of disjointed statements designed to elicit emotion and opposition. The Sadducees were looking for a quarrel. Arguments can be productive; quarrels, not so much.
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