From: jocallag@artin.helios.nd.edu (john ocallaghan)
Subject: Re:      Re: The Woman Caught in Adultery (John 8:1-11)
Organization: OUC, University of Notre Dame
Date: Mon, 11 Jan 1993 18:14:54 GMT

Hello Len,

In article <9301110122.AA15248@pegasus.com> Len Howard <tas@PEGASUS.COM> writes:
>     In his chapter on Scripture in Sykes and Booty's "The Study of
>Anglicanism", Reginald Fuller, retired Professor of New Testament in
>Virginial Theological Siminary makes the following statemt,  "The
>insipration of Scripture is not to be understood as a once-for-all
>accomplished event.  When Scripture is read in the church, the Holy
>Spirit uses it ever anew to proclaim the living word of salvation.
>This proclamation requires the response of faith, and that too is the
>work of the Holy Spirit."  Each time we hear scripture, we hear it
>with the particular individual ears of faith belonging to us at the
>time.ur prior experice, teaching, and interpretation are all coming
>into play.  And at each successive reading, we inwardly digest the
>message of that particular piece of scripture and it becomes a part of
>our "reason and experience", the third leg of authority in the
>Episcopal Church.

I have a question about this, for clarification.  Is Professor Fuller's
statement to be interpreted to be saying that there is an ongoing public
Revelation that did not end with the death of the last Apostle?
Are we to take it that this is Episcopal teaching on Revelation?

>The way Jesus managed this was to challenge the Jewish definition of
>sin, and put forth the spirit of the law rather than the letter of the
>law.  He asked the woman "Are their none who condemn you?" and put
>himself in the same grouping.  "Go and sin no more" is a phrase that
>we all can hear from Jesus at that point.  Was it meant to be specific
>to what the Woman had been charged with, or was it a general
>benediction to any sinner such as we?  I don't know.  But when I try
>to look at building bridges to God rather than seeting up walls in
>front of him, I tend towards the latter.


Don't you think your reading would be a little out of context?  The only 
evidence we have that the woman was any sort of sinner is that she was
"caught in adultery."  If this statement were not present we would have no
reason to think this woman was a sinner.  Without this satement the woman
might well have been Jesus mother, and then wouldn't it have seemed odd to
say "go and sin no more."  On your interpretation, just what would Christ
be telling the woman not to do?  After all, your interpretation seems to
fit all particular sins.  Christ doesn't tell people to stop doing particular
sins, just to stop sinning.  Well what exactly is he telling them to stop
doing when he says go and sin no more, if not particular sins?
Besides, the general admonition can stand with the particular; it is not a choice of one or the other.  But I don't see how in context, it can be a choice of 
the general without the particular.  It is because there is a general admonitionrooted in the particular that I can follow it; since I do not, and please God
never will, commit adultery, I do not feel charged by the particular admonition;
but generalizing upon it, I can certainly feeled admonished to sin no longer.
But on your interpretation, what exactly are we being admonished not to do, if
there are no particular sins?

Peace,
John

>builders.  And we can start with ourselves.......
>
>Shalom, my friend                        Len Howard


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