What was Jesus writing in the dirt?

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In the incident of the woman caught in adultery, the men bring her to Jesus to test him about what should be done with her viz. the death penalty. Jesus responds by writing something in the dirt.

Well, I’ve heard a couple homilies where priests speculate on that. But, I’m sitting here reading my Bible-in-a-year Bible and something popped out at me.

Jer 17:13 “Lord…those who turn away from you will be written in the earth.” (NSRV-2CE)

My Jewish Publications Society 1985 translation has trouble with the verse. It says the text says something about “inscribe.”

So, it looks like the Catholic translation looks plausible. Jesus was likely writing the names of the men. These “righteous” Jews probably recalled the words of the prophet and turned away. The prophecy was fulfilled in their sight

(I’m not saying my idea is original, only that maybe the meaning just became clear to me by reading the Bible. Thank you Lord.)
 
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interesting I always heard that Jesus was writing the sins of the accusers in the dirt. Also my NAB bible doesn’t have that verse written in the earth but my RSV 2ndE does.
 
That topic came up a couple of weeks ago on Patrick Madrid’s morning show. He mentioned that we don’t know for sure, but he did mention the speculations as noted above.
 
Maybe Jesus was just doodling - like a little kid - not paying attention - to the haters -
Maybe the haters - were pointing at her and arguing for 5 solid minutes -
No women picked up stones…?

The interesting fact of that story -
The oldest of the haters - turned away first -
They dropped - the rock !
 
I’ve heard many different speculations, but the most likely, I think, were:

The sins of the accusers

The 10 commandments

“MENE, TEKEL, PERES” the writing on the Wall in the book of Daniel with regards to the Pharisee’s judgement and authority
 
Yeah, there are a lot of plausible ideas, but nobody really knows except Jesus and those would-be stoners. 😉

Fr. Mitch Pacwa just discussed the story on (I think) the latest ep of Scripture and Tradition. Saw it the other day.
 
Just think about this: Christ has been answering “what’d you write in the dirt?” from people for about 2000 years. That’s divine patience.
 
otrrl said:
In the incident of the woman caught in adultery, the men bring her to Jesus to test him about what should be done with her viz. the death penalty. Jesus responds by writing something in the dirt.

Well, I’ve heard a couple homilies where priests speculate on that. But, I’m sitting here reading my Bible-in-a-year Bible and something popped out at me.

Jer 17:13 “Lord…those who turn away from you will be written in the earth.” (NSRV-2CE)

My Jewish Publications Society 1985 translation has trouble with the verse. It says the text says something about “inscribe.”

So, it looks like the Catholic translation looks plausible. Jesus was likely writing the names of the men. These “righteous” Jews probably recalled the words of the prophet and turned away. The prophecy was fulfilled in their sight

(I’m not saying my idea is original, only that maybe the meaning just became clear to me by reading the Bible. Thank you Lord.)
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Nobody knows. Anything would simply be speculation.
 
wiggbuggie1 said:
my NAB bible doesn’t have that verse written in the earth but my RSV 2ndE does.
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Right. The NAB interprets the meaning of the words as not literally signifying “writing stuff in the dirt”, but rather, as “The rebels shall be enrolled in the netherworld”. So, it’s not “writing” as much as it is “becoming associated with” or “being registered in”, and it’s not the “dirt”, per se, but Hades / Sheol. What’s really interesting is that, in the story of the woman caught in adultery, the NAB footnotes Jesus’ “writing” with that quote from the RSV! 🤔

So anyway, if you want to believe that Jeremiah was talking about writing in the dirt, then you see a correspondence with the Gospel account. However, that would turn the Gospel passage on its head. It would mean that Jesus sees the scribes and the Pharisees as condemned to Sheol, and as the ones who are to receive the curses of Jeremiah 17! Now, if this were the case, would they have silently slunk away? I mean, that would’ve been the equivalent of standing up and shouting, “your mama wears army boots!”… or worse! So, if that were what Jesus was doing, wouldn’t we expect a more emotional and/or violent reaction from the scribes and Pharisees? After all, they were trying to goad Jesus into saying or doing something that they could use against Him – wouldn’t this have been exactly what they were looking for?

So, while it’s interesting, I’m not sure it entirely makes sense to me. YMMV, though. 😉
 
The interesting thing that popped into my head when I read this post, was that Jesus did not write any Gospels, He did not even write a letter to anyone, He scribbled something in the dust that dramatically changed the attitudes of those around Him. His words are powerful indeed, they transcend time and space and have universal application even today.

Laudetus Iesus Christus!
 
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Just this evening when I heard that reading I wondered, “Does anything in the Old Testament foreshadow this?” We read how an interaction between Joshua and Moses prefigures the interaction between John and Jesus in tonight’s/tomorrow’s Mass reading, but does anything prefigure Jesus’ action when an adulterer is brought before Him? What you suggest seems fairly plausible. I’ll have to dig into the Old Testament again myself to see what I can find.
 
I have it on good authority that what He wrote was, “People will argue over what I am writing until the parousia.”

Could be wrong though.
 
Thom18 said:
does anything prefigure Jesus’ action when an adulterer is brought before Him?
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The first thing that comes to mind is the context of some of the pre-exilic prophets (Hosea, certainly, but others as well). In these prophets, the notion of ‘infidelity’ is front-and-center: the people of God have committed ‘adultery’ against God by turning to false gods. But, God promises (over and over again!) that He will forgive the people their iniquities and they will be faithful to Him and the covenant bond between them will be renewed.

At least, that’s what first comes to mind.
 
otrrl said:
In the incident of the woman caught in adultery, the men bring her to Jesus to test him about what should be done with her viz. the death penalty. Jesus responds by writing something in the dirt.

Well, I’ve heard a couple homilies where priests speculate on that. But, I’m sitting here reading my Bible-in-a-year Bible and something popped out at me.

Jer 17:13 “Lord…those who turn away from you will be written in the earth.” (NSRV-2CE)

My Jewish Publications Society 1985 translation has trouble with the verse. It says the text says something about “inscribe.”

So, it looks like the Catholic translation looks plausible. Jesus was likely writing the names of the men. These “righteous” Jews probably recalled the words of the prophet and turned away. The prophecy was fulfilled in their sight

(I’m not saying my idea is original, only that maybe the meaning just became clear to me by reading the Bible. Thank you Lord.)
Click to expand...
Another thing. Remember how the Tablets of the Law Moses received was written “with the finger of God”? 😉
The scribes and the Pharisees brought a woman who had been caught in adultery; and making her stand before all of them, they said to him, “Teacher, this woman was caught in the very act of committing adultery. Now in the law Moses commanded us to stone such women. Now what do you say?” They said this to test him, so that they might have some charge to bring against him. Jesus bent down and wrote with his finger on the ground.
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One other thought, if we’re just speculating:
otrrl said:
Jesus was likely writing the names of the men.
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Some would say that there’s no evidence that Jesus was literate; there are no mentions in the Scriptures of Him literally writing anything. So, since the verb here can be understood to refer to figures as well as letters, maybe He was drawing a picture?

So… maybe something showing that it takes two to do the adultery tango, but they’d only brought the woman?

Or, if you want to claim that He was literate, He could have been writing the words of the Law that talk about two being caught in adultery.

Too much to speculate on, I think. Concentrate on the thrust of the story: Jesus offers reconciliation, not condemnation.
 
It’s interesting to speculate on this because I expect Jesus did many things during the course of the day but they were not recorded, this was, so it seems relevant. Mysterious.

Perhaps the OP’s intuition is correct about this.
 
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Some Biblical Scholars believe Jesus was writing the sins of the Pharisees.
 
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