This whole woman in adultery thing is going round and round in circles. I'd like to summarise it if I may, in the hope that if my summary is somewhere close to fair people won't have a need to restate the same points over and over again.
It is reasonable to question whether this account is scriptural. There are three possibilities - 1) It was originally part of John, 2) It was not originally in John, but was a true account recorded elsewhere (ie is midrash / apocryphal) that had such high validity it was copied into John later by scribes who were genuinely trying to preserve records of the facts, 3) It is a later fabrication. However a significant discussion on the scriptural validity or otherwise of this passage is scheduled for another thread soon, once
@IshChayil has his notes in order.
If 3 is correct, there's no point discussing the passage at all and this can all be thrown out as irrelevant. Conversation over (on this thread anyway).
If 1 or 2 is correct and the passage has at least enough historical merit to warrant discussion:
Yeshua was approached by men with a woman they claimed was caught in adultery, who said "Now Moses in the law commanded us, that such should be stoned: but what sayest thou?". This was entrapment. They were trying to catch him out. If he said "don't stone her", they'd say he was saying the law did not apply. If he said "stone her" they'd say he advocated disobeying Roman laws that forbade the Jews from putting anyone to death - if he started the stoning himself they'd have him red handed. If he came to either judgement they'd accuse him of presuming to be a judge and take the place of the Sanhedrin. If he refused to issue any advice they'd say he didn't understand scripture well enough and was no Rabbi. It was a cunningly devised minefield.
His response was in two parts, firstly "He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her." This was an application of Deuteronomy 17:7 - the hands of the accusers should be first to stone the accused, and after then the assembly. In other words, it was not Yeshua's business to start any stoning, it was their problem, they were the accusers. What would they do? Were they truly confident that their evidence and determination was strong enough for them to risk the wrath of the Roman authorities for sentencing someone to death against secular law? Remembering that they too were sinners... At this the accusers chickened out and sneaked away.
His second statement was "Woman, where are those thine accusers? hath no man condemned thee? ... Neither do I condemn thee: go, and sin no more.". This applied Deuteronomy 17:6 & Numbers 35:30 - two witnesses were required for her to be stoned. Without two witnesses, Torah is very clear that she could not be stoned. Even if, knowing everything, he did know she was guilty, he was only one witness and Torah required two (and she may have been innocent anyway).
His response was a direct application of the due process in Torah, embedded with his flavour of grace.
More could be said about how His response was directly based on Torah, and has been said by many previous posters. I see no reason to rehash all of this. My point is simply:
- If valid, this account does not in any way say that Yeshua went against Torah, on the contrary He followed it to the letter.
- If invalid, this account is not worth discussing anyway.
Thanks for the explanation.
