crazyheart
Ongoing Study - Women of the Bible -The Woman caught in Adultery John:7:53
Posted on: 04/05/2009 12:31
The Woman Caught in Adultery
Early in the morning he came again to the temple. All the people came to him and he sat down and began to teach them. The scribes and the Pharisees brought a woman who had been caught in adultery; and making her stand before all of them, they said to him, “Teacher, this woman was caught in the very act of committing adultery. Now in the law Moses commanded us to stone such women. Now what do you say?”
They said this to test him, so that they might have some charge to bring against him. Jesus bent down and wrote with his finger on the ground. When they kept on questioning him, he straightened up and said to them, “Let anyone among you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her.” And once again he bent down and wrote on the ground. When they heard it, they went away, one by one, beginning with the elders; and Jesus was left alone with the woman standing before him.
Jesus straightened up and said to her, “Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?” She said, “No one, sir.” And Jesus said, “Neither do I condemn you. Go your way, and from now on do not sin again.” Jn 8:1-11
here is a New Testament story about an unnamed woman that congers up many questions - many questions with no written answers.
Here are some things that the Bible does not say in this story -
- if the woman is a hardened sinner or prostitute
- if the woman was willing; she might in fact have been raped or asaulted
- that her act was not a sin
- who she was - the assumption is made that she is Mary Magdelene; but clearly she was not
- what happened to her afterward
- what happened to her partner or who he was
- how the woman felt or if she were sorry for what she had done.
Speculating what Jesus was writing in the dirt. No one knows but some of the reasons might include -
- Jesus was angry, so he may have been "counting to 10" to contain or hide his feelings
- He was buying time so that he could make the right decisions
- There is a Rabbinic tradition in which the rabbi would draw in the ground while his students would ponder a question
- or
- Jesus wrote the sins of the accusers
- Jesus emulated Roman Judges who wrote down a sentence before reading it aloud
- he was acting out Jeremiah 17:13 O hope of Israel! O Lord! All who forsake you shall be put to shame; those who turn away from you shall be recorded in the underworld( earth) for they have forsaken the fountain of living water, the Lord.
- Jesus was taking time to think, to guage his emotions
Comments
crazyheart
Posted on: 04/05/2009 12:34
Think about the trap set by the Pharisees and the counter trap set by Jesus.
It is also interesting that jesus did not offer the woman forgiveness. he did not condemn nor condone her. What he offered was a new start, a chance to redeem herself
I love this story.
mrs.anteater
Posted on: 04/05/2009 15:43
Hi Crazyheart,
Biblestudies don't seem to be as popular as discussions about homosexuality...
What comes to my mind is a German saying (and you probably have an English equivalent to it): "The one who sits in a glass house, shouldn't throw rocks."
All Jesus does is reminding those Pharesees that they are (always) sitting in a glass house.
JRT
Posted on: 04/05/2009 16:08
If you have been paying attention to more recent translations of the Gospel of John, you will have noticed that John 7:53–8:11—the story of the woman caught in adultery of whom Jesus says, “Let him who is without sin among you be the first to throw a stone at her”—has been getting some interesting treatment by the scholars. The evidence that it was not an original part of this gospel is clear. The verses are absent from a wide array of early and diverse witnesses (papyrus 66, papyrus 75, Aleph [Codex Sinaiticus], B [Codex Vaticanus] and a host of others), and there is evidence that some manuscripts of John place these verses after John 7:36, some after John 7:52, some after John 21:25, and one manuscript even has it in the Gospel of Luke after Luke 21:38.
Pickle
Posted on: 04/05/2009 19:40
I love this particular story... I can vividly imagine this in my mind. I do think that Jesus wrote something of the sins of the mob in the dirt. Not sure what more I can say about this gem, except that it captures perfectly one of the key messages of Jesus.
spiritbear
Posted on: 04/07/2009 01:10
JRT - I too have heard the claims that this story wasn't written by John and therefore doesn't belong in the Bible. If this is so, I'm of the mind that it may have been a fragment from some lost gospel (and there were plenty of those!) that Christ followers felt this fragment was so important that it had to be included somewhere. And it is entirely consistent with Christ's message elsewhere in the gospels, so why shouldn't it be included?
JRT
Posted on: 04/07/2009 07:19
The respected conservative bible scholar Ben Witherington III is of much the same opinion. Although he refuses to use it as a scripture reading, he does employ it for sermon material. Many Bible translations footnote this passage. To me, it serves to point out that our scriptures are a very human creation not only in their transmission but also in their origins.
crazyheart
Posted on: 04/14/2009 10:24
bump
waterfall
Posted on: 04/14/2009 12:00
Jesus had a very unique way of responding that didn't invoke anger but caused reflection I think.
waterfall
Posted on: 04/14/2009 12:05
Come to think of it, maybe Jesus also wanted us to learn how to get a point across affectively along with being forgiving and tolerant of others?
crazyheart
Posted on: 04/14/2009 12:10
Hi Crazyheart,
Biblestudies don't seem to be as popular as discussions about homosexuality...
But I do think they take more thought than to rant like some do in the other threads. LOL