In the Law of Moses, a woman being raped is required to cry out for help. Otherwise, it’s not considered a rape. (Lovely, isn’t it)
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Yes, quite lovely. But I don’t really view Jesus as doing that here. Go and sin no more doesn’t mean: “cry out for help next time if you are being raped.” The account presupposes her guilt. Does McGrath dispute that?
It could mean something like, “Next time, speak out.” The book is called, “What Jesus Learned from Women.” So maybe Jesus learned something from that incident.
It could mean something like, “Next time, speak out.”
So you are not saying if she wasn’t raped Jesus would have agreed with stoning her per Mosaic Law? I’m pretty sure you are not but I want to make that clear.
I don’t doubt that Jesus learned from women. It is impossible that he didn’t learn from women, men, his mother, father and family growing up. He was born as a human baby. Had to learn to walk, talk, etc. There is nothing novel about the suggestion. Did he change his tune during his ministry? Was there learning post the heavens opening and the Spirit of God filling him at his baptism? Not in John I’d guess since he won’t even narrate a babtism! In the synoptics? Maybe. Luke for sure (grew in knowledge and wisdom). Maybe the gentile woman/dog crumb incident or maybe even his mother (who doesn’t seem to know she’s been rebuked) convinced him it was his time in John 2. Maybe the woman at the well etc. Exciting and sobering possibilities (scandalous to some) but nothing more than that. But John presents a Jesus always in control, serenely transcendent. It is hard to dig that meaning out stories in John. Though tension could exist within a gospel. I get the impression that Jesus ins’t transfigured in John because the incarnate Word doesn’t ned to be transfigured. He can’t change into what he has never not been.
Jesus was not omniscient. He learned. If we was as attuned with the Father as we think, he would have learned a lot from every interaction. Jesus was an empty vessel like the rest of us as a baby. God become flesh. Emptied. Fragile. In need of love and care. And Catholics and Protestants alike have to affirm that Joseph and Mary was chose, a specific women in a specific time over and against countless others, to rear our Lord. Blessed is she amongst women, indeed. And how influential his mother and father must have been on him!
Or possibly she had sex with a Roman solider and they couldn’t drag him out. Jews couldn’t even capitally punish anyone. The Romans forbid it. In fact, only the governor could issue a death sentence. This was a lynch mob. It is curious why there is no man there, though. Maybe the man was unmarried and didn’t know? Was it a Roman soldier? Maybe she was raped. I can also see some misogyny thinking that adultery is wrong not because crime is evil, but because it violates the property of another man. I’d guess some Jewish men found it very okay to engage in extramarital sex (think 1000 concubines) as long as it wasn’t with another man’s wife. Women didn’t typically share that luxury. If the women pretended to be widowed? Why drag the man out. I don’t think the lack of a man here can carry the weight of McGrath’s argument but it is interesting. And “go and sin no more” is an interesting way of saying “Call for help when raped.” I’d like to see some comparative statements in antiquity establishing this precedent.
It could just be an idealized scene but the retributive hand slap for adultery makes that seem unlikely as fiction. Could also push towards the rape angle but I don’t think the lack of a male to stone with here can carry the weight of that argument on its own. If the book was a little cheaper I would grab it. But it seems to be interested in “imaginative retellings” based on what I could find. Does he comment on the Markan sandwich in the section on the bleeding woman and Jairus’ daughter?
So, for instance, regarding the story of the “Suffering Daughters,” McGrath tells a story that connects the woman who has experienced bleeding with the mother of Jairus’ daughter, suggesting that the two women—the mother of the girl who dies and the woman who has been bleeding for years—had been friends until the one woman’s affliction severed the relationship.
I mean that is interesting, but I am not going to be persuaded by someone fictionalizing already theologically fictionalized stories and reinterpreting them with a host of details not in the text. Nothing wrong with that, but its like watching an episode of the Chosen. Just another way of bringing the text to life.
Vinnie
If it happened at all, it was a set-up job by the priesthood. The novel writes itself. She was seduced by some scumbag working for a temple cabal to destroy Jesus. McGrath disappoints.
There is no comparison between James McGrath and Dallas Jenkins (creator of The Chosen). McGrath is a respected scholar who put extensive research into his proposed reconstructions, and it has been well-received by non-fundamentalists. I actually read the book. I got my copy as an inter-library loan. The library it came from was Nashotah House, an Anglo-Catholic theological seminary.
I agree on the distinction, My comparison was in the imaginative arena. Jenkins is a bona fide fundamentalist. McGrath is a critical scholar.
Alan Watson put forth the following in 1999:
“Many factors contribute to a re-examination of the story of the adulterous woman (John 7,53-8,11). This essay responds to these factors by its defense of the suggestion that the woman is a re-married divorcée, at fault not with the Mosaic Law, but with the teaching of Jesus on divorce.”
Jesus forbade divorce and remarriage. He thinks this could be about that issue.
" One final point. Once Jesus was believed to have taken a stance on divorce as in Mark 10,2-9 and Matt 5,31-32; 19,3-9, then a debate such as I postulate for the beginning of John 8 is almost inevitable. Jesus had not come to abolish the law but to fulfill; not one letter, not one stroke would pass from the law until all was accomplished (Matt 5,18-19). Moses permitted divorce and remarriage (Deut 24,1-4). Jesus opposed divorce. He regarded remarriage as adultery. This issue he debated with Pharisees (Mark 10,2-9; Matt 19,3-9). Moses commanded that adulteresses be put to death (Lev 20,10; Deut 22,22). The mode of execution was stoning. Obviously then, it would be of great interest to the Pharisees to know if Jesus would both follow the law of Moses that adulteresses should be stoned to death and his own teaching that to remarry was to commit adultery."
If we are allowed to imagine things in the way MGrath is doing, the sky is the limit.
Brown writes, “Nothing is mentioned of her lover, who must have escaped. The deuterocanonical story of Susanna offers a good parallel for all of this.”
Another possibility.
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You didn’t read the book. But not reading articles, etc. but commenting on them anyway is pretty much the modus operandi around here.
I tried to access it then read several articles and listened to a podcast he was on with Mcknkght. I tried to access the information outside of paying $30 for the book.
You can always present the evidence for those of us who don’t have the book.
What’s wrong with an inter-library loan? You can get just about any book you want.
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