For follow-up discussion and general commentary on the topic. Comments are sorted chronologically.
A Lamb
I think one should take into consideration where Jesus was at the time and when he actually started writing on the ground. First it says he was in the temple so the floor in the temple would have been stone. Next he started writing only after they asked him the question in relation to the law.
I can only speculate that he was trying to show that He gave the law and they were trying to trick the giver of the law. However this is only speculation.
In the end the focus is not on what was being written on the ground but a host of other lessons.
Glenn Berry
Jesus was teaching when the leaders came to him with the lady. They accused her of adultery and said that the law required that she be stoned to death. Jesus then knelt and began writing in the dirt. What he wrote is not written in any of the gospels. What was written was not important. It may have been that he was writing a list of the sins of the men standing there. The Bible says that the men, from the oldest to the youngest, left. When the last one left, Jesus asked where her accusers were. She said they were gone and Jesus told he that he did not accuse her either and told her to go and sin no more.
The lesson here for all of us is that we see others' sins much easier that we see our own. When we take our time we can see our sins also and know that we are no better that anyone else. Our calling is to love each other and encourage each other just as Jesus did when he did not condemn the lady but loved her and encouraged her by telling her to go and sin no more.
Troy Curliss
#Adultery - just letting those around Him know He knew who they really were. OK, so they didn't have Twitter yet, but I'm sure that it was something they all could see and understand that He knew their guilt.
Cornelius Bruin
there are several valid reasons why Jn.7:53 - 8:1-11 should not be considered as YHWH's Word. The main ones of course are those that violate Torah and Yeshua. And Yeshua being Torah (the Word) make these words and actions impossible to have reflected the true nature of Yeshua.
Furthermore, a detail that came to me one day when I was researching/meditating on this story that I think also makes it unlikely is the fact that it says He was seated in the Temple court, most likely on one of the steps there. Firstly, in bending down to write (most logically requiring to write on stone level next one down from where His feet were) would have been physically quite taxing. And secondly the main part of the detail that came to me was that it's highly unlikely that there would have been enough dust or dirt (that it says) on what would have been tidyly maintained Temple court pavement stones for any finger marked words to be able to be read.
yours in Yeshua - Cornelius Bruin from Christchurch, NZ.
Danny Hickman
A Lamb,
When Jesus bent down to write He was writing in the dirt. He was in the temple when the crowd showed up with the woman, but He was outside when He heard the case brought before Him. The men didn't take a "woman caught in adultery" inside the temple. The writer doesn't give a blow by blow accounting, assuming some things to be common knowledge.
Also, there were no stones to be picked up and thrown at her inside the temple. They went to the temple and Jesus came outside to see what the commotion was about. They wouldn't have taken that drama into the temple.
Who went in the temple and got Jesus so He could hear the case against the woman of John 8?