John 8 Bible study: The light of the world

The chapter opens where 7:53 leaves off: "Everyone went to his own house" (7:53), "but Jesus went to the Mount of Olives" (8:1). Here the World English Bible prints 7:53-8:11, where a woman is brought to Jesus in the temple (8:2-3). Many Bibles print a note at 7:53, and Christians read the place of these verses in John differently. Favor shows them as the World English Bible prints them and takes no side. "Now very early in the morning, he came again into the temple, and all the people came to him. He sat down and taught them" (8:2). "The scribes and the Pharisees brought a woman taken in adultery" (8:3), and they said, "Teacher, we found this woman in adultery, in the very act. Now in our law, Moses commanded us to stone such women. What then do you say about her?" (8:4-5). John's Gospel says why they asked: "They said this testing him, that they might have something to accuse him of" (8:6). "But Jesus stooped down and wrote on the ground with his finger" (8:6). John's Gospel doesn't say what he wrote, and these notes don't either. "But when they continued asking him, he looked up and said to them, “He who is without sin among you, let him throw the first stone at her.”" (8:7). "They, when they heard it, being convicted by their conscience, went out one by one, beginning from the oldest, even to the last" (8:9). Then he asked her, "Woman, where are your accusers? Did no one condemn you?" (8:10). "She said, “No one, Lord.” Jesus said, “Neither do I condemn you. Go your way. From now on, sin no more.”" (8:11). Favor's chapter on Leviticus 20 sets 8:3-11 beside that chapter's law as a reading (see Lines that already land here), and this chapter doesn't draw that line again.

Exodus 10:23→leads toJohn 8:12

While Egypt sat in darkness, "all the children of Israel had light in their dwellings" (10:23). Jesus said, "I am the light of the world. He who follows me will not walk in the darkness, but will have the light of life" (John 8:12), and "I have come as a light into the world, that whoever believes in me may not remain in the darkness" (John 12:46). Jesus doesn't cite Exodus 10, so setting the two side by side is a reading: some hear in his words the same line drawn between darkness and light; others read them on their own.

ἀλήθειαaletheiasay al-AY-thi-ah

Thayer: "verity, truth". "You will know the truth, and the truth will make you free" (8:32): twice in one verse. The word comes seven times in 8:32-46 (counted in RP2018, the Byzantine text the WEB translates): twice in 8:32, then "a man who has told you the truth which I heard from God" (8:40), twice in 8:44, "But because I tell the truth, you don’t believe me" (8:45), and "If I tell the truth, why do you not believe me?" (8:46). John's Greek has it 25 times, more than any other book of the New Testament (counted in RP2018); the first is "full of grace and truth" (1:14). Later Jesus says, "I am the way, the truth, and the life" (14:6), and Pilate asks him, "What is truth?" (18:38).