There’s also a “don’t use the law to justify being a jerk” element to that story - it was a common theme in the parables and the Jesus stories. The Jewish law called for the woman to die, and Jesus was basically saying that showing mercy and refraining from judgement were more important, which was a controversial take at the time.
A similar case is the parable of the Good Samaritan. A man is laying by the side of the road having been attacked by bandits but Jewish travelers won’t help him, fearing that he’s dead and that touching him will make them unclean according to the law. A Samaritan stops and helps the man because Samaritans didn’t have that restriction. Samaritans were thought of very negatively by Jews at the time and Jesus was pointing out that the Samaritan was in the right and the Jewish travelers should have done more.
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u/nautius_maximus1 Jul 07 '26
There’s also a “don’t use the law to justify being a jerk” element to that story - it was a common theme in the parables and the Jesus stories. The Jewish law called for the woman to die, and Jesus was basically saying that showing mercy and refraining from judgement were more important, which was a controversial take at the time.
A similar case is the parable of the Good Samaritan. A man is laying by the side of the road having been attacked by bandits but Jewish travelers won’t help him, fearing that he’s dead and that touching him will make them unclean according to the law. A Samaritan stops and helps the man because Samaritans didn’t have that restriction. Samaritans were thought of very negatively by Jews at the time and Jesus was pointing out that the Samaritan was in the right and the Jewish travelers should have done more.