Not
Original, Just True
December
30, 2021
The Scripture
quotations contained herein are from the New Revised Standard Version Bible,
copyright © 1989 by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council
of the Churches of Christ in the U.S.A. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
The Gospel of
John includes a story that most Christians know. It is the story of a woman
caught in adultery. You’ll find it at John 7:53-8:11. In this story Jesus is
teaching in the temple in Jerusalem. Some scribes and Pharisees bring before him
a woman who has been caught in the act of adultery. They say that Torah law requires
that they stone her (presumably to death) and ask Jesus what he says about it.
He says, “Let anyone among you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone
at her.” John 8:7. The scribes and Pharisees all leave without stoning the
woman, presumably because they know they can’t claim to be without sin. Jesus
asks the woman if anyone has condemned her, though he must know that all of her
accusers have left without having done so. She says no one has. Then Jesus says,
“Neither do I condemn you. Go your way, and from now on do not sin again.” John
8:11.
There are some
odd things about this story. Twice in it Jesus writes on the ground, but we
aren’t told either why or what he writes. We’re told the scribes and Pharisees
ask Jesus what he says about stoning her to test him and get a charge they can
bring against him. The point seems to be that they could accuse him for contradicting
Torah law if he didn’t say stone her. He does indeed contradict Torah law when
he says something other than stone her, yet his doing so seems to have no
adverse consequences for him. Odd, isn’t it?
But there is
something even odder about this story that doesn’t appear in the text itself.
We learn it from things the New Revised Standard Version, the New International
Version, and I suppose others say about this story. The NRSV that I use has a
translators note to this story that reads: “The most ancient authorities lack
7:53-8:11, other authorities add the passage here or after 7:36 or after 21:25
or after Luke 21:38, with variations of text; some mark the passage as doubtful.”
It seems certain that the author of the Gospel of John did not include this
story in his original text, but here it is.
So I ask: Does it
matter that this story isn’t in the original text of the Gospel of John? The answer
to that question depends on the purpose for which you are reading the Gospel.
If you are reading it because you want to know what the Gospel’s author
intended, or if you are reading it to understand the author’s original
theology, then it matters. If you’re reading it for one of those purposes you’d
be well advised to omit the story of the woman taken in adultery from your
analysis. The author of John didn’t write this story and didn’t intend for it to
be part of his Gospel, so it tells us nothing about what that author was up to
when he wrote the Gospel.
Yet the fact that
the story of the woman taken in adultery was not in the original version of
John doesn’t matter if you are reading the Gospel for the purpose most
Christians have when they read John (or anything else in the Bible for that
matter). It doesn’t matter is you are reading the story for its meaning. That
it was not originally in John doesn’t mean that the story has no meaning. I (and
a lot of other people) have said about this story that if it wasn’t originally
in John, it should have been. I (and a lot of other people) say that if this
story never happened as a matter of fact, it should have, for this story sheds
a lot of light on Jesus’ relationship both to the Torah law and to God’s grace.
Let me explain.
Jesus
relationship to the Torah, often (incorrectly) called the law of Moses is
complex, perhaps a bit obscure, and not always consistent. When people want
Jesus to have affirmed the law and its role in the life of faith they often
quote Matthew 5:17-19. In those verses Jesus says,
Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets.[1]
I have come not to abolish but to fulfill. For truly I tell you, until heaven
and earth pass away, not one letter, not one stroke of a letter, will pass from
the law until all is accomplished. Therefore, whoever breaks one of the least
of these commandments, and teaches others to do the same, will be called the
least in the kingdom of heaven; but whoever does them and teaches them will be
called great in the kingdom of heaven.
These words sure make it sound like
Jesus is commanding strict compliance with all of Torah law, but here’s the
thing. He didn’t obey all of that law himself, and sometimes he taught others
not to follow it as well. He was forever offending the guardians of the Torah,
often called the scribes and the Pharisees as they are in this story, by
violating the Torah’s prohibition of work on the sabbath. See Exodus 20:8-11. At
Mark 2:27 he says, “The sabbath was made for humankind, and not humankind for
the sabbath.” He dispensed with the Torah’s commandments about keeping kosher
too. At Matthew 15:11 he says, “It is not what goes into the mouth that defiles
a person, but it is what comes out of the mouth that defiles.” Confusing, isn’t
it?
Then we have our
story of the woman taken in adultery. At Leviticus 20:10 the Torah commands
death for at least a specific sort of adultery, namely, a man having sexual
relations “with the wife of his neighbor.” It says that both the man and the
woman shall be put to death. In the story of the woman taken in adultery the
scribes and Pharisees appear to take that law as applying to any sort of
adultery, for we don’t know whether the woman was the wife of the man’s
neighbor or not. Jesus seems to accept their reading of the law, yet he doesn’t
say, “Right! Stone her!” He says that anyone who is without sin may cast the
first stone at her. Being without sin is a condition to the enforcement of the
law against adultery that isn’t in the Torah. So what Jesus says has the effect
of him telling the scribes and Pharisees to violate the law by declining to put
the woman to death because they themselves are sinners. Yet in Matthew he says
we mustn’t disobey any little part of the law. Confusing, isn’t it? I think,
however, that in saying what he says in this story Jesus is being consistent
with his overall message about how we are to live. If we learn anything from
Jesus it should be that grace outweighs the rules or laws every time. Jesus
taught us that God offers each and every person completely unconditional grace,
and that includes the completely unconditional forgiveness of sin.
Consider for
example the Parable of the Prodigal Son. You’ll find it at Luke 15:11-32. In
that familiar story a man’s younger son gets the share of his father’s estate
that would come to him after his father’s death while the father is still alive.
The son goes away and squanders all of his money in “dissolute living.” We aren’t
told more about what he did, although many people assume he consorted with
prostitutes. The story doesn’t expressly say that he did that, but I’m sure we’re
safe in assuming that whatever he did wasn’t exactly moral. The man falls upon
really hard times. He takes a job slopping pigs. So he decides to go home and
ask his father to treat him like a hired hand. He rehearses a little speech of
confession that he plans to deliver to his father: “Father, I have sinned
against heaven and before you; I am no longer worthy to be called your son;
treat me like one of your hired hands.” Luke 15:18-19. He heads home. His
father sees him coming. Apparently the father can tell from his son’s
appearance that things have not gone well for him, although the father surely
knows nothing more about what his son has done or what has happened to him. We
read, “While he [the son] was still far off, his father saw him and was filled
with compassion; he ran and put his arms around him and kissed him.” Luke
15:20. Do you notice anything missing here? Like the son’s little speech of
confession? It’s not there, not at first. After his father has greeted
him in this way the son starts to give his little speech, but he doesn’t finish
it and his father ignores it. Just as the son is giving his speech the father
tells his slaves to prepare and extravagant welcome for his son. The important
point here is that the father welcomed his son home unconditionally. He embraced
him when all he knows is that his son has returned and has perhaps had a bit of
a hard time of it while he was away. Jesus teaches us that that’s how it is
with God—absolutely unconditional grace. And that’s what Jesus extends to the
woman caught in adultery. The law said he should stone her to death. He doesn’t.
Instead he tells her that he does not condemn her and lets her go, giving her
only a gentle admonition not to sin anymore.
Does this meaning
of the story of the woman taken in adultery depend on the story having been in
the original draft of the Gospel of John? Of course not. The meaning is there
regardless of where the story came from, when it was inserted into the Gospel,
and who inserted it, none of which we know. Some unknown ancient sage thought
that the story was meaningful enough to insert it into John (or perhaps Luke)
though it wasn’t originally there. Its meaning matters, not its origin. That
meaning certainly contradicts what Jesus says at Matthew 5:17-19. Jesus’
teachings and his life itself teach us that with God grace trumps the law every
time. Grace should trump the law every time for us too. Only if it does can we
be faithful disciples of Jesus Christ. So next time someone tells you that you
or someone else has sinned by violating some supposedly divine law, just
remember the story of the woman taken in adultery. Jesus does not condemn you.
He just sends you on your way with an admonition not to sin anymore. Thanks be
to God!
[1] By
“the law or the prophets” Jesus means all of what was the Hebrew Bible in his
day, but we’ll just focus here on the law.
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