Then each of them went home, while Jesus went to the Mount of Olives. Early in the morning he came again to the temple. All the people came to him and he sat down and began to teach them. The scribes and the Pharisees brought a woman who had been caught in adultery; and making her stand before all of them, they said to him, ‘Teacher, this woman was caught in the very act of committing adultery. Now in the law Moses commanded us to stone such women. Now what do you say?’ They said this to test him, so that they might have some charge to bring against him. Jesus bent down and wrote with his finger on the ground.When they kept on questioning him, he straightened up and said to them, ‘Let anyone among you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her.’ And once again he bent down and wrote on the ground. When they heard it, they went away, one by one, beginning with the elders; and Jesus was left alone with the woman standing before him. Jesus straightened up and said to her, ‘Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?’ She said, ‘No one, sir.’ And Jesus said, ‘Neither do I condemn you. Go your way, and from now on do not sin again.’
When you do a little poking around with this verse (on Bible Gateway in this case), you find this note on one of the translations:
"The earliest manuscripts and many other ancient witnesses do not have John 7:53—8:11. A few manuscripts include these verses, wholly or in part, after John 7:36, John 21:25, Luke 21:38 or Luke 24:53."
Now when I started this devotion based on the daily lectionary, I went in with the plan that I'd react each day with the text - not go into an in depth study. And I'm going to honor that promise to myself here, but boy is it tempting not to.
When I read a note about the text like this the first question of course that comes to mind is "Why?"
Why was it left out and/or why was it put in?
I'm not going to answer that question, but I'm going to hopefully put that bee in your bonnet about it. Why was this text added? For what purpose?
I hope to put that bee in your bonnet to draw your curiosity to the scriptures. Here is a story that we probably know - or think we know - better than a lot of Biblical stories. Can't we picture this woman? Picture Jesus, writing with his stick in the sand? Feel that indignation and anger at the men who wanted to throw stones at her and then a bit of satisfaction at their shame when they don't?
Yet this story wasn't there initially.
How has this story framed our image of Jesus over the years and how might that image have changed (or not) without it?
And what does this tell us about how scripture was framed? What does it tell us about the agenda that the gospel writer of John had?
Yes...I said agenda. He had one. And that's not a bad thing. We've gotten used to thinking agendas are manipulative, but that's not what's going on when we think of how the gospel writers all put together their books of good news. They all had something they wanted to say. Something they wanted to teach. Something they wanted the reader (or in the early days, the hearer) to know about Jesus.
What does John want us to know about Jesus?
Why do you think this was added?
God of mystery, ignite a fire of curiosity in me about your Word and your good news. Let me always seek to grow and learn and feed my faith with your scriptures. Amen.
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