The Ending Of The Story Is True, Even If It Didn't Happen

SHOULD HAVE waited till I looked at the NCR today because the estimable Pat Marrin, in his Pencil Preaching column gives an interesting speculation as to why the early Christians might have told and inserted such a story into the Gospel of John.  

 

Commentaries speculate that if the adulterous woman story were an actual incident, it could have occurred during the feast of Tabernacles, when people lived in tents to commemorate the hut Jonah lived in while awaiting the destruction of Nineveh. The surprise exposure of a couple in the act by the religious officials and the capture of the woman but not the man strongly suggests a set-up designed to confront Jesus. His refusal to judge the woman but to make the accusers judge themselves is a brilliant response. The crowd disperses in shame. Jesus preserves justice by telling the woman to sin no more, but he also exhibits mercy by saving her life and refusing to condemn her.

Presenting these stories the week before Palm Sunday and Holy Week increases our sense of the growing hostility against Jesus and the extent to which his enemies are willing to go to find cause to condemn him. They attack him for being merciful, putting compassion before legalism, reaching out to untouchables and eating with sinners. Each charge only enhances Jesus’ stature and makes his crucifixion all the more inexplicable. This may be the reason the story was inserted into the fourth Gospel.

Today’s media concentration and public interest in sexual abuse and harassment of women highlights both an important social issue and the level of attention on personal information and private details sexual issues attract. This mirrors the blood lust mentality of the incident Jesus was drawn into. His response proclaimed human dignity and gender equality in a way that brings mercy and justice together in the Gospel for all time, every place and generation.

 

While I don't actually hold a position as to whether or not the story is an account of an actual event, I don't really see any reason to assume that it being missing from some of the early manuscripts we have, all of them from well after the John Gospel was composed,was an indication that it was missing from the "original". It's as easy to assert that it was cut out from an early one that others copied from as it is to claim that its presence in another one proves that it was a later insertion. I don't think that's relevant to the issue of whether or not what it says is true or not. True and as radical as the entirety of what Jesus said about the requirement to forgive those who wrong us directly. The story doesn't mention the woman's husband as being among her accusers. The justice of Jesus was as radical as the economic justice of Jesus. That's what it means.