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Christianity Today, April (Web-only), 2008 |

Is 'Let Him Who Is Without Sin Cast the First Stone' Biblical?

Scholars are cautious about the story of the woman caught in adultery.

Sarah Eekhoff Zylstra | posted 4/23/2008 09:15AM

When Dallas Theological Seminary professor Daniel Wallace examined New Testament manuscripts stored in the National Archive in Albania last June, he was amazed by what he did not find.

The story of the ...

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Jack	Posted: May 01, 2008 11:24 PM


> How can I reconcile my belief in the inerrancy of Scripture > with comments in Bible translations that state that a particular verse > is not 'in better manuscripts'? Simple: Change your belief to acknowledge that Scripture is not inerrant--which it isn't. That doesn't mean it's not scripture, however.

Clark Coleman

Posted: April 29, 2008 8:24 PM

2-part reply cont'd (space limitations). As the Pharisees often did, they tested Jesus' divinity claim by giving him a truly unsolvable dilemma. Jesus could advocate disobedience to the Romans (stoning) or not following the law strictly (not stoning). His answer amounts to: Your dilemma is caused by your own sins, which are the reason God permits heathens to rule over the Promised Land and you. If anyone here has no sin, he is not responsible for this dilemma, and he can cast the first stone. Of course, no such man existed. I do not believe that this was a simple message of forgiving all sins, consistent with the Sermon on the Mount, etc. Jesus would have to advocate a blanket amnesty from punishment under the law in order to be consistent with such interpretations. Why amnesty for one woman out of all sinners, while thieves, etc., continue to get the prescribed punishments? Why not ask where the offending man is, if that was his point? Jesus made a 1st century Jewish/Roman point.

Clark Coleman

Posted: April 29, 2008 7:50 PM

I believe that the proper interpretation of the verse resolves the tension between this verse and the rest of scripture. Though many here have denied that such tension exists, you don't have to look too deeply to find it. As some have pointed out, we are called to judge sins in the church, which is not the same as judging someone's eternal destiny. Furthermore, the law required death for adultery, and Jesus was not setting aside the law before his crucifixion. Leviticus 20:10 might prescribe death for both the man and woman in adultery, it is a leap of logic to infer that one party cannot be punished without the other. New Testament scholar F.F. Bruce explained the dilemma facing the Pharisees in this passage. The law required death, but Roman law did not permit a death sentence for adultery. The Jews lived under Roman law. If they stoned the woman, they would be prosecuted for murder by the Romans. If they don't stone her to death, they are not following the law.

JAM	Posted: April 29, 2008 12:54 PM

I read this passage as a reluctant Catholic who wonders about the authority of the "Church deciding the Canon" question. Obviously, it is the Church that has given us scripture. Do the keys of the kingdom include the authority to decide the authenticity of disputed passages? What should we do, for example, with Mark 16:9-20? If the Church, under the guidance of the Holy Spirit says this or that passage, missing in early manuscripts is, nonetheless, the Word of God, can the Church's imprimatur, for presumably good and defensible reasons, make that passage into the Word of God? I'm not sure. However, in many ways, I'd rather the Church decide than leave the matter entirely up to a scholarly-critical consensus of biblical investigators whose primary loyalty is to scholarship rather than to a reasonable faith.

Dennis

Posted: April 29, 2008 11:18 AM

Christ's own defense of His virgin birth follows the story of the woman taken in adultery. He is questioned at length about who His father is, where He came from. Finally, He is accused of being a Samaritan. His response leaves no doubt about the implication to Mary, "You do dishonor me." How can a careful reader of John 8 say that vv. 1-8 are an interruption? " I honor my Father ... my Father honors me, whom you say that he is your God." These verses are a prelude that make plain the rest of the chapter.

twolfpb01

Posted: April 28, 2008 9:55 AM

St. John 8:1-11 can easily be understood when the scripture is put in its proper context. The scribes and Pharisees brought unto Jesus a woman taken in adultery. They came to Jesus quoting the law of Moses, but were not following it. Leviticus 20:10 reads that "the man that committeth adultery with another man's wife, even he that committeth adultery with his neighbor's wife, the adulterer and the adulteress shall be put to death". Where was the Man? Male shovenism clearly existed in biblical time. People tend to take the word of God and bend it in order to fit their personal opinion. Maybe the man was of some importance and they didn't want him put to death for breaking the law; or maybe he was a family relative. Either way, the word of God is absolute and we must obey it.

Harry

Posted: April 28, 2008 1:24 AM


This text is powerful in the way it illustrates a man's conscience and so they didn't need Jesus to judge them,their self testimony of what they were was enough.It's funny 2000 years down the road people are still undecided about certain scriptures.

Edward Crim

Posted: April 27, 2008 8:09 AM

It is astounding that a seminary professor doesn't know of the written history of the Adultery Pericope (I hope he isn't the norm at DTS). But the likelihood of Jesus saying "Let him who is without sin cast the first stone" and "Go and sin no more" is high, considering his other admonitions ("Judge not, lest you be judged" and "Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly father is perfect"). What I don't understand is why I bother to read CT when they publish such shallow and ill-considered articles as this. It belongs on CNN. CT needs to rise above the vapid prose of the internet and give God's people some meat!

Jeri	Posted: April 27, 2008 6:57 AM

It is easy for me to accept the inspiration of the scriptures. Getting His word to his children would pose no great difficulty for the God who created the universe. I am not overly troubled by relatively minor errors. The central message of the Bible is God's boundless love and His glorious plan of redemption. It's authority and truth can be authenticated by it's power to change completely those who receive it and believe it. The power of the Word has been confirmed in my life and that of untold numbers throughout the ages by the miracle of new life, for which there is no other explanation.

Sergey

Posted: April 26, 2008 4:22 PM


Straight way to The Da Vinci Code.

William G Shuster

Posted: April 25, 2008 3:12 PM

My comment doesn't concern the topic, which isn't new. (I've read similar in Bible commentaries and notes for years.) My comment--actually a question--concerns Craig Evans' comment that it was decades before stories about Jesus were written down. I've heard this for years, but why is it assumed to be true? The Jewish people were a literate people. There were many priests converted at the beginning, says Acts. People as diverse as Peter, James, Jude and Paul were active letter writers to young churches. Jesus had many, many more disciples than the 12, and certainly some wrote to others about him. At least one--Levi/Matthew--was a tax collector who had to be welled versed in writing. (Indeed, he's cited by one early church leader as having written an account of Jesus that "everyone translated it as best he could," he said.) So, why do we assume early Christians waited decades to write about Jesus, instead of doing it right away?

Ralph

Posted: April 25, 2008 1:10 PM

NOTE: I was reading an article in Christianity Today about how the Dallas Theological Seminary has a team that spends all its time tracking down old manuscripts of particular the New Testaments and photographing them digitally to preserve them for posterity. Admirable work, and I praise God for them and those that make it possible financially. But something caught my eye in the same issue; someone else had taken off on the idea that a portion of The Gospel of John probably wasn't inspired because it wasn't in the some of the "earliest" translations, (the story of the woman caught in adultry). Now the manuscripts were from the late 600 AD. I thought, don't they know about St. Jerome, who translated everything from the original languages into Latin before 400 AD? He had access to the very best sources that one could hope for in that day. If the story is in his Latin translation, and the resulting transliteration into english centuries later...

joshuajared

Posted: April 25, 2008 6:40 AM


Man oh Man, Look at satan try yet again to dissrupt Gods plans.. any one who buys into this "it shoulnt be in the bible" is just looking for a reason to walk away from the Lord.

Ephrem Hagos

Posted: April 25, 2008 6:09 AM


Only if we are, like the theologians of the day, directly judged by "Let him who is without sin cast the first stone " would we challenge the story as inspired Scripture. Otherwise, the story of the woman caught in adultery (John 7:53 - 8:11) is not at all atypical of the rest of the Gospel account.

Karl A.

Posted: April 24, 2008 6:08 PM

There is not universal agreement among textual scholars that "oldest is best." According to Majority Text supporters, the earlier manuscripts come from a narrow geographic area where they were stored and not used. The manuscripts that were most used by the early church wore out and were replaced by new copies. That explains why there are so few older copies of the Byzantine manuscripts behind the Received Text. Therefore, just because a text is older doesn't mean it is necessarily closer to the original.

Dave N.

Posted: April 24, 2008 4:02 PM


This article helps expose a huge gap in Evangelical theology--there's really no set criteria or authority for canonicity.

Clinton

Posted: April 24, 2008 2:21 PM

Of course the passage is Scripture! I say this not because I am a Bible scholar or have studied the original manuscripts but because I rest my authority & put my trust in the Church which told me in the first place what Scripture was! If it was not for the Church (the Apostles etc as described in Eph 2, the house of God), I would never be able to understand correctly who Jesus of Nazareth is and was. (I challenge anyone to give a Bible to someone in the Amazon who has never met another Christian and see if he comes up with authentic Christian doctrines on his own. I am not saying he won't put his faith in Christ for salvation but I doubt if he may have no heresies as well). But as Jesus Himself promised in Jn 15, the Holy Spirit has been actively moving throughout Church history to reveal Jesus to us and make His death and Resurrection real to us! Therefore its not for us to decide whats Scripture or not. Lets leave that to the H. Spirit and accept the canon!

Paul Wilkinson

Posted: April 24, 2008 2:11 PM

I recently heard some well considered teaching on this passage, dealing with the speculation as to what it was that Jesus wrote in the sand as the woman's accusers walked away. The teacher, Canadian Joe Amaral (www.firstcentury.tv) linked this passage to Jeremiah 17:13 and presented three or four other aspects of the passage linking it to OT traditions. I found it totally enriched my love for this story which, like so many others is unique to John's Gospel. So this article is somewhat disconcerting. Is the story consistent with Christ's character? Yes. Was He teaching a general principle that only those without sin should judge? No, there are times we are called to judge one another within the body. In general, this passage has served the Body of Christ well for generations, and it disturbs me when even among evangelicals, so many are playing "Jesus Seminar" and bringing so-called "higher criticism" to bear on a passage we don't find any strong advantage in deleting.

Tom Paine

Posted: April 24, 2008 2:08 PM

I absolutely believe that these words are attributed to Jesus despite their late inclusion. Oral tradition is always the first step in Scripture after the events. The story fits in exactly with what Jesus taught in the Sermon on the Mount. To say the Bible is inspired is to say it was inspired not only in its writing but in its original telling, transcription, editing, translation, and use through the centuries. Historically Christians have heard Jesus speak through this passage. If we discard it, we water down what our Brothers and Sisters in Christ have known and understood for a long time.

Manny

Posted: April 24, 2008 12:36 PM

As christians we have to adhere to the truth and any deviation from it is wrong. If this incident in Jesus' life ministry was not included in the original manuscripts, then it is not inspired, however, those it have moral value and significance in christian teaching? I believe it does and it can be continue to be use as an example in the life of Christ with good results. We may hold back before we say that the bible says but point to the character of Christ when dealing with similar situations involving human failures.

CabbyDear

Posted: April 24, 2008 12:34 PM

You people make others stumble with some of the articles you publish. The bible says all scripture is inspired by God, or literally translated, God breathed. If that is so, I think that God was perfectly capable of figuring out what He wanted to have in the bible and what He didn't and how to make sure it was given to mankind saying exactly what He wanted it to say. These scholars know more than God? May the Lord open your eyes to who He is and what you are doing to those who are doing their best to pursue the face of God.

Martha Huntley

Posted: April 24, 2008 12:06 PM


How very interesting to see evangelical conservative scholars studying and debating about the wisdom of leaving out some of the canon scripture...not quite Jesus Seminar, but heading in that direction!

Matt Copeland

Posted: April 24, 2008 11:12 AM

It has to be a joke that scholors are questioning the validity of this portion of scripture. This is one of the most powerful and hopeful visions of Christ's unconditional love and forgivness of sinners. If this is to be discarded then a beautiful glimpse of Christ's love, and an important illustration of how we are to love each other is lost. I think this is one of the most beautiful passages in the bible and it shapes my understanding of the nature of God's love and how we are to love each other. I am not about to question whether it is inspired or not, for me it is truth and will always be so. Something that beautiful couldn't be a lie. To discount the story as an execrise in "Cultural timidity" is absurd.

shirley barron

Posted: April 24, 2008 10:28 AM

It IS surprising that Prof. Wallace just now found out about the John 8 episode. Many of us have known this for decades. But it brings to mind something I read from Art Katz many years ago. Art (now decseased) was Jewish. He was challenged to read the NT. In his reading, as he came to John 8, he was struck between the eyes (not unlike Saul!) by the WISDOM of Jesus, and he immediately came to see Jesus" deity. He promptly accepted Jesus as his Messiah and became a Christian. When he came to know that there was a "question" about the passage, he believed that God had definitely spoken to him in it, and thus he accepted the passage AS God's Word. I think if God sees fit to use this passage to convert people, probably we"d better leave it in the NT.

Grant Dexter

Posted: April 24, 2008 10:13 AM

I believe the story is scripture and should be included without qualification. What is required is a deeper understanding of how Jesus defused the challenge He was issued. The only way He could have defeated the legal challenge was by using the law, and most likely He used Leviticus 20:10. This backed up the Pharisees' charge and judgement, but also completed it by asking where the man was and thus left the Pharisees short of the law and Jesus triumphant over their wickedness.

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