“John 8:3-7: The teachers of the law and the Pharisees brought in a woman caught in adultery. They made her stand before the group and said to Jesus, “Teacher, this woman was caught in the act of adultery. In the Law Moses commanded us to stone such women. Now what do you say?” Jesus bent down and picked up a rock. When they kept on questioning him, he straightened up and said to them, “OK, we start on the count of three. And if I see any of you throwing like limp-wristed sissies, you’re next.””
This is so subversive. It works on the obvious level of parodying a conservative tough-on-crime platform. But the larger picture here is that Jesus was teaching a break from the past, a new way of doing things. In the revised passage, however, he’s upholding the past, the old laws. He’s been changed from a radical teacher to a literal conservative, someone who upholds and protects the way things have always been.
And I cannot tell you how weird it is to me to be writing about the Bible like this.
