Again, I want to stress that I see your good intentions, Persevero.
But don’t you see that you are interpreting the Bible to fit what you think it should mean - ie. your personal morality, with all its flaws, with all its biases that the world has injected into it, has become the judge of what the Bible means?
I’ve shown that the usual interpretation is absurd, and you’ve agreed that there is no way that Jesus meant to condemn a young man who momentarily has lust for a young girl, with adultery. So you’ve personally added the stipluation “serious and intense”.
Your honesty has rightly led you to add “I think”, because of course no such distinction is made in the Bible.
So instead of such inventions, is it not much more reasonable to assume the literal interpretation, but that since adultery was the subject, the natural implication is that one or both of the participants are married?
I’m not talking about porn - which doubtless is spiritually and mentally unhealthy. I’m talking specifically about that statement by Jesus, which I have thought considerably about.
“I’ve shown that the usual interpretation is absurd, and you’ve agreed that there is no way that Jesus meant to condemn a young man who momentarily has lust for a young girl, with adultery.”
I don’t think I’m putting my own personal desire into the text. I’d be happier, no doubt, without the majority of men in the world being actually guilty of adultery by looking at a woman to lust after her.
So I may turn the tables and say, how do you interpret it?
What does it mean when Jesus tells us not to look at a woman to lust after her, or we have committed adultery already in our hearts?
It means something! The plain meaning of the text to me is, if your purpose in looking at a woman is to basically have sex with her in your head, you are committing adultery even if there is no physical act involved.
So you can’t look at a woman with the purpose of having sex with her in your head. And if you find yourself inadvertently do so, look away.