The Revelation Jesus Does Not Speak

To this day we have not the slightest idea what it was Jesus twice scribbled in the sand. By and large the commentaries have asked the wrong question through the ages. They labor over the content, over what he might have written. They ask what without ever realizing that the real question is why. It was not the content that mattered but why he did it. Unexpected. Irritating. Creative. They were furious, of course — as much with Jesus as with the woman. (For all we know, they may have set her up to be caught.) They dragged her into the temple court, interrupting who knows what luminous lesson Jesus was in the middle of. You know the story. “What do you say?” they asked him, with the false adoration he had become used to over time. But he didn’t say anything. Not a syllable. Instead Jesus crouched on his…