Silence, Woman!

SPEAKER_1 (0:00)

What's something you learned in history class that you feel like wasn't the whole truth? Better yet, what's something you didn't learn at all that was omitted completely? That's what I like to call Redacted History. My name is Andre White, the host of the Redacted History podcast, the place where history's forgotten events, heroes and villains get their story told, one episode at a time. The Redacted History podcast, real history never dies.

Stream the Redacted History podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever else you get your podcasts.

Dan Beecher (0:36)

Friends, if you've been using some of these scriptures as sexist bludgeons, I say unto you, go and sin no more.

Dan McClellan (0:47)

I saw what you did there. I saw what you did, you brought it around on.

Dan Beecher (0:51)

Just a full circle sort of thing. I had that one in my back pocket right there.

Dan McClellan (0:59)

Hey everybody, I'm Dan McClellan.

Dan Beecher (1:01)

And I'm Dan Beecher.

Dan McClellan (1:02)

And you're listening to the Data Over Dogma podcast where we increase public access to the academic study of the Bible and religion and combat the spread of misinformation about the same. How are things, Dan?

Dan Beecher (1:15)

Things are going well. It's ladies night here on Data Over Dogma because we are going to explore two Bible stories involving women, which is always an interesting moment. Neither of them have a name, which is common for Bible stories, I suppose. But yeah, but we're gonna be doing some interesting, we're looking at them in an interesting way. This is gonna be textual healing.

That's what we're calling the segment. So maybe we should just dive on in.

Dan McClellan (1:53)

All right, let's do it. What are we looking at first?

Dan Beecher (1:57)

So the first thing we're gonna look at is from John.

If you go by what several internet sources that I looked at say, it starts in John chapter seven, verse 53, which is the very last verse in the chapter of John 57 And it's the weirdest place to switch chapters I've ever thought I've ever encountered in my life, because it starts with, then each of them went home, comma, and then we go on to chapter eight. So it's really just the beginning of John chapter eight. But that's just the weirdest break I've ever seen. And might be indicative of what we're going to be talking about.

Dan McClellan (2:49)

Yeah.

Dan Beecher (2:49)

I don't know.

Dan McClellan (2:50)

This is the famous story of the woman taken in adultery, caught in adultery, the pericope adulteri, as some people who cannot pronounce Latin very well, such as myself, like to call it.

This is the famous story where Jesus' opponents bring this woman and throw her on the ground before him, and then he doodles in the dirt of the temple floor. So it's been brought up before on our show, but this time we're actually gonna talk in a little more detail about what's going on. And let me see if I can find the, how many verses are in here? So it looks like we've got 12 verses. Should we just go ahead and read through it first, just to kind of set the table or?

Dan Beecher (3:34)

I mean, I don't know that we need to get all, we need to do the whole thing. Basically, we got Jesus, he's in the temple.

All the people came to him and sat down and he began to teach them.

Dan McClellan (3:50)

So when people argue that when the text says all, it means all. So this means every last person on earth came to Jesus.

Dan Beecher (3:59)

Yes, literally, if you're a Bible literalist, then yes, all of the humans on earth came and sat at his feet in the temple in Jerusalem.

Dan McClellan (4:07)

Let me just make sure that's in the Greek. Yep.

Dan Beecher (4:12)

Good, good, good, good. So everybody on earth came.

The scribes and the Pharisees. Why did the scribes? Why were they involved? Anyway, a bunch of dudes brought a woman who had been caught literally in the act of adultery, in flagrante delicto, as they say.

Dan McClellan (4:33)

That's disgusting.

Dan Beecher (4:36)

And anyway, they apparently grabbed her out of the act, dragged her to Jesus, and demanded that the law of Moses says that they're supposed to stone such a woman.

And apparently trying to catch him out on something, they say, what do you say? It literally says, verse six says, they said this to test him so that they might have some charge to bring against him.