Woman Caught in Adultery
Life of Jesus · Draft · BSB
Content revision: e4f039e6077e88ce · No editorial review date recorded
Date: Judea, Perea and the road to Jerusalem. A guided comparison of Gospel accounts, not a measured calendar or a claim that every parallel follows the same sequence.
Scribes and Pharisees bring a woman accused of adultery to test Jesus. He challenges the accusers, who depart, and speaks to the woman about condemnation and leaving sin behind.
John 7:53–8:11 is absent from the earliest surviving Greek manuscripts and appears in varying locations in later witnesses. The BSB includes it, but its placement here cannot establish a secure point in Jesus’s chronology. The text never states what he writes.
Primary Scripture
7:53 Then each went to his own home.
8:1 But Jesus went to the Mount of Olives.
8:2 Early in the morning He went back into the temple courts. All the people came to Him, and He sat down to teach them.
8:3 The scribes and Pharisees, however, brought to Him a woman caught in adultery. They made her stand before them
8:4 and said, “Teacher, this woman was caught in the act of adultery.
8:5 In the Law Moses commanded us to stone such a woman. So what do You say?”
8:6 They said this to test Him, in order to have a basis for accusing Him. But Jesus bent down and began to write on the ground with His finger.
8:7 When they continued to question Him, He straightened up and said to them, “Let him who is without sin among you be the first to cast a stone at her.”
8:8 And again He bent down and wrote on the ground.
8:9 When they heard this, they began to go away one by one, beginning with the older ones, until only Jesus was left, with the woman standing there.
8:10 Then Jesus straightened up and asked her, “Woman, where are your accusers? Has no one condemned you?”
8:11 “No one, Lord,” she answered. “Then neither do I condemn you,” Jesus declared. “Now go and sin no more.”
Related Scripture
The requirements concerning witnesses and the first action in a capital case supply legal context.
Location evidence
The received passage places the encounter in Jerusalem’s temple courts. The city can be oriented on the map even though the passage’s original literary placement is uncertain.
Event map marker: Identified site; [longitude, latitude] = [35.23494, 31.77744]. This is a teaching marker, not an exact event venue.
Jerusalem: Identified site. Coordinates [longitude, latitude]: [35.23494, 31.77744]. Classification source: rule.
Digital Atlas of the Roman Empire
John 8 notes · manuscript placement
For the class
How does the scene change when attention turns from the accusation to the accusers?
Interpretation and reuse
Narrative order is a reading arrangement, not a proven chronology. Dates retain their stated uncertainty. An identified locality does not establish the exact venue or prove an event. Region extents and routes are illustrative, not surveyed boundaries or ancient roads. Draft material has not completed editorial review.
Record source: theographic (419)
Record source: editorial
Events and places adapted from Theographic Bible Metadata (github.com/robertrouse/theographic-bible-metadata), CC BY-SA 4.0. This adapted data is shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.
Place coordinates from OpenBible.info Bible Geocoding Data, CC BY 4.0.
Teaching stops, summaries and regional extents are original editorial content of this atlas.
Berean Standard Bible (BSB), public domain. https://berean.bible/licensing.htm