Jesus Early Training
The New Testament says almost nothing about Jesus’ life from after his birth until he appeared in the temple at age twelve, and from then until he began his public ministry at about the age of thirty. Yet a good indication of what a young Jewish man in Jesus’ day would have been doing may be found in Avot 5:21, a tractate from a collection of rabbinic sayings called the Mishnah, which states: At five years of age, one is ready for the study of the Written Torah, at ten years of age for the study of the Oral Torah, at thirteen for bar mitzvah [the religious coming-of-age ceremony], at fifteen for the study of halachot [rabbinic legal decisions], at eighteen for marriage, at twenty for pursuing a vocation, at thirty for entering one’s full vigor… What is more important is that the five year old child started with the book of Leviticus.
Certainly education was highly valued in Jewish society. In his apology for Judaism, the first-century Jewish historian Josephus states: Above all we pride ourselves on the education of our children, and regard as the most essential task in life the observance of our laws and of the pious practices based thereupon, which we have inherited. (Against Apion 1:60, Loeb ed.)
So the trap was set for Jesus by the scholars of their day.
The Trap (vs 1-6a) – They dragged the woman into the group and put Jesus on the spot. They were not interested in justice–they were only interested in trapping Jesus! The Rule of Law and Due Process was not being followed because the man (the adulterer) was not in custody and was not being charged along with the woman. The Scribes and Pharisees continued to force the issue concerning the guilt and the execution of the woman only.
These were the potential traps Jesus faced.
1. Since the woman was caught in adultery, they should have brought her to the Sanhedrin, not an itinerant teacher.
2. Where is the man?
3. How did they catch her in the act of adultery? Were they peeking through a window, or was this a set up?
4. If the Law of Moses commanded that she is to be stoned, why are they asking Jesus and not keeping with the law?
5. Roman law had robbed them of the Death Penalty –That is why they took Jesus to Herod and Pilate to get Him killed. So they were asking Jesus to violate Roman Law.
What we should acknowledge is that this woman has been caught. No one disputes her sin.
Jesus’ Word to the Accusers was silence.(vs 6b-9a) Instead of words He stooped and wrote in the dirt. Jesus relies on the due process built into Torah to expose this rush to judgment.
Perhaps Jesus first wrote:
Deut 19 v 15 “A single witness shall not rise up against a man on account of any iniquity or any sin which he has committed; on the evidence of two or three witnesses a matter shall be confirmed. “If a malicious witness rises up against a man to accuse him of wrongdoing, then both the men who have the dispute shall stand before the LORD, before the priests and the judges who will be in office in those days. “The judges shall investigate thoroughly, and if the witness is a false witness and he has accused his brother falsely, then you shall do to him just as he had intended to do to his brother. Thus you shall purge the evil from among you. “The rest will hear and be afraid, and will never again do such an evil thing among you. “Thus you shall not show pity: life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot.
Jewish civil law had very strict conditions under which this crime was punishable by execution. God is clear, “On the testimony of two or three witnesses a man shall be put to death, but no one shall be put to death on the testimony of only one witness.” It required more than one!
There are numerous witnesses. Deuteronomy 17: 6 v 7 “On the evidence of two witnesses or three witnesses, he who is to die shall be put to death; he shall not be put to death on the evidence of one witness. 7“The hand of the witnesses shall be first against him to put him to death, and afterward the hand of all the people. So you shall purge the evil from your midst. The Torah is clear that the witness should be the ones to cast the first stone. They must be the ones to cast the first stone of execution, so perjury becomes murder, if they are false. It is no small thing to be a witness as you are also the first to carry out the judgment.
Those false witnesses would not only guilty of perjury. They risked the same death penalty their perjury supported and they were required to carry out her execution.
Jesus did not ignore them. Instead, He used the due process of Torah to free her!
The charge of adultery required that they be caught in the act (Num. 5:13). Rabbi Samuel said, “In the case of adulterers, they (the witnesses) must have seen them in the posture of adulterers.” Another scholar of Talmudic law says, (It is not just an issue) of their having seen the couple in a `compromising situation,’ for example, coming from a room in which they were alone, or even lying together on the same bed. The actual physical movements of the couple must have been capable of no other explanation, and the witnesses must have seen exactly the same acts at exactly the same time, in the presence of each other, so that their depositions would be identical in every respect.
But the same law stated that both parties were to be produced and prosecuted.
