Wednesday, April 28, 2010

99 problems but a girl ain't one...scratch that (John 8:11)

he without sin throw the first stone
So many questions can be brought up with this passage. It takes two to fornicate, so where is Mr. Adulterer? In Jewish law, stoning only applies if the woman was a betrothed virgin, so what's with the hostilities? Romans didn't allow the Jews to carry out the death penalty anyway, so why even bother? All of these questions have logical answers that I think you can figure out on your own, so I'll skip to the big league chew.

Remember John 5:4? Well, if you have the NIV you don't. We've got a similar situation here. There may be a big notice in your Bible after John 7:52 that says something along the lines of “the earliest and most reliable manuscripts and other ancient witnesses do not have John 7:53-8:11.” So why is this still in the NIV while other verses are completely taken out? The consensus I'm getting is that most people don't doubt that it's an authentic story about Jesus. They doubt whether it goes here and if it was written by John. Some argue that this story was taken out of the original Greek manuscripts because early Christians thought Jesus' lenience toward adultery would be misunderstood by the new believers who were used to god-worship-sex-parties.

This story has one last mystery element. What does Jesus write on the ground? After extensive research I think I've found the answer. Jesus was writing a message to the woman's accusers. He wrote the following:

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