The Rooted Podcast

Speaker 3 (00:00.202)
It's not necessarily a story that's centered on the sin of adultery. It's really a story about sin, justice and mercy in general. Jesus does something really quite bizarre.

It just spoke to me of how we treat people's sins. It's as though we set sins in concrete, but Jesus does not set sins in concrete. He writes them in the dust.

and this woman, the woman who is the only character in the story to own who she is and to own what she has done. And in owning that, in standing before Jesus and sort of saying, here I am, Lord, he offers forgiveness to her.

You're listening to the.

Welcome back to The Rooted Podcast. I'm Esther and I'm joined by Mark and returning special guest Stuart, who's our Catholic engagement officer for a special bonus episode. So Stuart, thank you so much for joining us again.

Speaker 3 (00:39.886)
In our series, we take a closer look

Speaker 2 (01:00.726)
We love having you on the podcast and we're very grateful that even though you're in Poland at the moment, you are joining us for this. Over the last six weeks, we've been discussing Jesus' I Am statements in John's Gospel, but we also wanted to talk about the passage at the beginning of John chapter 8, which is the incident with the woman caught in adultery. So that's what we're going to be talking about today. Before we start, we do want to acknowledge that

some people might find this to be quite a sensitive topic and our discussion will be exploring different possibilities about what might have been going on in the situation. So we'll be doing our best to handle this conversation really carefully, but I think listener discretion is advised and if you feel that this is not the episode for you right now, you don't have to listen. without further ado, Mark, I know that this passage has been of particular interest to you. So would you mind sharing a bit about why that is?

Yeah, sure. I did spend a lot of time actually in this passage a few years ago and at one time I was planning to write a book about it but it never quite got off the ground so that didn't happen. But I read loads and loads of commentaries and wise people who wrote about it. I think one of the things that drew me to it is that it's in a

strange place in terms of the biblical canon in that if you look at most modern Bibles, they'll put it sort of in brackets or they'll put it at the bottom of the text or there'll be a note saying, this passage is not in the earliest and best biblical manuscripts. So it's almost as though there's a question about whether it belongs in John's Gospel at all or whether it belongs in the Bible at all and perhaps we'll go on to talk a little bit more about that later. So that's one thing. So I kind of like the oddity of it.

But the other thing is that it is just so incredibly Jesus-like and it's such a powerful story about a vulnerable woman who is faced with basically a baying mob of men and Jesus is what stands between her and, well, probably a lynching actually. And instead of condemning her, he forgives her. And that is such an incredibly powerful moment, I think, in the Gospel story. So that's what it says to me.

Speaker 2 (03:13.4)
Absolutely. mean, it's so that point that you made about how this story doesn't seem to have been included in many early manuscripts. I think that leaves us when, you know, guess preachers preaching this passage, anybody studying it in a slightly interesting position, interesting that the ESV study Bible, doesn't actually have.

detailed study notes about this section. just kind of says, basically, there's considerable doubt that this story was part of John's original gospel. It's absent from the oldest manuscripts and it acknowledges that there's nothing unworthy of sound doctrine in it, but it seems best to view the story as something that probably happened during Jesus' ministry, but not part of the original gospel. The ESV team has said it shouldn't be considered as part of scripture.

I think people might have different views on that and it should not be used as the basis for building any point of doctrine unless confirmed in scripture. So they've gone down that route. I'm sure there are other views.

Yeah, yeah, I mean that's very ESV, isn't it? And the ESV does come from this quite, you know, this highly conservative Protestant evangelical tradition. So, you you just have to acknowledge that. I don't agree at all. And I don't think that's where the consensus is regarding it being scripture.

But it does open up a conversation, doesn't it, about the process by which we have the Bible, about how the scriptural material was brought together. It is true that it's not in the earliest biblical manuscripts. And we're talking about a few years difference. We're not talking about a difference of hundreds of years. But in some early manuscripts, it's placed in different places in John's Gospel. And it's almost as though they couldn't decide what to do with it.

Speaker 1 (05:02.098)
It also appears in very, very early manuscripts of Luke's Gospel as well. And again, in slightly different places because again, they're not quite sure what to do with it. My view is that it is a Jesus story. I think it's absolutely right. I don't think there's any question that the people who first read John's Gospel would probably not

have seen this story in John's Gospel, but that does not mean to say that it's not a true story. I think it's right to have reservations about it. I think it's right that you note it, basically. But I think you can read it as a true, genuine story of Jesus, and I wouldn't have any question about that at all.

Stuart, do you have any thoughts about this passage just in terms of why it's in here?

Yeah, one of the things that interests me is there seems to be a divergence between the Western tradition and the Eastern tradition. So in the Western tradition, you find it's spoken of more. So Augustine speaks of it, Ambrose speaks of it, Bede, the great English scholar, speaks of it. But in the East, some of the big giants like John Chrysostom don't seem to be familiar with it. So we probably have some kind of discrepancy between manuscript traditions in the East and the West.

But yeah, as Western Christians, it's generally been considered part of our scripture, part of our canon from a very early date.

Speaker 1 (06:32.28)
think the other thing to say about this is that it always was until these ancient manuscripts were discovered in the mid-19th century. And if we believe that there is a divine superintendency over the process of forming the canon of scripture, it just seems odd really that for 1800 years people thought this was scripture and then somebody finds an ancient manuscript in a monastery somewhere, suddenly it's not scripture anymore.

So did God get it wrong for 17 or 1800 years? I really don't think so. So that's one of the other things that weighs with me, I suppose.

Yeah, I'd

Yeah, so I suppose let's just look at the story itself and then I guess we can unpack a bit more what's going on here because the details are pretty spare. So it's interesting to try and explore what was maybe happening behind the scenes. So I think the wider context in terms of where it has been placed in the Gospel of John is that there's this growing tension, isn't there, between the Jewish leaders and Jesus.

about who he is, the authority that he has to say the things he's saying and do the things that he's doing. We've already heard in earlier chapters that the Pharisees are plotting against him. They want to kill him. They want to catch him out. And where this story has been placed, it kind of does continue in that theme. So Jesus is in the temple and there are crowds of people that are coming. They're sitting down crowding around him. He's teaching them. And then

Speaker 2 (08:04.01)
into this situation, suddenly a bunch of scribes and Pharisees appear with this woman who they say they announce has been caught in the act of adultery. And they basically pose a question to Jesus. They say, well, now in the law, Moses commanded us to stone such women. So what do you say? So there's a clear challenge here. Stuart, would you mind reading verses 6 to 11 so we can just see how Jesus responds?

Sure.

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.

Is there anything that as you read that just strikes you or any questions that it raises? What particularly grabs you as you read about this incident?

It is a peculiar kind of setup, isn't it? When you think of it, when you picture it in your mind, if you think of this great crowd of people and this poor woman that's been thrown in front of Jesus by these people that are trying to trip him up, Jesus does something really quite bizarre. He kneels down or bends down and starts writing with his finger in the dust. it doesn't seem congruous. It seems like a very odd thing to do. And it reminds me of what the prophets did. You hear stories of the prophets doing these

Speaker 3 (09:55.52)
odd prophetic actions in public to make a point. And when I think of writing with one's finger on the earth or something of the earth, the material of the earth, my mind goes immediately to the tablets of the law that God inscribed with his finger on Mount Sinai. So the immediate kind of image in my mind is Jesus as the divine lawgiver. And that's kind of the context through which then I'm sort of viewing the rest of the story, which for me ultimately is about

revealing something of the face of Jesus. The Jesus who is at one and the same time the just judge, the just lawgiver and mercy itself and these two things meeting and dealing with sin in such a beautiful way so that the woman at the end of the story is free. It's an incredible story.

That's so interesting, Stuart. When we were talking about this earlier, Esther, you mentioned the book of Daniel as well, didn't you? And Belshazzar's feast where the hand appears and writes on the wall, you are weighed in the balance and found wanting and that sort of thing, again, which is a pronunciation of judgment. And one of the suggestions about what Jesus wrote was that

He was following, you know, Roman custom and practice. So he was writing on the ground. The first time he wrote, he was writing the crime of which she was accused. And the second time he was writing the judgment which she faced. But he wrote in the sand, didn't he? He wrote in the dust. it did remind me. in fact, just this last weekend, quality weekend, lovely. And I went to...

a National Trust place, a Roman villa, is quite close to where I live at Chedworth actually. So it goes back to the sort of fourth, fifth century AD. Among the exhibits they've got there are roof tiles, which they'd made and laid out to dry in the sun. Animals had walked across them and there's a hoof print of an ox, there's one of a cat. I think there's a sheep there as well.

Speaker 1 (12:02.712)
that have walked across these and they've left their paw prints there. So those paw prints are what, where are we, sort of 1500, 1600 years old and they're still there. And it just reminded me, or it just spoke to me of how we treat people's because so often as far as we're concerned, if somebody commits a sin, then that's that.

and they are forever tarnished by that. And it's as though we set sins in concrete, but Jesus does not set sins in concrete. He writes them in the dust. And I just think that's such a beautiful, beautiful image.

Yeah, I mean, I think for me, just that point about the mercy that Jesus shows in this situation, that, you know, He's not saying that no sin has been committed. In fact, what comes across is that everybody sinned except Jesus, but, everybody else in that scenario has sinned. That's why they walk away. But it, you know, what He says in John chapter three, those famous verses, for God so loved the world that He gave His only Son that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life.

God did not send his son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him, whoever believes in him is not condemned." So I think there's that idea of judgment, but also condemnation and salvation here and how Jesus handles this situation. mean, yeah, I guess what did he write in the sand? You could speculate endlessly, couldn't you? I do like that idea of it being giving the law.

I was looking at, what is the law of Moses about adultery? Obviously, we've got in the Ten Commandments, do not commit adultery, but Leviticus 20 verse 10 appears to be perhaps what they were citing. interestingly, it mentions the man and the woman. It says, if a man commits adultery with the wife of his neighbor, both the adulterer and the adulteress shall surely be put to death. So if that's the law, there's already the Pharisees and the scribes don't appear to be citing it fully, do they?

Speaker 2 (14:03.754)
as they accuse this woman. And I think that's what comes across to me is there's the injustice as well.

Well, I think there are a couple of things here, actually. One is that this whole thing is a setup. They're trying to test Jesus and the fact is that the Jews didn't have the right to inflict the death penalty. That was reserved to the Romans. So if Jesus had said, well, she should be put to death, he would have been...

accused of inciting, basically inciting a lynching and he would have been held accountable to the Romans. So that's what they want to get him to say basically. But the other thing is that there is this glaring absence in the story, isn't there? It takes two to commit adultery and the man is not there. So I think one of the things about the story is that it is

It's a sort of bare bones thing and there's so much about it that we don't know. But the absence of the man is, I think, one of the most significant parts about it because either they didn't catch the man and that's pretty unlikely, it seems to me, or the man was of a particular status and it would have been impossible for them to drag him into the marketplace so that he could face the risk of stoning.

So they pick on the woman. It might be, and this is speculation, but I think it's fruitful speculation. It's kind of informed speculation. mean, maybe it was somebody who was of that particular male in group. You know, maybe it was one of the scribes. Maybe he was one of the Pharisees. And, you know, the woman was nobody. But for them to turn on one of their own, well, that would be a different thing. Maybe it was a Roman.

Speaker 1 (15:53.054)
And again, obviously we're speculating, but you could not possibly drag a Roman into the marketplace to face stoning. I mean, that just would be unthinkable. And if it was a Roman or indeed, it were just a high status Jewish man, you have to think, well, what exactly is going on here? Well, how much agency did this woman have? And, you know, we hear the word adulterous and we think, terrible, terrible thing. But we know far much more about

power and the abuse of power and the power that men hold over women now than we did, know, even a few years ago it's spoken of, it's acknowledged, it's always happened, but we are so much more sensitive to it now than we ever were. And maybe something like that is going on in this situation.

I mean, just the vulnerability of the woman in that moment, it's so public. even beyond, well, how did she end up in that situation committing adultery? As we've said, this is really a setup from the Pharisees and the scribes. do they really care in that moment so much about justice being done in terms of the sins that have been committed? Or are they just using this woman in a different way to get at Jesus? she

know, if he'd let this go, you know, they didn't really care what happened to her. It was about catching Jesus. that, I mean, I don't know, like because of our modern sensibilities around this, think, you know, we often will read, you know, I think we're more, we will read this as a victim narrative. you know, and I do think this was an incredibly vulnerable woman, there's so much we, I don't know that question of

sin, like Jesus does say to her at the end, go and sin no more. So it's not a question of nothing wrong has happened, but it's an ugly situation that puts all kinds of human sin and hypocrisy on display. I mean, when I'm reading it, I think about how I can identify with lots of different people in this story. I could be that woman who under the law deserves to die. I could be the judgmental Pharisees trying to justify themselves or just being a hypocrite.

Speaker 2 (18:06.89)
It's difficult to read the story and not, you know, to not feel the weight of things that I've done.

Yeah, I think I'm almost tempted to say it's not necessarily a story that's centered on the sin of adultery. That's the catalyst that people have used, these people have used to try to get Jesus into a trap. It's really a story about sin, justice and mercy in general. And the really interesting thing to me is the courage and the bravery of the woman in contrast to the

inability to face up to reality of the scribes and the Pharisees. Jesus does this wonderful thing where He forces them to face up to the reality of their own sinfulness before the Lord, before God. the scribes and the Pharisees, can't deal with that. And it's interesting, that little line that they walk away beginning with the oldest. I read that as the oldest who are most familiar with their sins.

who know who they really are and they know they can't be the one to cast the first stone, but neither can they face up to their own sinfulness. So they turn and they walk away, leaving at the end just Jesus and this woman, the woman who is the only character in the story to own who she is and to own what she has done. And in owning that, in standing before Jesus and sort of saying, here I am, Lord, he offers forgiveness to her.

And more than that, offers transformation. Go and sin no more. So it's not just a hopeless situation of, well, you're forgiven, but you're to go and do it again. Jesus kind of gives a commission to her of going to the world, go out into the world now and live this life of freedom that I've given you. And I think that's really beautiful. as I say, it highlights for me just that bravery of that individual woman in comparison to the others.

Speaker 3 (20:09.366)
I think it's stunning really. And that's what I mean by it reveals really the face of Jesus and His mercy, because we're all called to stand before Jesus as who and what we are, owning that so that He can then forgive us and transform us.

I think that's a brilliant insight, Stuart, actually, and thank you for that. I think what you say about it revealing so much about the behaviour of the scribes and Pharisees and the heart of the scribes and Pharisees is so important as well. And it's interesting, I was looking at what St Ambrose wrote about this and he said that it shows that adultery is a crime that's like a speck while

crime of trying to trap and refusing to acknowledge the author of salvation, he says is like a beam. It's the, know, adultery is an ugly thing, but hypocrisy is even worse, says Ambrose. And I think that's what comes out so clearly in this story, actually. They are the ones who are more guilty than the woman who has taken an adultery, because they won't face their own nature. They won't face what they've done.

And when Jesus says at the end, go and sin no more, it's not a condemnation. It's more like a blessing, actually. I'm offering, know, whatever the circumstances were, whatever the situation was, I'm offering you a new start. And it's interesting that the other place where he says that is also in John's Gospel when he heals a man in John chapter 5. And he says to that man, go and sin no more. And there's no suggestion that this man had sinned, actually. He was just ill.

And so it's almost as though Jesus was saying here too for you, there is a chance of a new start, there's a chance of a new life. It's so rich, isn't it? It's so beautiful.

Speaker 2 (21:55.362)
Yeah, life in all its fullness. If I can pick up on two things, I think that's really key actually, not just pointing out what you said about the Jewish leaders. It's a hypocrisy, but it's also their hard-heartedness because it's within that wider context of rejecting Jesus, rejecting the Messiah, rejecting the evidence of the works that he's doing and the things that he's saying. can't, you Stuart, you mentioned kind of they're reluctant, you know, they won't face up to this.

because they're not going to change their view of Jesus, they're not going to admit that they have been wrong. The only thing they can do is harden their heart and walk away. And so I think that's really key. But I was also thinking about as well in scripture, kind of the history of what, well, how does God handle infidelity, adultery, all of those things. You know, if you think about King David and Bathsheba, you know, if when the law is perfectly upheld, you know,

adultery always meant stoning people to death. Well, Psalm 51 would never have been written, would it? know, geez, David, he admitted his sin. was the prophet, yeah, prophet Nathan came and convicted him and he admitted his sin. But something about that story is that even after, I guess, David and Bathsheba have been sort of forgiven and redeemed, you know, they're even in the lineage of Christ, aren't they? It doesn't mean that it's easy for them afterwards. And I do wonder that about this woman because

Jesus says to her, and sin no more. There's nobody else around by that point. But I wonder, know, everybody still knew what she had done. I doubt her life in society after that would have been easy. I wonder if the forgiveness that Jesus extended to her would have been, you know, just adopted by everybody around. I sort of doubt that. But that does bring, doesn't it, a really interesting point about our forgiveness in front of God and the way that

you know, our sins are known in society. Ultimately, where does forgiveness come from and what matters, in whose eyes do we need to be clean?

Speaker 1 (23:55.414)
Yeah, I think that that's right. And I think the context of this story really is the Christian community. And so I'm sure you're right about her status in society. I mean, I can't imagine that it would have been a very forgiving environment. But I think this is a call on us to be a forgiving people. It's interesting that, you know, back to St Augustine,

used the story in one of his writings to say that men whose wives had committed adultery should take them back and should no longer think of them as adulteresses. You know, it should be wiped away, which is tremendously challenging, tremendously difficult. know, whenever there is infidelity in a marriage, it takes an awful lot to get past that. And it's hard, but that's the nature of forgiveness, isn't it? It's not cheap grace.

But also the picture of marriage, you know, that is supposed to point to Christ in the church, I suppose, because, you know, or even if you think about the book of Hosea, the prophet whose wife constantly betrays him and he takes her back. And that's this picture of God's love for his wayward people and his forgiveness of them. And it's, you know, the most intimate relationship that should be, you you should be able to trust in that. So the most painful betrayal when it happens.

and yet this incredible picture of an ability to come together. I think it's very difficult to live that out in reality, but I think you're right that that picture is definitely there in scripture. And I guess only by God's grace can we, and that we've received, can we actually share that with others who've wronged us.

And it won't always be the right thing for everybody to do either. No. Let's just be clear about that. But it's an image of what could be.

Speaker 3 (25:45.214)
Yeah, absolutely. It's something which strikes me. know, forgiveness is not cheap, it's not easy, as we said. In the Catholic Church, we say the Lord's Prayer three times a day in morning prayer, mass, and evening prayer. And that line always strikes me, forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who have trespassed against us. And that is so difficult. And I think we're comfortable with the first part, forgive us our trespasses, we want God to forgive us. But we're not so comfortable with the second part, which is, are we able to forgive those around us? And that takes

I think a lot of different forms, those who are close to us, who hurt us, but also much wider than that in society. Are we able to forgive people that we see in the news who've done horrific things? And I think there's a difference between rehabilitation and an interior kind of forgiveness and that kind of interior discipline of letting that kind of hurt go and recognizing that in the cross we have a sufficient sacrifice for sin or sin.

There's freedom in that if we can enter into it, but it's difficult and sometimes it takes a long time to get to that point, but it's the freedom that Jesus offers. And I'm struck by the fact that, you know, I'm sat here in Warsaw and you can't go very far at all in Poland without seeing an image of what we call divine mercy, which is a devotion that was founded in Poland just before the Second World War by a nun, St. Postina. And it's a picture of Jesus walking towards the viewer with

Two rays of light coming out of his heart, one white, one red, symbolizing the blood and water that Jesus shed on the cross. And these rays of light are coming out and embracing the viewer. And there's an inscription on the bottom that just says, Jesus, I trust in you. And it's such a beautiful image that just summarizes the mercy that's on offer. It comes from Jesus, it comes towards us and embraces us. And the way we kind of hold onto that and become part of it is trust. We trust in

it interesting that really throughout this conversation, the person that you'd most want to end up being in this story is actually the woman who was caught in adultery. At the end of it, that assurance that she kind of has through Jesus, I mean, I hope, I wonder how much she understood of what she was being offered, but that picture of us as repentant sinners then.

Speaker 2 (28:04.79)
set free, know, washed clean by Jesus and set into this fullness of life that is available to us. Go and live and follow my way. That's the best place to be, isn't it? I think, well, we're probably heading towards the end of the episode. I'm just wondering if there's anything else or anything like any takeaways from this conversation, anything you particularly feel has come across to you strongly or any, yeah, just anything you'd like to add before we sign off.

think for me, one of the things that's come out really strongly from our conversation is just how challenging this is really. You know, it is the scribes and the Pharisees who are ending up being judged or judging themselves because they know their sins but they can't face up to their sins, as you were saying earlier Stuart. And I think that's really powerful. And I think the forgiveness which Jesus extends to this woman is really powerful as well. And that makes us think, well, you know, could we be as forgiving in a situation like that?

And I know that one of the suggestions that people have made from the very earliest times is that maybe the reason why this story has struggled to find a place in the New Testament is just because it is so challenging. know, does it show Jesus being soft on sin? Does it sort of minimise the sin of adultery? Well, I don't think it does, obviously, but it just shows the challenging nature of

forgiveness, I think, and just how gracious God is, how gracious Jesus is and how we're called to follow that. And it's a very striking, very striking image.

Yeah, I'd echo that. think it doesn't minimize sin, but it puts sin into perspective. Sin is real and it's an awful thing, but it's nothing when compared to the mercy of God. And yeah, this story just puts that into perspective.

Speaker 2 (29:51.788)
Yeah, I think I'm probably paraphrasing, I might get it slightly wrong, but there is a Bible verse that talks about mercy triumphing over judgment. And this, guess, is a picture of that. As a woman reading it, you know, I can't help but have strong feelings about the whole scenario. And I'm sure it's the same for men too. But yeah, just that picture of mercy instead of judgment, hope instead of condemnation, life instead of death.

Amazing. Right, well, we're going to end the episode there. We hope you enjoyed this episode. If you've got any questions for us, please do submit them to biblesociety.org.uk forward slash rooted questions. And thank you for spending your time with us.

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Speaker 3 (30:39.246)
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