John 8 Adultery and Fishing

Early in the morning he came again to the temple. All the people came to him, and he sat down and taught them. The scribes and the Pharisees brought a woman who had been caught in adultery, and placing her in the midst they said to him, “Teacher, this woman has been caught in the act of adultery. Now in the Law Moses commanded us to stone such women. So what do you say?” This 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. And 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.” And once more he bent down and wrote on the ground. But 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. Jesus stood up and said to her, “Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?” She said, “No one, Lord.” And Jesus said, “Neither do I condemn you; go, and from now on sin no more.” (John 8:2-11 ESV)

First off, did the story of the adulterous woman actually happen?  

What does it mean that the earliest manuscripts don't contain this story?  

In what year was the printing press invented?  

How was the bible written until then?  

By hand, right?  Mostly by monks, the scriptures were copied by hand for thousand of years.  

So what if one monk made a typo?  The next one would copy it down and theoretically it would be passed along.  So there could be discrepancies.  How do we determine what is right and wrong?  

Double-check against the earliest versions of text.  The oldest scroll is fragment is from John and dates to 125 A.D.  A few show up within the next hundred years, and around 300 or 400 AD, there are quite a few remaining manuscripts.  

Should we believe this story and should it appear in Scripture?  

The adulterous woman appears in several old manuscripts in Luke, and fits with Luke's writing style.  It also is fairly consistent with what we see of Jesus and the Jews at other places in the New Testament.  It is included along with the caveat, satisfying both honesty and historical tradition.  Whether or not it should be in the Bible, there are some things we can learn from the adulterous woman.  Here's some more info and a theory that might have merit if you want some extra credit reading - http://www.tektonics.org/af/adulterypericope.php

What to you think of the story and what Jesus does?  

Why does Jesus draw in the sand?  

Why do the older men drop their stones first?  

Would Moses have stoned the woman?  

“If a man is found lying with the wife of another man, both of them shall die, the man who lay with the woman, and the woman. So you shall purge the evil from Israel." (Deuteronomy 22:22 ESV)

Nope. . .they were not accusing her partner as the law commanded.  Presumably this is why the older men dropped their stones first, as they knew the law in more detail.  

Jesus says, "neither do I condemn you" does this sound familiar?  

For I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. Now if I do what I do not want, I agree with the law, that it is good. So now it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me. For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh. For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out. For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing. Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me. So I find it to be a law that when I want to do right, evil lies close at hand. For I delight in the law of God, in my inner being, but I see in my members another law waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members. Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, I myself serve the law of God with my mind, but with my flesh I serve the law of sin. (Romans 7:15-25 ESV).

 There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death. For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do. By sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh, in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit. But if Christ is in you, although the body is dead because of sin, the Spirit is life because of righteousness. If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit who dwells in you. (Romans 8:1-4, 10, 11 ESV)

What is the worst thing Paul ever did?  (Acts 7)

What is the worst thing that Israel had ever did?  

Golden Calf: http://www.leeporterart.com/

Lets look at an Old Testament story:

“Hear, O Israel: you are to cross over the Jordan today, to go in to dispossess nations greater and mightier than you, cities great and fortified up to heaven, a people great and tall, the sons of the Anakim, whom you know, and of whom you have heard it said, ‘Who can stand before the sons of Anak?’ Know therefore today that he who goes over before you as a consuming fire is the Lord your God. He will destroy them and subdue them before you. So you shall drive them out and make them perish quickly, as the Lord has promised you. “Do not say in your heart, after the Lord your God has thrust them out before you, ‘It is because of my righteousness that the Lord has brought me in to possess this land,’ whereas it is because of the wickedness of these nations that the Lord is driving them out before you. Not because of your righteousness or the uprightness of your heart are you going in to possess their land, but because of the wickedness of these nations the Lord your God is driving them out from before you, and that he may confirm the word that the Lord swore to your fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob. “Know, therefore, that the Lord your God is not giving you this good land to possess because of your righteousness, for you are a stubborn people. Remember and do not forget how you provoked the Lord your God to wrath in the wilderness. From the day you came out of the land of Egypt until you came to this place, you have been rebellious against the Lord. Even at Horeb you provoked the Lord to wrath, and the Lord was so angry with you that he was ready to destroy you. When I went up the mountain to receive the tablets of stone, the tablets of the covenant that the Lord made with you, I remained on the mountain forty days and forty nights. I neither ate bread nor drank water. And the Lord gave me the two tablets of stone written with the finger of God, and on them were all the words that the Lord had spoken with you on the mountain out of the midst of the fire on the day of the assembly. And at the end of forty days and forty nights the Lord gave me the two tablets of stone, the tablets of the covenant. Then the Lord said to me, ‘Arise, go down quickly from here, for your people whom you have brought from Egypt have acted corruptly. They have turned aside quickly out of the way that I commanded them; they have made themselves a metal image.’ “Furthermore, the Lord said to me, ‘I have seen this people, and behold, it is a stubborn people. Let me alone, that I may destroy them and blot out their name from under heaven. And I will make of you a nation mightier and greater than they.’ So I turned and came down from the mountain, and the mountain was burning with fire. And the two tablets of the covenant were in my two hands. And I looked, and behold, you had sinned against the Lord your God. You had made yourselves a golden calf. You had turned aside quickly from the way that the Lord had commanded you. So I took hold of the two tablets and threw them out of my two hands and broke them before your eyes. Then I lay prostrate before the Lord as before, forty days and forty nights. I neither ate bread nor drank water, because of all the sin that you had committed, in doing what was evil in the sight of the Lord to provoke him to anger. For I was afraid of the anger and hot displeasure that the Lord bore against you, so that he was ready to destroy you. But the Lord listened to me that time also. And the Lord was so angry with Aaron that he was ready to destroy him. And I prayed for Aaron also at the same time. Then I took the sinful thing, the calf that you had made, and burned it with fire and crushed it, grinding it very small, until it was as fine as dust. And I threw the dust of it into the brook that ran down from the mountain. “At Taberah also, and at Massah and at Kibroth-hattaavah you provoked the Lord to wrath. And when the Lord sent you from Kadesh-barnea, saying, ‘Go up and take possession of the land that I have given you,’ then you rebelled against the commandment of the Lord your God and did not believe him or obey his voice. You have been rebellious against the Lord from the day that I knew you. “So I lay prostrate before the Lord for these forty days and forty nights, because the Lord had said he would destroy you. And I prayed to the Lord, ‘O Lord God, do not destroy your people and your heritage, whom you have redeemed through your greatness, whom you have brought out of Egypt with a mighty hand. Remember your servants, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Do not regard the stubbornness of this people, or their wickedness or their sin, lest the land from which you brought us say, “Because the Lord was not able to bring them into the land that he promised them, and because he hated them, he has brought them out to put them to death in the wilderness.” For they are your people and your heritage, whom you brought out by your great power and by your outstretched arm.’ (Deuteronomy 9:1-29 ESV)

How is Israel like the adulterous woman?  

Why does God save Israel?

So I lay prostrate before the Lord for these forty days and forty nights, because the Lord had said he would destroy you. And I prayed to the Lord, ‘O Lord God, do not destroy your people and your heritage, whom you have redeemed through your greatness, whom you have brought out of Egypt with a mighty hand  

What is not the reason God saved Israel?  

Know, therefore, that the Lord your God is not giving you this good land to possess because of your righteousness, for you are a stubborn people.

The woman is certainly not innocent, why doesn't Jesus condemn the woman? 

"For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him." (John 3:17)

Who dies in the story of the adulterous woman?  

Imagine you are fishing, and you hook a fish.  You pull and fight and get it almost to the boat.  Just at the last second, another fish swims up, bites the line in half, and the fish on your line swims away.  Angry, you glare down at the new fish who just set your dinner free.  But to your surprise, just below the surface the fish is staring back at you.  You you realize it is huge, the biggest fish you've ever seen, easily enough to meet your weight limit for the day.  The uber-fish disappears and you stare down into the water.  You reach for your tackle box in hopes you might string a lure before he disappears.  Wham!  Water flies all over you, the boat rocks violently.  über-fish has just jumped into the boat with you!  You caught the biggest fish without a line or even a hook.  Über-fish literally caught himself!  You lift him into your cooler and troll away grinning at your good fortune an dreaming of the feast to come.  The other bass and brim slip away calmly under the boat; safe because the biggest fish in the lake took their place. 

How are we like the adulterous woman, Israel, and fish in the lake?

Jesus is not just letting the adulterous woman off the hook. . .he is jumping on the hook for her.  We also deserve condemnation, but he takes it for us.  We deserve to be caught, but he is caught for us.  Just as Moses intervened on Israel's behalf, so Jesus intervenes for us.  "Who then is the one who condemns? No one. Christ Jesus who died--more than that, who was raised to life--is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us." Romans 8:34