The case was pretty cut and dry. No need for interpetation.
John 8:3-11 The Women Caught in Adultery.
by Blueblades 18 Replies latest jw friends
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BurnTheShips
No need for interpetation.
Perhaps, but what is greater: the Law? Or God?
God forgives who he wants, even if they broke the Law. The rules are for us, not for him.
BTS
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minimus
The fact is the Jews were only following orders. God/Jesus suddenly decides to change the implementation of the Law. C'mon.
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Leolaia
I would say it would be a mistake to expect the Bible to be a "history book" in any modern sense, as it was not written as such. If your view is that the didactic value of the Bible is dependent solely on its historicity, then the matter is quite simple -- it either meets the historical burden or it does not. This leads people to set aside the Bible as having any value (and of course anyone is entitled to do this), or defend its total historicity in defiance of plausibility and extant facts in order to hang onto the teaching value of the book. I think instead it would be helpful to consider JD Crossan's distinction between mode and meaning, which essentially points that even if the story is non-historical it still has a meaning, a lesson, a moral in the same fashion that a parable or story has a point that it wants to make. You can get all bound up with questions about literary genre, historicity, accuracy, etc. as the end all and be all, and never get around to addressing the meaning of the story -- which is really the important thing.
And while historical accuracy could to some extent be assessed, the notion of inspiration is a subjective, religious belief about texts that wholly depends on your own definition of inspiration and assumptions about God. There are other notions of inspiration beyond that of the JWs and fundamentalist Christianity that do not regard inspired = inerrant, such as scripture being God-breathed in the same sense that Adam was God-breathed (Genesis 2:7) -- i.e. brought into existence by the will of God in a way that other writings are not, but at the same time hardly inerrant. Or you could appreciate the literature on its own terms without weighting it down with theological baggage.
minimus is asking precisely the kind of question that probe's the story's meaning: "The Law WAS still in effect. Jesus practiced and duly observed the Law. Why did he presume to ignore the written Law??" What does this mean with respect to Jesus' teaching elsewhere in the gospels? What does this mean in the context of first-century Judaism and how the Law was observed by the different Jewish parties? And what does this mean to a kind of Christianity that no longer follows the Law? And what does this mean to you today? Is there a lesson about how people treat other people in the story that makes it resonate with people today?
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minimus
yes Leo. So what do you think??
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Leolaia
Me? I don't know, I haven't had an opportunity to plump the depths of this story. You could start with the commentaries and see what they say -- they probably address the issue you raised. If you want to investigate it yourself Leolaia-style, you might want to think about the following things: (1) What scriptures does it use from the OT and how does it interpret them? (2) Why was the story placed here -- is there anything about the context that might tell you about how the story was read? (3) Is there anything that its structure, word choice, or rhetorical form that reveals the author's intention? (4) How does it agree with later statements in the Mishnah on how adulterers should be treated? (5) Is there anything in contemporary sources that reveal something about the story? (6) How do Christian writings outside the NT interpret the story or present the same issue?
I could bring out some random points that you might find interesting:
(1) The Mishnah prescribes a less painful form of execution by strangling for intercourse between a married woman and a man other than her husband, whereas stoning was reserved for girls that were already betrothed but not yet married (such as Mary of Nazareth in the gospel of Matthew).
(2) The term moikheuein in the story however is (at least held to be) used in the LXX and in other literature exclusively in reference to adulterous behavior of married individuals.
(3) The saying in 8:7 ("Let he who is without sin go ahead and throw the first stone at her") directly references the Law in Deuteronomy 17:7 ("The first stones are to be thrown by the witnesses"), so not only is Jesus commenting on the Law but he uses it to imply that there should be witnesses to the adultery in his presence. But there is a deeper implication: The purported witness to the adultery may himself be guilty of a serious sin -- whether lust in wanting to watch adultery or deceit if the witness is making a false accusation.
(4) The writing on the ground reinforces this point, since it may be allusive of Jeremiah 17:13: "Those who turn away from you will be written in the dust, because they have forsaken the Lord, the spring of living water". The action of Jesus may have been one of saying to those making the accusation against the woman: You are the ones that the prophet Jeremiah speaks of.
(5) The obvious parallel to this story is the false accusation of adultery against Susanna, in which the witnesses against her were actually men who tried to rape her (Daniel 13:1-28). The prophet Daniel condemns the accusers for attempting to shed innocent blood and execute the woman without due process. He questions the witnesses separately and discovers that their stories contradicted each other on very basic points. He condemns them for both lying and for lusting after the married woman (13:42-64). By saying "Let he who is without sin cast the first stone", knowing that the Law demanded that the witnesses are the ones that cast the first stones, Jesus may similarly be putting the witnesses and the Pharisees supporting them ("You shall not support a wicked man as a malicious witness," Exodus 23:7) on the spot before God.
(6) The law in Deuterononomy 19:19 demands that malicious witnesses bear the same punishment that would have been given to the person they condemned. In John 8:10, Jesus comments on the fact that after his challenge, no one has made an accusation against her. It is possible that the witnesses turned away because they knew that they would be stoned themselves if they made their accusation and Jesus caught them in their lie (as did Daniel). Some manuscripts have a longer form in v. 9, "But on hearing that, they went out one by one being convicted by their consciences".
But beyond that, I believe the story depicts Jesus calling on everyone there to introspect and realize their own sins -- that gives the story a much more sublime quality than it would have as a depiction of a simple legal ploy to ferret out deceit.
I am sure there are many other points that could be made.
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minimus
Leo, as usual, quite deep and interesting. I never knew that about strangling. Hmmm....maybe that's why Christians were told to abstain nfrom things strangled????
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AGuest
Thank you, and may you all have peace!
Without going into the whole "is the Bible inspired/is it the word of God" (I've had the privilege of posting - virtually to the hilt - on that and so it must pass this time), I'd like to respond to the following, if I may:
even if Jesus did teach a message of love, did he really think that the law of God given by Moses was no longer in force and should not be obeyed?
He did obey the Law here, more than any of the others. He FULFILLED it... and SURPASSED it... with love. Love... "COVERS a multitude of transgressions" so that where love is exercised, transgression is covered. Love... "IS the Law's fulfillment" so that where love is exercised, the entire Law is fulfilled. There is NO law... against love and it is the highest expression of the Law ("NO ONE has GREATER love than this... that he should give his life in behalf of his friends"). It was the Law... of LOVE... on which the NEW Covenant is based... that my Lord enforced.
Did he think sins should not be punished at all?
He KNEW (1) that is was not "his" to bring about punishment... but is WAS "his"... forgive. As it was theirs to do. Why? Because, with the exception of my Lord, ALL have sinned... and fallen short. If you transgress ONE Law... you've trangressed them all. Hence, these had sinned (and there is no "ranking" of sin with the Most Holy One of Israel - sin... is sin)... and therefore were as guilty as the woman and should have been stoned themselves.
For the wage OF sin... is death... and ALL have sinned. But the GIFT God gives... and which my Lord gave to this woman by saving her from these... is life. Everlastingly so.
He also knew (2) that in order to be forgiven, he had to forgive. Think on that: if the only one among us who was "without sin" acted in such a manner, who among us should act differently?
Dear ones, this is not rocket science: stop judging. Anyone. For anything. And you won't BE judged. And if you judge, you will be judged. In contrast, if you are merciful and forgive... you will be shown mercy... and will be forgiven. The math, therefore, is simple: hate times itself equals hate. Love times itself equals love. Given what most of us were taught by the WTBTS... and the "world" that is separated from God by means of being separate from Christ (and thus, having a form of godly devotion but proving false to its power, in spite of calling themselves "christians"), however, it's not hard to understand why the "math" seems hard.
Lose the "baggage" that says forgiving people for their sins and weaknesses... is a sin and a weakness.
Love... takes strength. And my Lord showed a great amount of it here when he risked appearing to have transgressed the Law himself... by showing someone love.
I bid you the greatest of love and peace... not as the world gives it, but as I have learned it and received it from my Lord, the Holy One of Israel, JAHESHUA MISCHAJAH, the Son and Christ of the MOST Holy One of Israel, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, whose name is JAH... of Armies.
A slave of Christ,
SA
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oompa
well these verses are in the nwt....so if wt is SURE they are spurious, and not just dubious...they would not likely be in there...the prob is there are some very old manuscripts that do contain them...they are listed in the reference nwt and other wt pubs...i just entered the above verses in the wtcd and got 158 hits.............oompa