Introduction
The event described here is recorded at the start of the eighth chapter of St John’s Gospel. Two questions have nagged commentators: why some very early New Testament manuscripts missed it out, and what it was that Jesus wrote in the sandy ground. Neither question has been answered to the satisfaction of everyone, but the story is one of the most universally beloved in the Gospels.
JESUS went unto the mount of Olives. And early in the morning he came again into the temple, and all the people came unto him; and he sat down, and taught them. And the scribes and Pharisees brought unto him a woman taken in adultery; and when they had set her in the midst, They say unto him, Master, this woman was taken in adultery, in the very act. Now Moses in the law commanded us, that such should be stoned: but what sayest thou? This they said, tempting him, that they might have to accuse him.*
But Jesus stooped down, and with his finger wrote on the ground, as though he heard them not.
* The Pharisees had put Jesus in a tight spot, as indeed they meant to. The Law of Moses prescribed death as the penalty for adultery, and specified stoning for a betrothed (i.e. not yet married) virgin and her paramour. But Judaea lay within the Roman Empire, and Roman law did not allow anyone to carry out an execution without official approval. To put Roman law ahead of Jewish law, or to put Jewish law ahead of Roman law, would lose him support, which was the Pharisees’ hope.
Précis
In St John’s Gospel, we hear how Jesus was teaching in the Temple when some Pharisees thrust a young girl in front of him and accused her of adultery. They challenged Jesus to confirm the sentence of death prescribed by the Law of Moses, but Jesus, apparently not hearing them, occupied himself in writing with his finger in the sand. (60 / 60 words)
In St John’s Gospel, we hear how Jesus was teaching in the Temple when some Pharisees thrust a young girl in front of him and accused her of adultery. They challenged Jesus to confirm the sentence of death prescribed by the Law of Moses, but Jesus, apparently not hearing them, occupied himself in writing with his finger in the sand.
Variations: 1.increase the length of this precis to exactly 65 words. 2.reduce the length of this precis to exactly 55 words. 3.introduce one of the following words into the precis: about, besides, just, may, must, or, since, who.
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