Where are your accusers?

[morningstar2651]

A post in the For New Christians section opened my eyes to something I overlooked in the following story...

1But Jesus went to the Mount of Olives. 2At dawn he appeared again in the temple courts, where all the people gathered around him, and he sat down to teach them. 3The teachers of the law and the Pharisees brought in a woman caught in adultery. They made her stand before the group 4and said to Jesus, "Teacher, this woman was caught in the act of adultery. 5In the Law Moses commanded us to stone such women. Now what do you say?" 6They were using this question as a trap, in order to have a basis for accusing him.
But Jesus bent down and started to write on the ground with his finger. 7When they kept on questioning him, he straightened up and said to them, "If any one of you is without sin, let him be the first to throw a stone at her." 8Again he stooped down and wrote on the ground.
9At this, those who heard began to go away one at a time, the older ones first, until only Jesus was left, with the woman still standing there. 10Jesus straightened up and asked her, "Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?"
11"No one, sir," she said.
"Then neither do I condemn you," Jesus declared. "Go now and leave your life of sin."

Now, from 8:3, we see that she was caught in adultery, which means the Pharisees would apply the following law:

23 If a man happens to meet in a town a virgin pledged to be married and he sleeps with her, 24 you shall take both of them to the gate of that town and stone them to death—the girl because she was in a town and did not scream for help, and the man because he violated another man's wife. You must purge the evil from among you.

However, if this really were the case, then the Pharisees would have brought two people to Jesus instead of one -- where is the man she was caught with?

If she wasn't caught, then the only law the Pharisees could have applied would have been:

11 Then the LORD said to Moses, 12 "Speak to the Israelites and say to them: 'If a man's wife goes astray and is unfaithful to him 13 by sleeping with another man, and this is hidden from her husband and her impurity is undetected (since there is no witness against her and she has not been caught in the act), 14 and if feelings of jealousy come over her husband and he suspects his wife and she is impure—or if he is jealous and suspects her even though she is not impure- 15 then he is to take his wife to the priest. He must also take an offering of a tenth of an ephah [c] of barley flour on her behalf. He must not pour oil on it or put incense on it, because it is a grain offering for jealousy, a reminder offering to draw attention to guilt. 16 " 'The priest shall bring her and have her stand before the LORD. 17 Then he shall take some holy water in a clay jar and put some dust from the tabernacle floor into the water. 18 After the priest has had the woman stand before the LORD, he shall loosen her hair and place in her hands the reminder offering, the grain offering for jealousy, while he himself holds the bitter water that brings a curse. 19 Then the priest shall put the woman under oath and say to her, "If no other man has slept with you and you have not gone astray and become impure while married to your husband, may this bitter water that brings a curse not harm you. 20 But if you have gone astray while married to your husband and you have defiled yourself by sleeping with a man other than your husband"- 21 here the priest is to put the woman under this curse of the oath-"may the LORD cause your people to curse and denounce you when he causes your thigh to waste away and your abdomen to swell. [d] 22 May this water that brings a curse enter your body so that your abdomen swells and your thigh wastes away. [e] "
" 'Then the woman is to say, "Amen. So be it."
23 " 'The priest is to write these curses on a scroll and then wash them off into the bitter water. 24 He shall have the woman drink the bitter water that brings a curse, and this water will enter her and cause bitter suffering. 25 The priest is to take from her hands the grain offering for jealousy, wave it before the LORD and bring it to the altar. 26 The priest is then to take a handful of the grain offering as a memorial offering and burn it on the altar; after that, he is to have the woman drink the water. 27 If she has defiled herself and been unfaithful to her husband, then when she is made to drink the water that brings a curse, it will go into her and cause bitter suffering; her abdomen will swell and her thigh waste away, [f] and she will become accursed among her people. 28 If, however, the woman has not defiled herself and is free from impurity, she will be cleared of guilt and will be able to have children.
29 " 'This, then, is the law of jealousy when a woman goes astray and defiles herself while married to her husband, 30 or when feelings of jealousy come over a man because he suspects his wife. The priest is to have her stand before the LORD and is to apply this entire law to her. 31 The husband will be innocent of any wrongdoing, but the woman will bear the consequences of her sin.' "

In which case, the only person who could rightly accuse her would be her husband, but the husband is nowhere to be found. Where is her husband?

In either scenario, someone is missing:
Where is the man she commited adultery with?
Where is her husband?

 

[Emmy]

Dear morningstar2651. If I have overlooked something in mymessage, forgive me, but I cannot see a partner to the woman. Since Jesus says to the woman: " Go now and leave your life of sin," I presume she was a prostitute, and the partner in the crime had disappeared. I believe the Bible was pointing out, that the woman was a sinner, but she was not a lost sinner. Leave the life of sin, is repenting, and Jesus promised us that God will forgive all, who repent, ask forgiveness and sincerely try and change. Jesus could have said more to the caught woman, but I believe His presence and forgiveness, changed the woman. I say this humbly and with love, morningstar. Greetings from Emmy, sister in Christ.

 

[Bryan519]

The first passage you referenced doesn't really say where the husband or the alduterer is, which indicates to me that isn't the point of the passage.

 

[morningstar2651]

The first passage you referenced doesn't really say where the husband or the alduterer is, which indicates to me that isn't the point of the passage.

I understand the message of the passage, but it takes on an extra layer of meaning now that I noticed the lack of the husband and the lack of the adulterer.

Raising more questions - Why did the Pharisees do as Jesus commanded? They wanted him to stone her, but they refused to do it themselves.

Why didn't the Pharisees stone the woman?

It seems that she may have been innocent of the crime she was accused of, and the Pharisees knew she was innocent.

Looking through some commentaries, it also appears that perhaps the Pharisees overlooked the man's crime, explaining his absense.
http://www.blueletterbible.org/cgi-...html#ch8&.Chuck&Smith&Select.x=13&Select.y=13

Looks like one possible reason is that it would be illegal for them to do so by Roman law.

This second commentary has a lot of interesting ideas in it:
http://www.blueletterbible.org/cgi-....html#0&*David+Guzik&&Select.x=23&Select.y=20

 

[Bryan519]

I understand the message of the passage, but it takes on an extra layer of meaning now that I noticed the lack of the husband and the lack of the adulterer.

Raising more questions - Why did the Pharisees do as Jesus commanded? They wanted him to stone her, but they refused to do it themselves.

Why didn't the Pharisees stone the woman?

It seems that she may have been innocent of the crime she was accused of, and the Pharisees knew she was innocent.

Looking through some commentaries, it also appears that perhaps the Pharisees overlooked the man's crime, explaining his absense.
http://www.blueletterbible.org/cgi-...html#ch8&.Chuck&Smith&Select.x=13&Select.y=13

Looks like one possible reason is that it would be illegal for them to do so by Roman law.

This second commentary has a lot of interesting ideas in it:
http://www.blueletterbible.org/cgi-....html#0&*David+Guzik&&Select.x=23&Select.y=20

The problem here is that you are assuming that because the husband and the adulterer were not mentioned in this passage that they were not present. the passage neither confirms or refutes that assumption.

 

[Zunalter]

From what I understand, one of the main points of this scripture is that they didn't bring the man she had supposedly slept with to Jesus as well, showing that they weren't interested in following the Law but rather in attempting to trap Jesus:

If Jesus said "Stone her" he would be guilty of breaking Roman law, since the death penalty was only to be administered with approval from the Romans. But, if he said "Let her be" the Jews would have accused him of breaking Jewish Law. So, as usual, Jesus did what he does best: showed their hypocrisy.

The fact that nobody threw a stone and instead walked off did not signify that these people recognized that they were sinful, but simply that Jesus had found a way out of their trap and thus they lost interest. That is another pointer to the fact that they weren't interested in keeping the Law so much as trapping Jesus.

 

[MrShine]

I would agree with the above answer as well as the others.

The similarity to this story is almost like the of the Story of The good Samaritin-Both times they were trying to entrap Jesus and He came back with loving answers away from the Law. They didn't comprehend Grace yet as they were still under Law.

The story of the aldulteress has a couple of points-One is that everyone has sinned. That is why all of the crowd ended up walking off after He asked, Who ever has not sinned, cast the first stone. His wise answer caused them to leave one by one; Oldest first (Perhaps the oldest that left were the biggest pharasees and realized they can't keep the Law ).

She was still under Law-But Jesus gave her the instruction to "sin no more," She left which I would take as she believed He was more then just A man- Who the other guilty party was is not important in this lesson.
Perhaps there were many others before this incident earlier in her life. She as everyone else were all sinners regardless as no one could keep the law in it's entirety. Thus is The whole Gospel of Jesus Christ.

Now the Story of the Good Samartin is similiar in that they were trying to trap Jesus again and a man of law thought he could trick Him- Again, there is a huge lesson in this story as some may ask "Who was the one that was robbed and beaten?" It is not important who he was but the lesson is that it does not matter who he was but focused on the one who had compassion and the two who passed Him by. Two were hypocrites and passed him by- A Samaratin (Despised by the Jews) was the one who showed compassion. Thus; Love Thy Neighbour.

I hope this help along with the others answers

 

[OldWiseGuy]

Adam Clarke offers some interesting thoughts.

Adultery and fornication were widespread in Jesus day. The Romans forbid the death penalty without State consent. There was a permissive attitude toward such offences, and the "waters of jealousy" ritual had fallen into disuse. Much of the Law had been replaced by the "traditions" that had supplanted it.

The Pharisees wanted to trap Jesus by trickery. If he took the bait and condemned the woman he would be no different than them and would be a teacher of the law. And he would be in trouble with the Romans as well for inciting an illegal act of capital punishment.

Clarke also doubts that the offence even rose to the level of stoning under the law. That she was caught "in the act of adultery" says nothing of the involvement of each participant. If she was a prostitute she was guilty of "whoredom" and not adultery, in the strict sense. If so it was a married man that committed adultery against his wife by sleeping with a her, a prostitute. This was very common in that day.

Clarke also posits that Jesus was indeed rehearsing the sins of those Pharisees, writing them in the dust, which prompted the eldest of them to leave the scene first, perhaps having a long list of similiar offences.

owg