Chizuk Emunah (Pt 2) Under the Microscope: Chapter 47

John 8:3-5, 7, "And the scribes and Pharisees brought unto him a woman taken in adultery; and when they had set her in the midst, they said 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? And he said unto them, He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her." And he said to the woman (verse 11), "Neither do I condemn thee; go, and sin no more." The laxity of this sentence is not only opposed to the Mosaic injunction, (Deut 22:22) "Thou shalt remove the evil from the midst of thee": but it is also practically disavowed by the Christian legislation, according to which, the adulteress is subjected to the severest rigour of the law, on account of the injury it would necessarily occasion to the happiness of society. 

In this section, Troki is quoting a part of the Bible that does not appear in the earliest manuscripts. The event may be historical and added in as a marginal note. Troki's argument in this section is that Jesus made a lax legal decision and one that opposes Jewish law.

The problem with Troki's argument is that it assumes Jesus was in fact making a legal decision, and it does not seem obvious that he was. In several cases, the opponents of Jesus wanted to trap him in a double bind. Consider when they asked him whether or not it was legal to pay taxes to Caesar. If he said that it was, then he is a traitor to the Jewish people, who did not believe in having an image on their money. If he said that it was not, then he could be labeled a traitor to the Roman Empire.

According to the Talmud, the Jewish authorities lost the right to capital punishment around the year 30. According to Josephus in book 20 of his Antiquities, the Roman procurator was needed to conduct capital punishment, meaning that the right of the Jewish courts to execute people was severely curbed around the year 6, when Judea became a Roman province.

It would have been very dangerous for any Jewish court to execute someone. If the Romans found out and took offense, they could retaliate. This passage is another example of a situation where the Jewish law and Roman law came into conflict, and someone who made a definite decision was in a double bind. As usual, Jesus noticed that this was not a legal accusation, since under Jewish law, one needs two witnesses who are interrogated separately. Jesus, being as clever as he was, found a way to escape the situation.