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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 09 January 2024
I am the woman caught in adultery
I was brought to the marketplace
they were ready to stone me
my sins, they said, were many.
I wept.
The story from the Gospel of John, about Jesus and the woman caught in adultery, is a popular one. It is said to be ‘so widely known, so widely quoted, and so often alluded to in art, literature, film, and public discourse of all sorts that “throwing stones” serves as a cliché’. Against that background, it may not be a surprise that two of the storytellers in Part I of this book, Cindy and Kennedy (Stories 4 and 11), mention it as their favourite story in the Bible, and that the story proved such a productive interface with their and other refugees’ life experiences.
The story, found in the Gospel of John 8:1–11, is a relatively short one. It narrates that Jesus, when visiting the temple in Jerusalem, is confronted with a woman who had been caught in the act of adultery, and he is pressed to judge her on the basis of the Law of Moses. The people bringing the woman to Jesus are described as ‘the teachers of the Law and the Pharisees’. These terms refer to two (largely indistinct) groups in Palestinian Jewish society of the time: both were knowledgeable about, and concerned with, religious law and tradition, and consequently scrutinised Jesus, his behaviour and teaching carefully. According to this story they bring the woman to Jesus in an attempt to find a reason to accuse him of transgressing the Law of Moses, which stipulates the death penalty for the crime of adultery. The story narrates how Jesus responded to their challenge: initially he kept quiet, bent down and wrote on the ground with his finger (no details are given about what he wrote); when they kept pressing him, he said: ‘Let any one of you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her’ (John 8:7). The accusers then disappear one by one, and Jesus is left alone with the accused woman, to whom he says: ‘Is there no one left to condemn you? Well, then, I do not condemn you either. Go, but do not sin again’ (John 8:10–11).
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