In previous posts I noted how in Mark we have the satire of how the crafty Jewish leaders were manipulating scripture and tradition to invent a case against Jesus. Matthew shows something similar in one of Satan’s temptations of Jesus misusing scripture. In a later addition to the gospel of John, we see this same pattern repeated of Jews trying to trip up Jesus with their knowledge of scripture. Levine writes:

According to John 8:2–11, a text absent from the earliest manuscripts of John and sometimes appearing in Luke 21, scribes and Pharisees bring to Jesus in the temple a woman caught in adultery, cite the “law” (the appeal is to Lev 20:10) regarding stoning adulterers, and ask Jesus for his view. Were he to say “stone her,” he would be violating Roman law (adultery was not a capital offense; in John 18:31 Caiaphas tells Pilate that “we” [Jews] are not allowed to execute); it also runs against the direction of rabbinic literature, which attempts to make capital punishment all but impossible. Were he to say, “do not stone her,” he would appear to be in violation of Torah. The Pharisees, contrary to popular opinion, were not about to stone her. They are not carrying stones; the setting is the temple, where human bloodshed is forbidden.

Just as the Jewish supreme council turning on Jesus is satire, so too did this story from John not really happen as its setting at the temple screams parody.

Bibliography

Levine, Amy-Jill. Sexuality in Crossley, James; Keith, Chris. The Next Quest for the Historical Jesus (pp. 606-630). Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co.. Kindle Edition (2024)