Alan Watson, «Jesus and the Adulteress», Vol. 80 (1999) 100-108

Many factors contribute to a re-examination of the story of the adulterous woman (John 7,53–8,11). This essay responds to these factors by its defense of the suggestion that the woman is a re-married divorcee, at fault not with the Mosaic Law, but with the teaching of Jesus on divorce.

disappear (v. 9). To some at least the words would seem to be a challenge. Actually, this translation of The New Revised Standard Version is not quite accurate. More accurate, I believe, would be "Let the one who is among you without sin ...".

        8. Why is the person without sin singular, not plural, and what sin is he free from? All sins? Or one relating to adultery or to this adultery? And, in the rabbinic tradition, it is the witnesses who have to throw stones first⁹.

        9. What is the purpose of Jesus writing on the ground? Why is the act of writing stressed — we are twice told of it, at v. 6 and again at v. 8 — when we are not told, and cannot discover, what he wrote?¹⁰

        10. Why was this an issue on which to test Jesus? What had it to do with him?¹¹

        With all these problems the representation in the pericope cannot have historical accuracy. Reasonably, Duncan Derrett claims that parts of the text "cannot be understood as they stand"¹². Are we to follow Derrett in thinking the woman was caught in a trap set by her husband who thus was at fault for not preventing a crime?¹³ Or should we, like Ulrich Becker, strip away texts of the pericope as secondary¹⁴. Again I wish to emphasize that the oddities of the pericope are in the tradition. Their existence in the tradition has to be accounted for, independently of any question of historical truth.

III

        For my explanation of the episode I wish to make two assumptions that I hope will not be judged unreasonable. My first assumption is that the episode as it was originally had a point. My second assumption is that the troubling elements of the episode should illuminate that point. They are survivals¹⁵. A satisfactory explanation of the original tradition should cause these elements to be less troubling. The main troubling points are again that proof of adultery is declared, the woman has not been tried, no one condemns the woman, the adulterer does not appear, the supposed witnesses have no role, Jesus is asked his stance vis-à-vis the Mosaic law, his response is ambiguous, "Let the one who is without sin throw the first stone". Above all perhaps, we are expressly told that the Pharisees and scribes were out to trap Jesus.

        I would put the episode in a specific historical context. Jesus had declared that a woman whose husband had divorced her and who remarried committed adultery (Matt 5,31-32; 19,3-9; Mark 10,2-9.) The woman