"Casting the first stone" - If they caugt a woman in "the very act" of adultery, why not stone the man, too?

Question

Remember the story in John where Jesus saves an adulterous woman saying, "Let the one who is with out sin cast the first stone"?

The Bible says of the adulterous woman, "And the scribes and Pharisees brought unto [Jesus] 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**."

Caught in the very act? It it takes two to tango. Where is the man in this equation? Did he already receive his stoning? Or did men not get stoned for scandalous behavior back in JC's day?

Or did the Bible authors just hate women?

Answer 1

Everybody must get stoned

Answer 2

There is a strong message in this statement conveying only a countable few are non-sinners. These Good Samaritans too won't pick up a stone to pelt it to commit the first sin. So both sinners and non sinners cannot be distinguished. Non sinners silently accept the mistaken identity of "sinners". And what ensues is the criminals go on rampage openly. That is what happens in India among politicians and Government rank and file. Corruption has been quietly accepted by all. No one is ready to throw a stone at them. Many cannot throw because they are also involved in corruption deals indirectly.

Answer 3

First of all: no, monks did not write the Bible.

In answer to your question: "Or did men not get stoned for scandalous behavior back in JC's day?"

Actually, that's what's remarkable about this particular story. Jesus is directly going against the Hebrew law and tradition.

(EDIT: I stand corrected by that Leviticus verse. Apparantly men were to be put to death, too. Although usually the law was biased against women. Frankly, so was the secular society at the time. I have no idea where the man was.)

Answer 4

If a man commits adultery with his neighbor's wife, both the adulterer and the adulteress shall be put to death.

This makes Mary's consent to be the mother of Jesus all the more amazing. She knew the penalty for being pregnant without a husband's protection. In fact, the penalty for a woman betrothed was to be stoned in front of her father's house.

Answer 5

Well when you study the Levitical law it appears that in such cases both were to be stoned. Where is the man in this situation? Well it is hard to say.

Perhaps the man was already stoned. Perhaps he ran away. Or more likely they chose the woman to bring before Jesus because they wanted Jesus to condemn the woman.

See Lev. 20:10
Did the Bible authors hate women? Well of course not, are you forgetting the story? Jesus pardons the woman. Its the "bad" guys or the unbiblical or non-Christian characters in the story that is wanting to do the stoning and selected the woman.

Answer 6

You say the Bible authors as if they caused the act to happen they simply reported what Jesus did. Men were also stoned for adultery, The Bible does not say where the man was...They didn't bring him to Jesus.
What is significant here is that Christ forgave the one who was brought to him the same as we are forgiven by God through Jesus.
The Bible clearly shows that we are one creation Eve was taken from Adam and they were one flesh.
Seek God's truth without judging a righteous God and then you can know who he is and this will relieve your doubts about his righteousness.

Deut. 22:22 If a man be found lying with a woman married to an husband, then they shall both of them die, both the man that lay with the woman, and the woman: so shalt thou put away evil from Israel.

Answer 7

Adultery was never a stoning offense in Judaism for either the man or woman, both were killed,m but in a different way. This is why when you want to write a book about something, you should do research.. The Romans who wrote the NT did not do much research..

Answer 8

Note that Jesus by his example rejected the death penalty prescribed in the Torah. Even Islam, which prescribes stoning for adultery, requires either four eyewitnesses or four separate confessions. In Jesus view, the only consequence for either the man or the woman was to receive God's instructions: "Go and sin no more." Thus, it is Christianity that assumes the radical equality of men and women.

Cheers,
Bruce

Answer 9

Note: This particular story does not appear in the earliest surviving gospel manuscripts and was probably a later addition. Still, it does point out a fact of the culture. Women were property. Women were valued primarily for their child-bearing and child-rearing abilities and were otherwise a burden for fathers, husbands, and eventually sons. (That's why dowries were required, to unload daughters.) The important cultural value was for a man to have sons to carry on his name (and maybe daughters to help form family alliances). And these sons needed to be legitimately his. Since paternity is not apparent at birth, it was important for the wife to be faithful. (You certainly don't want to invest in sons who belong to someone else.) Yes, it's naughty for other men to take advantage of your wife, but she's the one who will produce the consequences, a child that isn't really yours.

Perhaps that's why Jesus was so reluctant to punish her. He saw the ingrained cultural injustice.

Answer 10

Thank you. This shows you that Jesus loves women. The Bible records thing the way they happened. It does not necessarily mean that the behavior is something like God would approve of. Jesus practicably stopped the stoning...by logic. By love. That is the Bible message: LOVE.

Answer 11

It was like that in those days. The women were seen as second class citizens - if a woman was seen talking to a man in the street, it would be percieved as scandolous. That is why Jesus was different, he would talk and sit with the women like with men.