There has always been controversy over whether or not John 7:53 through John 8:11 was a part of the original manuscript; almost all textual scholars agree it was not. The style and vocabulary are different, and the passage seems to interrupt what is going on in verse 52. Most conclude it was a part of the oral tradition and added later. 

I do not doubt that it was not a part of the original manuscript. I believe this was a story told orally, which then formed a part of John’s oral tradition when he shared his Gospel publicly. This leads me to assume that as John would retell his story, those who heard it and then rewrote it added the story where John had put it in his oral telling. The story would then lay right where John told it. He may have said when telling his Jesus-story, “I should have added this incident here.” No, no one knows for sure, but I have no doubt this is Scripture and inspired for teaching, and this event lands right where God wanted it. 

Woman Caught in Adultery (1-11) 

During the last three days of the Feast of Tabernacles, Jesus was staying on the Mount of Olives. Several places were available to Him. Lazarus and his sisters, Martha and Mary, lived in the vicinity, and of course, Jesus often went there for prayer. It is my conjecture that this event happened on the last day of the feast. Sometime after the pouring out of the water, Jesus was sitting and teaching a crowd. As He was teaching, the religious teachers and Pharisees caught a man and a woman having sex in one of the booths set up outside the city for the Feast of Booths. The Pharisees scooped up the woman and brought her to Jesus, accusing her of adultery. This was likely a common activity during such a celebration, so finding guilty parties may not have been a challenge. 

They thrust the woman in front of Jesus and the crowd He had been teaching (1-3). 

Those who had their degrees in theology told Jesus they had an eye-witnessed, air-tight accusation against the woman committing adultery, and the Law of Moses sentenced her to be stoned. They then asked Him to interpret the case for them (4-5). 

They had assumed Jesus would be trapped. He might stone her and deny His own message of God's love and forgiveness or vindicate her and break the Law of God. They assumed they had placed Jesus in a judicial and theological trap they could use for further accusation. 

Jesus paused and took a moment to write something in the dust with His finger. Many have conjectured over what He wrote—we don't know, and it is not important to the story. What is important is the fact that Jesus doodled in the dirt, giving all of them a chance to leave. Their malicious shaming did not deserve a response. Jesus was about to say one of the harshest things He would ever say. He was doodling in the dirt to show some mercy, giving the fools seeking a legal trap at the expense of shaming a soul to death a chance to change their minds. 

This deed by these men was one of the ugliest inventions of religion. To shame a sinner by public exposure, gossip, or any level of tattling is one of the most brutal abuses of the religious (6). 

As the religious looked on as Jesus doodled in the dirt, they began demanding an answer. Then Jesus stood up and gave them their answer. He ordered the man among them who was innocent of adultery to take the first stone and commence with judgment (7). Some may think it a stretch to call the sin Jesus referred to adultery, but I think not. Those who sentence the immoral are fools, for lust lurks in the hearts of all.

Jesus then stooped down again and doodled some more (8). In the dense and quiet moment, one could only hear footsteps moving, one by one, away from Jesus. The oldest left first, taking the bite out of those left. All eventually ceased looking at the ground, watching Jesus doodle, and turned to slip away in their own shame. 

All who were left were the woman, the crowd, and Jesus (9). 

Jesus then stood up and asked the woman where her accusers had drifted off to and then the big question: “Did not even one stay to condemn what she had just been doing?” (10) She answered, looking in Jesus’ eyes, “No one, Lord,” or “No one, Sir.” Jesus was the barrier between the woman and condemnation. Jesus did not condemn her in any way or at any level. He merely told the woman to ride her forgiveness right into a life of sinning no more (11). 

Jesus healed on the Sabbath, made Himself equal with God, and then forgave sin—all capital sin. The Jewish leaders were watching, and their list grew. 

Jesus, the Light of the World (12-20) 

One of the traditions of the Feast of Tabernacles was the lighting of lamps in the court of the women. This also was going to take place in the Temple treasury (20). The wicks of the lamps were made from the discarded robes of the priests. During the lighting of the lamps, Jews would enter the area to dance and sing. The torches represented the pillar of fire by night in the wilderness during the Exodus. 

Using the light lamps as an object lesson, Jesus announced that He was the true “Pillar of fire” or “Light” of the world. Jesus made His announcement invoking the “I AM” definition of Yahweh's name given to Moses at the burning bush. Darkness was a symbol for sin, evil, ignorance, and deception, and Jesus was announcing that He was not just a light but THE PRESENT LIGHT expelling the darkness of the world.

A lurking evil was seeking to kill him. In the late afternoon, the religious leaders were seeking to mercilessly kill a sinner, and by evening, they would seek to kill the Light of the world. Jesus proclaimed that His Light would expel the darkness out of those who gave Him their following allegiance, and they would see (12). 

The Law of Moses required two witnesses to establish truth, and Jesus, they accused, was self-authenticating. They claimed that His witness could not be true (13). Actually, the Law of Moses did not say one witness was not true, but that truth could not be established or was not sufficient for conviction on the basis of one witness (Deuteronomy 17:6; 19:15). 

Jesus then explained a piece of logic to them: sometimes, a person is his or her only witness. To explain further, when I am alone with no one else in the room except God, and because I know how I got into the room and how I will leave, only I can bear witness to the truth. Jesus was the only One on Earth who knew where He came from because, and this is important, He was there. He knew where He was and where He was going because He had seen it (14). 

Jesus then accused the Jewish leaders that they assessed everything by what they assumed they saw and what they allowed themselves to understand, and they verified only what their reasoning senses would allow them to fathom. Jesus, in no way, judged what He did not see; Jesus judged everything He saw with the Father (15). 

This does not mean Jesus could not judge what He did not see because His Father had seen all and could bear witness to the Son of what He had seen. Because God sees beyond natural sight, God's judgment is true and pure (16). 

In “their” or “your” law, these Jewish leaders determined a thing to be true on the basis of two witnesses (17). Jesus then told them He could also work within the narrow provisions of “their” own law. Jesus was a witness to Himself, and His Father was a witness to Him (18). 

The Jewish leaders began asking Jesus the whereabouts of His Father. Maybe they were asking to see His human father, or maybe they wanted to see God, the Father Jesus claimed to have, bearing witness to Him. 

Jesus then cut to the point: they had no idea who He was because, with all their knowledge of religion, the law, and theology, they did not know His Father (19). 

With all of this rigid talk, the Jewish leaders began to boil. Yet, even in the enclosure of the treasury, not one hand could reach and arrest Jesus, for His time had not yet come (20). 

Those Who Die in Their Sin (21-26) 

Encased in the Father's protective presence, Jesus pursued the point all the more. “I am going away. You will keep up your futile seeking of a Messiah, and with all your seeking, you will die in your sin—the Messiah will remain unfound.” Jesus further announced that where He was going, those who had not experienced believing allegiance would not experience being with Him (21). 

The Jews, completely baffled, wondered if Jesus was considering killing Himself (22). 

Jesus continued to explain: the religious leaders were looking at everything from an earthly perspective. They belonged to the lustful, religious world system of which Jesus was not a part (23). 

Jesus continued to try to explain who He was: “I AM HE.” He told them He was the Messiah; the Father had borne witness to Him in Old Testament Scripture, with miraculous signs, and in what He was teaching. If they rejected the Father's witness, and if they did not give Jesus believing allegiance, they would ultimately die in their sins (24). 

None of those leaders could believe their ears. They blurted out a question in utter confusion to His statement, “I AM HE.” They asked, “Who are You?” 

Jesus told them to listen to what He had been telling them consistently from the beginning. He had not changed one word of what He had been saying (25). 

Jesus then told those leaders that He could say so much more. He could begin to judge them for things they had done and overwhelm them with how much He knew about them, but that was not why He had come. He had come to give them the message of life. They could not believe Him even though His Sender, Yahweh, was reliable. 

Jesus Himself was reliable. Jesus was not like a false Messianic madman seeking His own following, His own attention, His own power. He was not accumulating anything but a death, a resurrection, and a salvation for the world. If they spent a moment pondering Him, they would realize He was different and genuine, and His Father's witness was true (26). 

Jewish Leaders Confused (27-30) 

Jesus' listeners were lost. They could not understand how the Father they could not see could bear witness to the Son they could see (27). 

Jesus told them to pay attention to the moment of His death. When they lifted the Son of Man up, then, if they wanted to, they would know “I AM HE.” They would come to realize, on that day, that He did nothing from His own authority—they would come to know that whatever He said the Father had taught Him to say it (28). 

The Crucifixion was Jesus’ hour. It would be the moment of undeniable, absolute confirmation. What Jesus said about His coming death and Resurrection would prove true, and they would, if they wanted to, know then that the Father had sent Jesus, was with Jesus, and never left Jesus alone. Jesus did only those things that pleased the Father (29). 

At this point, some began putting their tentative believing allegiance in Christ (30).