15 The Woman Caught in Adultery (John 7:53-8:11)

The Woman Caught in Adultery (John 7:53-8:11)

Many Bibles omit the account of the woman caught in adultery because of questions about its authenticity. Despite these textual debates, the interesting narrative reveals profound truths about grace, humility and judgment.

Review—Woman Caught in Adultery (John 7:53-8:11)

The thesis of John’s gospel is the only way to gain eternal life in the kingdom of heaven is to believe Jesus is the Christ. John chose certain aspects of the ministry of Jesus to highlight certain themes.

• Theme 1: The importance of testimony. Why should we believe what we haven’t seen for ourselves? We believe because of the testimony of those who saw it.
• Theme 2: The only way to receive eternal life is to believe in Jesus. What’s the point of all this testimony? That we believe in Jesus. Why is believing in Jesus so important? Because he’s the only one who can grant us eternal life.  
• Theme 3: Those who believe do so because of the activity of the Spirit of God. We don’t manufacture belief. The Spirit gives it to us. 

Another piece of evidence that this story is out of place is that it contains none of these themes.

Woman Caught in Adultery — Is this story authentic?

• Many Bibles omit this story from John’s Gospel because much evidence suggests it was not in the original text.
• Textual criticism is the study and method of determining what the original Biblical manuscripts said.
• While we no longer have the original manuscripts, we have tens of thousands of copies of them.
• As monks copied the manuscripts, they introduced minor errors, such as transposed words.
• Over 99% of all the copies agree with each other. Less than 1% of the texts in the Bible have variant readings.
• The variants among the manuscripts affect no major doctrine of the Christian church. 
• This story is unique in that the entire story is a variant.

For our purposes, I assume the story does not belong in the Gospel of John, but that the story is true and reflects an actual event from the life of Jesus. 

GotQuestions: Textual criticism – what is it?

Woman Caught in Adultery (John 7:53-8:11)

^7:53 [They went each to his own house, 8:1  but Jesus went to the Mount of Olives. ²Early in the morning he came again to the temple. All the people came to him, and he sat down and taught them. ³The scribes and the Pharisees brought a woman who had been caught in adultery, and placing her in the midst ⁴they said to him, “Teacher, this woman has been caught in the act of adultery. ⁵Now in the Law, Moses commanded us to stone such women. So what do you say?” ⁶This they said to test him, that they might have some charge to bring against him. Jesus bent down and wrote with his finger on the ground. ⁷And as they continued to ask him, he stood up and said to them, “Let him who is without sin among you be the first to throw a stone at her.” ⁸And once more he bent down and wrote on the ground. ⁹But when they heard it, they went away one by one, beginning with the older ones, and Jesus was left alone with the woman standing before him. ¹⁰Jesus stood up and said to her, “Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?” ¹¹She said, “No one, Lord.” And Jesus said, “Neither do I condemn you; go, and from now on sin no more.”] – John 7:53-8:11

Are the Pharisees right about the Law?

• The Law defines adultery as a sexual relationship between two people, at least one of whom is married to someone else.
• The Ten Commandments forbid adultery.
• Deuteronomy 22:22 prescribes capital punishment (specifically stoning) for both the man and the woman caught in adultery.
• The gaping hole in the story is: where is her equally guilty partner?

The Pharisees seek to trap Jesus

• John 8:8 tells us the scribes want to test Jesus so they can accuse him of something.
• At this time, the nation of Israel was under Roman occupation. 
• The Romans permitted the nations they conquered to exercise a significant degree of self-rule, but not with regards to the death penalty. 
• If a conquered nation wanted to execute someone for a crime, that verdict had to come from the Roman judicial system. That’s why Jesus is later sentenced by the Roman governor,not by the Jewish High Priest.
• If Jesus agreed to stone her, the Pharisees would likely have turned him into the nearest Roman headquarters.
• If Jesus let her go, they could denounce him as a heretic to their own leaders.

Jesus writes in the sand

• Jesus gives no answer. He bends down and writes in the sand.
• What did he write? No one knows, but we can speculate.
• Some see his writing as an allusion to Exodus 31:18 or to Jeremiah 17:13.
• Some see it as a reference to Roman judges who wrote their verdict before announcing it.
• My favorite theory is he wrote a list of sins which the accusers had committed, so that they would literally have to step over their own sins to find a rock to begin the stoning.
• Deuteronomy 17:6-7 required the accuser to throw the first stone.

Neither do I condemn you; go, and from now on sin no more

• Finally, Jesus is left alone with the woman.
• She calls him Lord, which may be only a term of respect but hopefully was a sign of repentance.
• Jesus responds with the sweetest words a sinner can ever hear: “I don’t condemn you either.”

Woman Caught in Adultery Summary

• While this story seems out of place in John’s Gospel, it fits with what we know of Jesus.
• It teaches a theme consistently taught throughout Scripture: All human beings are equally sinful.
• Compare with Galatians 6:1-5.

Please listen to the podcast for more detail and explanation.

Next: 16 I am the Light of the World (John 8:12-47)

Previous: 14 Who is Jesus? (John 7)

Series: Gospel of John: Believe and Find Life

Study: Gospel of John Bible Study Resources

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Podcast season 25, episode 15