Let Him Who Is Without Sin…

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When the story of the woman caught in adultery (John 7:53-8:11) is read within the setting of the Second Temple period, it resonates with authentic attitudes and issues.

In a previous article we examined Jesus’ Jewish commandment to love. We discovered that the foundation of his ethical instruction was based upon contemporary Jewish teaching and its understanding of the biblical command to “love your neighbor (who is) like yourself” (Lev. 19:18; Luke 10:27). The new and developing Jewish sensitivity to the universal frailty of the human condition is heard in the apocryphal work of Ben Sira, “Should a person refuse mercy to a man like himself, yet seek pardon for his own sins?” (Sir. 28:4).

The same sentiment is heard in Jesus’ model prayer that he gave to his disciples: “Forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us” (Matt. 6:12). We are expected to extend unmerited mercy and forgiveness to those who have offended us, because we ourselves stand in similar need of the unmerited mercy of God.

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“Christ and the woman taken in adultery” (watercolor and pencil study) by Henryk Siemiradzki. Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

Comments 1

  1. Joshua McClintock

    Would it be correct to say that Jesus also, by virtue of causing her accusers to walk away, in effect caused her case to be ‘thrown out’? The law says that a matter is to be established by two or more witnesses. In the end he says, “Woman, where are your accusers?” and later follows it up with “Neither do I accuse you…”.

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  • R. Steven Notley

    R. Steven Notley

    R. Steven Notley is the Dean of Religious Studies at Pillar College in Newark, New Jersey. Previously he was the Distinguished Professor of New Testament and Christian Origins on the New York City campus of Alliance University (2001-2023). He received his Ph.D. from the Hebrew…
    [Read more about author]

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