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The Rev. Dennis McCarty Community Columnist |
They have with them a woman they caught committing adultery and they ask Jesus what they should do with her. The Law of Moses says she should be stoned. What does Jesus think about that: should she be killed or should she be forgiven?
The Pharisees were always trying to trap Jesus and this story is no exception. If Jesus says she should be freed, he's violating the law. If he says she should be punished, he's a hypocrite, violating his own teachings about love and mercy.
In one of the most famous statements in the Bible, Jesus tells them, "He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her." This brilliant comeback shames them for their own sin and self-righteousness. They sneak away, one by one, leaving Jesus with the woman. She is forgiven, he tells her. "Go and sin no more."
The story has everything that makes Jesus' teaching wonderful. His simple answer traps the Pharisees in their own cunning. He shows how wrong it is to judge others. He forgives the woman but does not let her off the hook. He shows that despite anything we've done in the past, God's love will give us a new beginning - if we'll just make use of it.
The only problem is, scholars don't know where this story came from - but it's not from the original Gospels. In the King James translation, it's found at the beginning of the eighth chapter of John. Some older translations put it in Chapter 7; others put it in Chapter 21, others in the Gospel of Luke!
What's more, the oldest copies of the Gospels don't even contain the story - at all! It was added in by someone, hundreds of years after the Gospels were first written down. Scholars don't know exactly how it got there, but they do know for certain that it didn't come from Jesus or John or Luke.
The original Gospels were written in Greek, a thousand years before the English language even existed. In those days, all books were copied down by hand, a slow, boring process. Copiers often added or changed things, or made mistakes just out of carelessness. This happened with all ancient writings, not just the Bible.
Some scholars suspect the story about the woman was a folk tale about Jesus which first got written onto a scroll as a sort of footnote.
Then later copiers wrote it
into the Gospels themselves. Different copiers stuck it in different
places.
The Bible is full of puzzles like this. Another example is the last 12
verses of the Gospel of Mark. Again, they're not in the oldest
manuscripts.
They, too, were added by copiers hundreds of years later.
This calls into question certain religious attitudes.
For examples, snake-handling cults base their practice on a literal
reading of those last verses in Mark.
"God said it, I believe it, that settles it." Yet those verses weren't
written by Mark, and definitely not by Jesus. Like the adultery story,
they were added by someone long after Mark died. What does that say
about snake handling?
More importantly, what does it say for about King James translation of
the Bible, which contains these and many other mistakes? Translated in
the early 1600s, the King James Version remains a wonderful work of
literature. It contains some of the most beautiful English ever written.
But it's not very accurate. Newer English translations come much closer
to what the original Greek and Hebrew Scriptures actually said. Does
that mean the King James Bible is unworthy? (I don't think so.)
It all comes down to the nature of religious faith itself. It's about
hope and belief, not provable facts. I still love the story of Jesus and
the woman, and quote it often. Even though it came from a later time, it
still puts into a nutshell much of what Jesus actually taught. Its
origin only matters if you want the Bible to be a source of magical
power, rather than wisdom. Wise the Bible often is. Magic it's not.
The Bible's best writing would be wonderful no matter where you found it
- in the Bible or in a telephone book. Faith is an individual thing, and
each of us must decide for ourselves what's valuable and what isn't. The
best that's in the Bible isn't true just because it's in the Bible. It's
in the Bible because it's true.