JESUS FINDS A WAY TO STIGMATISE A VICTIM
John 8 seems to have Jesus saving a woman from stoning to death for adultery. Christians teach that God wrote the Bible by guiding human authors and when you point out the text differences they say that text differences do not effect doctrine. The adulteress text is a text difference. If this text shows Jesus lapsed in his repeated support for the Jewish Law including its cruelty then it would amount to effecting doctrine and thus invalid. But the story is really about Jesus using the episode to deal with the hypocrisy of her accusers and is not about saving her life. Jesus was in the Temple Courts and had to be very careful not to preach against the Jewish Law about stoning.
Let us read the story.
The Jewish leaders brought a woman caught in the act of adultery to Jesus. Read
John 8 - New International Version (NIV)
It is not clear if she were really Jewish and
if she were not then they had no right.
1 Jesus went to the Mount of Olives.
2 At dawn he appeared again in the temple courts, where all the people gathered
around him, and he sat down to teach them.
3 The teachers of the law and the Pharisees brought in a woman caught in adultery. They made her stand before the group
4 and said to Jesus, “Teacher, this woman was caught in the act of adultery.
5 In the Law Moses commanded us to stone such women. Now what do you say?”
6 They were using this question as a trap, in order to
have a basis for accusing him.
But Jesus bent down and started to write on the ground with his finger. [This
was doodling BECAUSE he was tempted to have her stoned and luckily didn't act
hastily. Nobody says they read it or that it was meant to be read.
The notion he wrote down the names and partners of these men with whom they
committed adultery is speculation. It does not fit the principle that you
must not read miracles into a text that way. It is like saying the gospel
accounts are untrue and it's a miracle if they ring true. And if you want
the story to oppose stoning women, do you want it to say it is only wrong if the
accusers are as bad as her?]
7 When they kept on questioning him, he straightened up and said to them, “Let any one of you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her.” [Was he going to walk away only they were persistent? Here he was assessing, he was saying it was a fact that they were sinners. Prudent observation is a form of judging. Condemning as in punishing and giving a penalty is another. Notice that by calling them all sinners he was saying the same about the woman.]
8 Again he stooped down and wrote on the ground.
9 At this, those who heard began to go away one at a time, the older ones first,
until only Jesus was left, with the woman still standing there.
10 Jesus straightened up and asked her, “Woman, where are
they? Has no one condemned you?”
11 “No one, sir,” she said.
“Then neither do I condemn you,” Jesus declared. “Go now and leave your life of
sin.”
MAIN POINTS:
IT WAS A DANGEROUS TRAP FOR
- THEY WANTED TO NAIL JESUS IF HE SAID MOSES LAW WAS WRONG. HE COULD NOT SANCTION HER MURDER AS IT WAS IN THE TEMPLE AND AS SHE HAD NO TRIAL AND THUS STONING HER WAS AGAINST THE STONING REGULATIONS
- THE ROMANS WOULD NOT TOLERATE HIM ASKING THEM TO STONE HER FOR THEY DID NOT LET THE JEWS EXECUTE. HE WOULD END UP AT THE RECEIVING END OF ROMAN JUSTICE.
THE STORY DOES NOT ADD UP UNLESS THEY HAD NO INTENTION OF STONING HER. THEY DID NOT WANT TO GET THIS ROMAN JUSTICE THEMSELVES.
HE CONFIRMS IT IS RIGHT TO STONE HER BUT GETS OUT OF THE TRAP.
THE LAW OF MOSES PRESCRIBED THE DEATH PENALTY BY STONING BUT MANDATED THERE HAD TO BE AT LEAST TWO WITNESSES. JESUS DOES NOT ASK ABOUT WITNESSES AT ALL. HE WAS NOT A LEGAL JUDGE AND HAD NO AUTHORITY. OUT OF RESPECT FOR THE LAW HE DECIDES TO GET RID OF THE ACCUSERS.
JESUS DOES NOT SAY HE FORGIVES HER.
HE PUNISHES HER BY MAKING HER FEEL SHE WAS ABOUT TO BE STONED. THERE IS NO COMPASSION FOR HER TERROR. HE DRAGS IT OUT.
HE DOES NOT SAY SHE SHOULD NOT BE STONED ON PRINCIPLE
HE IS THOUGHT TO SAY SHE SHOULD BE STONED BY WORTHY PEOPLE. HE DOES NOT. HE SAYS THEY CAN STONE HER BUT THE HOLY ONE AMONG THEM IF THERE IS ONE MUST HAVE THE HONOUR OF CASTING THE FIRST STONE. THE REST CAN JOIN IN AFTER THE SAINT FIRES AT HER FIRST.
HE MADE HER FEEL SHE SHOULD BE BRUTALLY SLAIN IF ANYBODY WAS HOLY ENOUGH TO HAVE THE HONOUR OF DOING IT.
"LET HIM WHO HAS NO SIN STONE HER FIRST" IS "HATE HER, YOU ARE RIGHTEOUS SO YOU HAVE THE RIGHT TO, BUT DON'T ACT ON IT" - A COMMON RELIGIOUS TEACHING OF THE TIME.
HE SAYS THAT VIOLENT ABUSE OF AN INNOCENT VULNERABLE WOMAN - USUALLY BY MALES STONING HER - IS A DECENT DEED
THE STORY REINFORCES THE LEGITIMACY OF STONING WOMEN TO DEATH
HE TELLS HER SHE IS AN ADULTERESS AND A SINNER. HE WAS MARKING HER FOR LIFE. AND IN THOSE TIMES IT MEANT SHE WAS AT RISK OF BEING STONED LATER ON BECAUSE SHE WAS STIGMATISED. THE IMPLICATION IS THAT IF PEOPLE CAN BE FOUND WHO ARE DECENT ENOUGH THEY MUST STONE HER SO SHE COULD STILL HAVE BEEN STONED MAYBE AS SOON AS JESUS LEFT THE TEMPLE
THE STORY IS NOT ABOUT POLITICAL CAPITAL PUNISHMENT - THIS IS NOT ABOUT JUSTICE AS SUCH BUT ABOUT CONTROLLING SOCIETY AND PUTTING THE CRIMINAL OFF FURTHER CRIMES. IT IS ABOUT USING STONING TO BALANCE GOD'S JUSTICE SCALES.
JESUS MIGHT HAVE LIFTED THE STONE HIMSELF IF IT HAD BEEN OTHER CIRCUMSTANCES. OR PERHAPS HE WAS AWARE OF HIS OWN SINS SO HE COULD NOT STONE HER EITHER. WE MUST REMEMBER THAT HE WAS ONLY AFFIRMING HIS RIGHT NOT TO PARTICIPATE. STONING WAS A FREE ACT AND NOBODY WAS COMPELLED TO STONE, JUST TO FACILITATE IT AND AFFIRM IT.
ANYBODY GIVING WORDS OF WISDOM WILL SAY, "LET HIM WITHOUT SIN BE THE FIRST TO CAST A STONE." THAT LINE WAS SAID IN A CONTEXT WHERE A WOMAN WAS BRUTALISED PSYCHOLOGICALLY BY JESUS. ANYBODY SAYING THAT NEEDS TO BE SILENCED AND REPRIMANDED. IT'S AN INSULT TO THE RELIGIOUSLY MURDERED WOMEN. JESUS WAS SAYING ADULTERY CAN BE AN EXCUSE FOR MURDER IF YOU ARE HOLY ENOUGH.
