The Adulterous Woman (John 8)

At some point last semester, I mentioned in class that the story of the adulterous woman does not belong in John. This deeply troubled one of my students, but I did not find out about it until a few weeks ago. So this post is designed to help that student as well as others wrestle with the difficulties of this passage.

Most people are familiar with the story found in John 7:53-8:11. Pharisees bring a woman caught in adultery to Jesus and ask for his judgment. It is a trap: if Jesus calls for the death penalty, they can accuse him of bypassing Roman law. If Jesus excuses her, then they can accuse Jesus of bypassing OT law, which called for the death penalty. Jesus asked for "one without sin" to cast the first stone. In the OT, the command was for the witnesses to the crime to cast the first stone (Deut 17:7). Jesus may have been suggesting that the supposed witnesses were guilty, because they did nothing to stop the crime before it started, and their very observation was shameful. Whatever Jesus meant, it worked: "Does no one condemn you? ... Then I do not condemn you either. Go and sin no more."

Here's the problem with the passage: almost all English Bibles have a note attached to the passage warning that it is not found in the earliest manuscripts. Our Bibles are based on the best available ancient manuscripts. One of the differences between modern Bibles and the King James Version is that the King James was based on manuscripts from the twelth century and later, but modern Bibles are based on manuscripts dating back to the second century.

It turns out that not a single manuscript of John before the fifth century has the story of the adulterous woman. The story first begins to show up in some fifth century manuscripts, but even then, scribes marked the text with obeli, special symbols indicating that they doubted that the story was originally in the text. Some later manuscripts placed the story in a different part of John, or even in Luke. If that evidence were not enough, the vocabulary and style of the passage are quite different from the rest of John. The evidence is strong enough that the majority of NT scholars do not believe that John wrote it.

So that's the bad news. Here's the good news: the same vast majority of NT scholars who don't believe that John wrote it, also believe that the story is true. That is, it is a true story about Jesus that circulated independently and then was eventually inserted into John by a later scribe. There are three major reasons for believing this. First, some church fathers discussed the story, although they did not say it was from John. Papias, who probably died in AD 135, refers to the story. Second, it is very unlikely that the story would have been invented by later generations of Christians. From the second century on, Christians took a very hard line against adultery (especially in women), and sometimes would not allow official forgiveness of adulterers at all. Finally, the story just sounds like Jesus. If you read through the various apocryphal gospels (such as the Gospels of Thomas, Judas, Peter, Mary Magdalene, etc), you begin to develop a nose for what is likely true and what was made up by later generations. This story has the ring of truth.

What's the bottom line? This story does not belong to John, but it belongs in our Bibles. It is a true story about Jesus that shows his compassion for sinners as well as his anger towards hypocrisy. It does not teach that sin is acceptable: Jesus still calls the woman to repentance.

The picture: "The Unfaithful Wife" from Jesus Mafa, 1970s. The Jesus Mafa paintings are produced by French artists and Mafa villagers.

More on Good Eye / Bad Eye (Matthew 6:22-23)

In my last post, I explained that the "good eye" and "bad eye" of Matthew 6:22-23 likely refers to generosity and stinginess. Here's a little more on that topic. (Warning! Bible nerdiness alert!)

The word for "good" here is haplos, which can be translated as simple, single, sincere, healthy, or generous. While haplos does not occur elsewher in the NT, the cognate words haplous (same meaning) and haplotetos (sincerity, simplicity or generosity) occur ten times. In Rom 12:8, 2 Cor 8:2, 9:11, 9:13, and James 1:5, haplotetos has the meaning of generosity. In the others (2 Cor 1:12, 11:3, Eph 6:5, Col 3:22), it means sincerity or simplicity. The LXX uses the word twice to refer to generosity, in 1 Chron 29:17 and Prov 11:25. Since the surrounding context, Matthew 6:19-34, is about money, it seems better to see haplos as a reference to generosity.

The phrase "evil eye" (ophthalmos poneros) has much more certainty about its meaning, since it always means stingy or greedy (Deuteronomy 15:9, Proverbs 23:6, Proverbs 28:22, Matthew 20:15). In the OT, the Hebrew raa ayin (evil eye) is translated as selfish or stingy. (The LXX translates the phrase with baskanos, stingy, in Proverbs, but leaves it as poneuresetai ho ophthalmos sou, your eye does evil, in Deuteronomy, probably because Proverbs and Deuteronomy were translated by different translators.)

Not all gospels scholars agree exactly with this interpretation, although most mention it as a possibility. There seem to be two reasons to doubt. First, the saying has an exact parallel in Luke 11:34-36, and there the context is not about money, but rather is connected to another saying about light (although note the mention of greed in Luke 11:39). In many cases, Matthew and Luke arrange the same sayings of Jesus in different contexts, so some scholars feel that Jesus' good eye/bad eye saying was not necessarily originally about money. Second, although haplos can mean generous, the phrase haplos opthalmos is not found elsewhere, so its exact meaning cannot be confirmed. Some scholars suggest a meaning for eye here that approximates heart, or draws on Greek biological conceptions of how the eye works.

To be honest, despite the doubts of some gospels scholars, I think this one is a slam dunk. I think that the more well-known metaphorical phrase "evil eye" caused Jesus to coin a new phrase, "good eye." The phrase "good eye" already existed in Prov 22:9, but Jesus used haplos instead of agathos (Heb. tov), probably to create an image of health vs. sickness. Even if Matthew is the one who placed the saying in this context (which is not certain), it illustrates that Matthew thought that the saying was about money.

The hard part, as usual with the sayings of Jesus, is obedience. Being generous is often hindered or completely stopped by our slavery to "mammon" or our worry about our own needs.

The picture: The Sermon on the Mount, from Kurtze Postill Herrn Phillippi Melanthonis vber die Euangelia der furnemesten Fest, 1545. Courtesy of the Digital Image Archive, Pitts Theology Library, Candler School of Theology, Emory University.

Good Eye / Bad Eye (Matthew 6:22-23)

The following is a short article that I was asked to write for the January 2009 edition of New Hope magazine. It's aimed at a lay magazine audience, so it simplifies things a bit. I need help on the last paragraph - as it stands, it is too trite. Any suggestions?

Good Eye / Bad Eye
What I love most about being a professor at Pacific Rim Bible College is the opportunity to help young leaders learn how to better interpret and apply the Bible. Today in class, a student asked about a difficult passage from Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount: “… if your eye is good, your whole body will be full of light; but if your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness” (Matthew 6:22-23). What did Jesus mean?

It turns out that having a “good eye” or a “bad eye” was a common manner of speaking when Jesus taught. The phrase “bad eye” is often translated as “stingy” or “greedy” in other places in the Bible (Deuteronomy 15:9, Proverbs 23:6, Proverbs 28:22, Matthew 20:15). And the word for “good” in this verse is translated as “generous” in some other passages in the Bible (1 Chronicles 29:17, Romans 12:8, James 1:5). So Jesus was using the ordinary language of his day to point out how much better generosity is than stinginess.

If you read this whole section of Jesus’ sermon (Matthew 6:19-34), you can tell that Jesus is giving several key principles about handling our money. First, he tells us that an act of generosity is like making a deposit in heaven (6:19-21). Then he tells us that having a “good eye” (being generous) lights up our whole lives, while having a “bad eye” (being stingy) makes our whole lives dark (6:22-23). Next, he warns us that we must choose God as our master, not money (6:24). Finally, Jesus teaches us how to avoid worry so that we will use our money generously to advance God’s purposes (6:25-34).

We ended our discussion not only with a good Bible lesson, but also with a challenge: am I being generous with the resources God has given me? Do I have a “good eye” or a “bad eye?”

I'm looking forward to your comments and suggestions on the wording of the final paragraph.

Make Me a Higher Love? (agape/phileo)

Here's a question posted last week: "In John 21:15-17 Jesus asks three times if Simon Peter loves him. The first two times Jesus uses agapao for love and in both Simon Peter's replies phileo is used. Then the third time Jesus asks he uses phileo as well and so does Simon Peter. Is there any significance to this?"

A few weeks ago, my son's soccer coach advised the boys to put on jackets so that they wouldn't catch cold after practice. He believed that you could catch a cold if you got chilly after exercise. This belief was once so widespread that people just knew it to be true, even though doctors and scientists agree that colds are caused by viruses, not chill. OK, I know that rhinoviruses thrive better in cold, dry air, but you get my point - sometimes something that everyone knows is untrue.

I mention this story because many Christians in America just know that agape is a Greek word that refers to divine, unconditional love, a higher love than any other. But as a matter of fact, agape does not have this special meaning in Greek, and is only slightly different in meaning from phileo. Agape means "love," and it has about the same range of meaning as the English word "love." It can refer to loving people, food, God, money, or anything else. It can refer to selfless love or selfish love, depending on the context. Surprisingly, Greek scholars and New Testament scholars widely agree on this conclusion, but most other Christians, including many pastors, are unaware of it. I am not aware of any living Greek scholar who accepts the view of agape that is widely proclaimed from the pulpit. (By the way, agapao is the verb form of agape, and phileo is the verb form of philia; I use them interchangeably in this post).

Here's some of the evidence:

1) Philosophers in ancient Greece could not agree on the precise difference between agape and philia, and could not agree on which one was higher. Most philosophers actually asserted that philia was a higher love, because of the high value that philosophers placed on friendship.

2) The translators of the LXX (an ancient Greek translation of the Old Testament) regularly used agapao to translate the Hebrew word ahav, which is also a very generic word for love in Hebrew.

3) While agape is often used to describe positive forms of love, it is also used to describe defective forms of love (Luke 6:32, John 3:19, Deut 21:15 LXX), the love of money (2 Pet 2:15, Isa 1:23 LXX), the love of sin (Rev 22:15, Jer 14:10, Hos 12:7 LXX), the love for honor (Luke 11:43, John 12:43), legitimate sexual desire (Song of Solomon 1:3, 4, 7, 3:1-4 LXX) and even lust (Gen 34:2-3, Jdg 16:4, 2 Sam 13:3-15 LXX). In other words, agape is like the English word love - it can have a positive or negative meaning depending on its context.

4) Although there are some slight differences in usage between agapao and phileo, they are used interchangeably at times in the Bible. Take a look at Luke 11:43/20:46; John 3:35/5:20; John 11:3/11:5/11:36; John 14:21/14:23/16:27; and Heb 12:6/Rev 3:19. In each of these cases, almost identical sentences use phileo or agapao with no apparent difference in meaning. In some cases, phileo is used for very high forms of love, such as the love between the Father and the Son.

For some people, this information is bad news. They like the idea that the Bible has a special word that means divine, unconditional love, and it disturbs them that the evidence does not support this view. But here's the good news: although Greek and Hebrew words for love do not have this special nuance, God's love is divine, giving and unconditional, no matter which word we use to communicate it. It's not the word for love that matters, but the many sentences, paragraphs, and stories about God's love that matter. Ideas don't have to be found in single words to be valid - in fact, most ideas require multiple words to be communicated.

Next post: if agapao and phileo mean almost the same thing, what was John trying to say at the breakfast scene in John 21:15-17?

The picture: The Miraculous Draught of Fish, by Konrad Witz, 1443.

Just Actions in War

Just war theory not only stipulates just reasons for going to war, but also just actions within war (jus in bello). The guiding principle is that war is not a good thing, even if the cause is just or the war is necessary. Since war is not a good thing, it is vital to have guidelines to restrain the evil effects of war.

The idea of restraint in war is very ancient. The Old Testament gives guidelines for accepting surrender, for the treatment of captives, and for restraining the destructiveness of war (see Deut 20:1-20, 21:10-14). In times even less civilized than today, many countries had the practice of only allowing a conquering army to loot a city for three days to control the amount of damage done to civilians.

Just war theory has two main guiding principles for just practices in war. The first is obvious: war must be waged against soldiers, not civilians. Civilians must never be targeted. Armies must take great pains to avoid accidentally harming civilians, especially because of the use of explosives. While clear enough, several factors can complicate this criteria. When a country completely mobilizes for war, the civilians end up being a crucial part of the war effort. For example, ordinary factory workers end up being an essential part of producing tanks, airplanes, and supplies. This was the reason why British and American forces intentionally targeted civilian neighborhoods around German factories in WWII. While the Allies had just reasons for going to war, the practice of killing hundreds of thousands of German civilians - men, women and children - to stop the German war effort was certainly not in accordance with just war theory.

The second principle is restraint. During war, armies must use the appropriate amount of force to achieve the desired goals in the war. For example, during the Persian Gulf War in 1991, American forces used enough force to cause the Iraqi army to retreat or surrender. It would have been possible to annihilate the entire army, but that would have been more violent than necessary to achieve the goal of the war. In WWII, the Allies decided that they needed to go further than defeating Axis armies - they needed a complete defeat of the government of Germany. This was likely in accordance with just war principles, because the Nazi government had demonstrated that it was completely incapable of keeping a treaty, and was of course guilty of crimes against humanity.

Why do countries otherwise committed to just war principles occasionally violate them? In any war, some soldiers will violate just war principles and attack civilians. In some cases, enemy soldiers use population centers as shields or use civilians as combatants, making soldiers get trigger happy. In the case of WWII, the Allies decided to target German civilian populations partially in retaliation for Germany's bombing of civilians in London. More importantly, the Allies violated just war principles because they saw what happened to the captive countries of Germany (especially Poland) and decided that they must win, no matter what the cost.

This is one of the reminders of the just war principle that war should always be a last resort. Once in war, nations are often faced with horrible moral dilemmas and may have difficulty staying faithful to other just war guidelines.

A Toast to Lemuel's Mother

Yesterday my students asked me about an unusual (to say the least) proverb that seems to advocate getting drunk. Proverbs 31:6-7 says "Give strong drink to him who is perishing, and wine to him whose life is bitter. Let him drink and forget his poverty, and remember his trouble no more."

The difficulties are obvious. Scripture elsewhere warns against inebriation (Prov 20:1, 23:29-30; Isa 5:22, 28:7; Rom 13:13, and many others). Why would the Bible advise us to help poor people by tapping a keg?

As usual, context provides some answers. This part of Proverbs contains advice that King Lemuel's mother gave to him about conducting himself as king (Prov 31:1). In Prov 31:2-5, Lemuel's mom warns him about habits that will damage his kingship - wine and women. She points out that "It is not for kings to drink wine... for they will drink and forget what is decreed, and pervert the rights of all the afflicted." Lemuel's mom is saying that it doesn't make sense for a king to get drunk, because 1) drunkenness may make him forget his responsibility to the downtrodden, and 2) he is not suffering, so he doesn't even have a bad excuse for getting sloshed. They may need to forget, but Lemuel needs to remember.

So I suspect that Lemuel's mother is not advising getting tanked - she is pointing out that a king doesn't have any of the normal reasons for getting drunk. We might paraphrase Mrs. Lemuel's advice: "People who are suffering and poor drink to forget their suffering - but as the king, you are not suffering. The suffering and the poor will suffer even more if you drink to forget." Her point is not that getting pickled is a good idea for the poor. She is merely pointing out how foolish it is for the king to get drunk. Proverbs 31:6-7 cannot be read in isolation, but rather as a contrast to Proverbs 31:4-5.

There may be something else going on here. Lemuel's mom is very concerned for the poor: she warns Lemmy (I'm sure that's what she called him) that he must defend the rights of the poor and oppressed in Prov 31:5, 8, and 9. In vv. 6-7, she may be advising that instead of hoarding his wine, he should give it out as gifts to the needy (see Paul E. Koptak, NIV Application Commentary: Proverbs). Although the Bible condemns drunkenness, it never condemns drinking in moderation. In fact, good wine is often used as a mark of God's abundant blessing (see Deut 7:13, 11:14, 14:26, 15:14; Joel 2:19, 3:18 and many others). Think of Jesus' generous gift of high-class wine to the young couple who had run out in John 2:1-12.

By the way, the picture above is a depiction of wisdom, found in an illuminated manuscript from 1170. The top figure is Jesus, the source of wisdom. Below him is Lady Wisdom (as in Prov 8), and below her is Solomon, I think. I'm not sure of the other figures, although the one in armor is probably David, and a few others have the look of Moses, Abraham, James, and perhaps John.