Assorted retorts from yahoo boards and elsewhere: Responding to Nicholas Bowling · somewhere else: Weaker Vessel and Stronger Vessel · Great Bishop of Geneva! Did Jesus Obey Leviticus 20:10?
If any man commit adultery with the wife of another, and defile his neighbour's wife, let them be put to death, both the adulterer and the adulteress.
[Leviticus 20:10]
When therefore they continued asking him, he lifted up himself, and said to them: He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her
[John 8:7]
Given He was Himself without sin, why didn't He stone the woman, as apparently He had said He should?
Perhaps He didn't include Himself? The text I cited says "He that is without sin among you" and not for instance "among us" but I recalled a text without the word "humon" = of you. I didn't recall "among you" when reflecting, not sure if it is missing from some manuscripts.
Like the post about the sinlessness of Mary from scratch, this is about the moral possibility of God becoming man. If Jesus was God as Man, why was He not obeying His own laws? This will lead us into Catholic specific territory.
There is a different argument against the incarnation I just heard from Rabbi Joel Landau, as interviewed by Iron Inquisitor, one can call it an "argument from physical impossibility" ... the presence of God is an overwhelming and all consuming fire. If God were present in a human body, "he" would destroy it.
why is that 1:05:25 because from a fundamental perspective in Judaism 1:05:32 uh the essence of God is something that I mean first of all 1:05:39 it's explicit in scripture that God is likened to a consuming fire and God 1:05:46 essentially is pure energy it's like radioactive and in order to have this world I 1:05:52 mentioned that the word for world is hidden uh there is an entire system that 1:05:58 of buffer zones between the essence of God and our universe and therefore the 1:06:06 idea that more than a Gchip that's the soul the G chip right we're in we're in 1:06:13 you know Silicon Valley area so that is something that God has managed to enable 1:06:20 to interface with a human body but a more intense interaction with God did 1:06:27 you ever see Raiders of the Lost Ark
The problem with this is, it makes God physical in a way that makes Him impotent in relation to His own power. Like Calvinism. If God is all powerful, in Calvinism, this means God is incapable of any kind of temperance in His omnipotence to grant us free-will. Here it is more like infinite energy, but still a God incapable of tempering His own might. I'd answer from the OT this way:
Then the Lord answered Job out of a whirlwind, and said Who is this that wrappeth up sentences in unskillful words
[Job 38:1-2]
(By the way the "who is this" guy isn't Job, but either Eliud or Satan or both on different levels ... however, Job takes it like God challenges him and confesses the unskillful words that he had NOT pronounced — while God considers Job's critics, from Satan to Eliud, as unskillful)
And he said to him: Go forth, and stand upon the mount before the Lord: and behold the Lord passeth, and a great and strong wind before the Lord over throwing the mountains, and breaking the rocks in pieces: the Lord is not in the wind, and after the wind an earthquake: the Lord is not in the earthquake 12 And after the earthquake a fire: the Lord is not in the fire, and after the fire a whistling of a gentle air 13 And when Elias heard it, he covered his face with his mantle, and coming forth stood in the entering in of the cave, and behold a voice unto him, saying: What dost thou here, Elias? And he answered
[3 Kings (1 Kings) 19:11-13]
So, God can be a whirlwind when He likes, and a whistling of gentle air when He likes. A fine refutation of the materialism inherent in Judaism and Calvinism. But that was an aside about the physical possibility, now to the moral one.
The answer goes back to who is the first adulterer and the first adulteress. It's Satan. First adulterer, since first idol, but also first adulteress, since the first to worship anyone other than God. If marriage is an image of the right covenant between God and His worshippers, adultery is one of idolatry. Often the adulterer (a demon) is distinct from the adulteress (and Israelite or apostate Catholic worshipping a false* God, so ultimately a demon).
When Moses says:
If any man commit adultery with the wife of another, and defile his neighbour's wife, let them be put to death, both the adulterer and the adulteress.
[Leviticus 20:10]
the main concern is to keep Satan away from the people of Israel, human adultery is a proxy. Now, human justice, men who are just men, wielding stones that are just stones, can't deal with Satan directly. Hence, they would stone the adulterer and the adulteress.
However, Jesus is both God and Man. As Man, He cannot fulfill the law as foreseen, since the adulterer is not there. Perhaps it was one of the witnesses, or perhaps it was a Roman soldier. The law of Moses would nothave been fulfilled in stoning the adulteress alone. But as God, He could fulfill the ultimate meaning of the law, and throw a stone at Satan, the first adulterer, the first adulteress.
As Catholics, I think we can assess what this stone is. It is a stone or rock called Calvary. And it is also an image of Jesus on Calvary, a vicar. That stone has inscriptions like:
And I will give to thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven. And whatsoever thou shalt bind upon earth, it shall be bound also in heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt loose upon earth, it shall be loosed also in heaven
[Matthew 16:19]
Then came Peter unto him and said: Lord, how often shall my brother offend against me, and I forgive him? till seven times 22 Jesus saith to him: I say not to thee, till seven times; but till seventy times seven times
[Matthew 18:21-22]
It's not just about the individual Christian's capacity to forgive, it is about St. Peter's capacity to forgive on God's behalf. Palamas, who was not Catholic and who considered the individual bishop of each see to be successor of Peter for that see, considered the bishop of a see has the fulness of the capacity to forgive on God's behalf. We Catholics believe, it is the Pope who can forgive with no cases reserved to any higher authority.
So, basically, every time a human adulterer or adulteress is told "go and sin no more" Jesus is stoning Satan with the Petrine office. And that was what He did in His own Person too, when He spoke to the woman:
Who said: No man, Lord. And Jesus said: Neither will I condemn thee. Go, and now sin no more
[John 8:11]
In other words, He did follow the law, and He did follow His own injunction.
Other question, did the woman call Jesus Sir or Lord? The Greek "kurie" can be interpreted both ways. As with the blind men in Matthew 20.
Hans Georg Lundahl
Paris
Corpus Christi
19.VI.2025
* That includes the "God is too powerful to have human bodies survive in His presence" and "God is too almighty to have freewill survive in the same universe" ... false gods of Judaism and of Calvinism.
