John 8

John 8 opens at dawn in the temple courts with a trap. A woman caught in adultery is dragged before Jesus, and he is asked whether the law of Moses should be carried out; if he says yes, he has taken a life into his hands, and if he says no, he has set aside the law. He bends down and writes in the dust, and when they keep pressing, he straightens up and says that the one without sin should throw the first stone. They leave, oldest first. Alone with her, he neither condemns nor excuses: go, and sin no more. Most early manuscripts do not have this story, and most Bibles mark that, but almost everyone agrees that it sounds exactly like him. What follows is the longest and hardest argument in the Gospels. Against the backdrop of the festival lamps in the Court of the Women, Jesus says he is the light of the world. His hearers challenge his right to speak for himself, and he answers that the Father testifies with him. He tells them they will die in their sins unless they believe who he is, and many do believe. Then, to those very believers, he says that the truth will free them if they hold to his word, and the conversation collapses. They are Abraham's children and have never been slaves; he says everyone who sins is a slave; they say God is their Father; he says that if that were true they would love him. The exchange becomes as bitter as any in the New Testament, and it ends with the most staggering claim in the book, "before Abraham was born, I am," and stones in their hands.