This coming Sunday is the 5th Sunday in Lent and our gospel is the “women caught in adultery.” In the previous post we introduced some preliminary background on the Law of Moses pertaining to this circumstance. It is also clear that the intention of the scribes and Pharisee was to simply use the woman and her circumstances “so that they could have some charge to bring against [Jesus]” (v.6) in order to fulfill their own murderous intent against Jesus (7:1). Their immediate goal is to trap Jesus between the requirements of the Law and his teaching of forgiveness and reconciliation. Will Jesus show himself to be a true son of Moses and do what the Law requires, i.e. agree that stoning the woman is the God-intended course of action? Will he defy the law and offer forgiveness?

The story unfolds in four stages:

• The Setting of the Scene (8:1-8:2)
• The Challenge of the Jewish Leaders (8:3-6)
• Jesus Response to the Leaders (8:7-9)
• Jesus’ Reconciliation of the Woman (8:10-11) 

In John 7 the Feast of Tabernacles is underway. Jesus has been publically teaching in the Temple precincts, arousing the interest of the people and the concern of the Jewish religious leadership.  The leadership meeting presumably took place on the last (and seventh) day of the feast. They are discussing what to do with Jesus – and murder seems to be on their minds (7:1).  Early the next day, Jesus is coming early to the temple to teach on the morning of the added eighth day of the feast, which was a day of rest (Lev 23:39).

The Pharisees disturbed whatever rest there was to be had. In the middle of the public forum that was the Temple area, the Pharisees bring a woman “caught in adultery.” This does not mean that there were suspicions or circumstantial indications. This means that the witnesses had seen the very act. The first question that immediately rises to the fore is: where is the man? Why has he not been hauled into the public square? Perhaps he ran away or was let go? Perhaps he was never there and this is a woman about whom there are rumors (the tense of the verb “taken” indicates an act with continuity in time) and a particularly zealous Pharisee – or a particularly vindictive one. It is not hard to imagine an echo of the story of Susanna in the Book of Daniel. It has the hallmarks of a trap deliberately set.

Image Credit: Detail of “Christ and the Adulteress” Rembrandt, 1644 | National Gallery London | PD-US