John 8:4-6: “They say unto him, Master, this woman was taken in adultery, in the very act. Now Moses in the law commanded us, that such should be stoned: but what sayest thou? This they said, tempting him, that they might have to accuse him. But Jesus stooped down, and with [his] finger wrote on the ground, [as though he heard them not].” That last part in brackets, He heard them not,  is not in the original inspired text.

 

Yesterday I was reading in the Talmud in Sanhedrin 2a-b.  As I read I once again wondered how Christians remain so aloof to the teachings of the ancient rabbis and sages and formulate their own opinions on difficult passages when it is not difficult if you give some attention to the ancient Jewish culture.  This is one of many examples. Christians seem to just teach what some other teacher had taught who learned it from another who learned it from another teacher, but few ever really step out their box and go to a Jewish source for answers.  A-fter 2,000 years we Christians still ponder over passages that were easily understood by the Jewish people in the first century.

 

I have heard many Christians try to explain this passage in John 8:1-11 in a ways that left me with  many questions.   What did Jesus write in the ground?  How were they testing Jesus by quoting the Torah and saying the woman should be stoned?  Why did these so call blood thirsty Pharisees who were apparently very anxious to put this woman to death suddenly find they had to walk away when Jesus said: “He who is without sin, let him cast the first stone.”  Finally, what did the woman mean no one was accusing her?  She was caught red handed, why would someone not accuse her and stone her according to the law?

 

I have heard dozens of explanations, like what it was that Jesus wrote in the ground.  I have heard explanations that Jesus wrote the names of the men who committed adultery with this woman.  That seems to be very popular because: “Ha Ha, Jesus really caught them red handed.”  What Jesus really did, however, was much more clever and more profound than that.

 

Around 300 AD Constantine conquered all of Europe and wanted to consolidate his kingdom.  To do this he needed to have a unified religion. Thus he began to universalize Christianity with other pagan religions, bringing in pagan worship practices.  The Jewish Christians rebelled.  Well, rebellion was one thing Constantine would not tolerate so he threw all the Jews out of the church including  their two thousand years of culture, traditions and books like the Talmud.  The church then declared the Jews were Christ killers and that became the orthodox teaching passing into Protestantism with Martin Luther who took a dim view of the Jews.  It was not until 1962 when Pope John attended a mass where the priest was performing his obligatory Good Friday  sermon condemning the Jews as Christ killers. The pope was aghast that the church still clung to this dogma.  He declared the Jews were not Christ killers and the priests were never again to preach a sermon against the Jews.

 

You see Pope John was a scholar who studied the Talmud and I believe he read what I read in Sanhedrin 2a-b and realized that the Jews as a whole in the first century were anything but Christ killers.  Oh to be sure there was a small segment of Jews who wanted to put Jesus to death, but it was a very small segment.   Let me quote to you from the Talmud something that was in practice during the day of Jesus:

 

“Monetary matters are decided by a court of three judges . . . capital crimes {like adultery} by a tribunal of twenty-three judges. . . . From where is this derived? For it is written (Numbers 35:24–25): “The community shall judge . . . and the community shall save”—we need a community of judges arguing to convict the accused, and a community of judges arguing to exonerate him. Thus we have twenty (a “community” indicating a minimum of 10, as per Numbers 14:27). A conviction requires a majority of two (as per Exodus 23:2), and a court of law cannot have an even number of judges; thus we need twenty-three judges (22 so that there should be a majority of 2 over the 10 “saving” judges, and another judge so that the court should not be even-numbered).” Sanhedrin 2 a-b.

Twenty three judges were necessary for a conviction of a capital crime like adultery.  These Pharisees who took this woman to Jesus knew the law very well and knew Jesus could not condemn this woman under present Jewish law for you needed a court of 23 judges.  Aside from this were many other hoops such as the nature of witnesses and their testimonies to jump through so that  by the first century the Jews made it virtually impossible to execute anyone.  That is why Jesus had to be tried before Pilate.  By the time the Jews returned from their captivity they could no longer stomach the idea of killing someone even if he was a criminal.   So they, like we have done in our country, created some many checks and balances, appeals and rules of law that it would take years for a person to be executed if he is executed at all.

These Pharisees were not trying to kill this woman, they were trying to put Jesus in a tight situation where He had to admit that the oral law, the Traditions of the Fathers carried as much weight as the Torah.  You see they believed that whatever was bound on earth by two or three in agreement would be bound in heaven.  The Talmud teaches that where two or three are gathered together in agreement the Divine presence is in their midst. In other words where two or three are in agreement that watching a football game on Sunday is in violation of the Sabbath law of keeping the day holy, then they would bind this on earth and it would therefore be bound in heaven.  Hence the authority of the Tradition of the Fathers or the Talmud.

But Jesus was teaching against the authority of the Tradition of the Fathers and many of the laws of the Tradition of the Fathers or the Talmud so these Pharisees were testing Jesus trying to back Him in a corner where He had to admit to the authority of the Tradition of the Father or appear as a heartless, vindictive teacher totally out of character with the true nature of a loving God.

However, Jesus did them one better. I asked a rabbi what he thought Jesus wrote in the ground and he laughed.  “Must I, a Jew, explain your own New Testament to you?  Jesus obviously wrote a Yod for the name of God, the feminine form, the loving, benevolent, caring nature of God.  He could not speak that name nor write it, but he could write the Yod and the Pharisees knew what He meant. Jesus appealed to the mercy side of God, the side that forgives.  Had he wrote an Aleph for Elohim it would show the masculine side the disciplinary side that would condemn the woman.  Instead Jesus simply told the Pharisees, we all deserve to die for our sins, if there is anyone of you who is sinless and does not need the mercy of God, let him cast the first stone.  Of course they all had to leave for they knew they needed God’s mercy as much as this poor woman.”

I don’t know about you but I think it is time we begin to study some of the teachings of the founders of our Christian faith, the Jews, and perhaps it is now time that we begin to see the fulfillment of Zechariah 8:23: Thus saith the LORD of hosts; In those days [it shall come to pass], that ten men shall take hold out of all languages of the nations, even shall take hold of the skirt of him that is a Jew, saying, We will go with you: for we have heard [that] God [is] with you.

 

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