WHILE appreciating, as I usually do, Kevin McKenna’s perceptive article on the world according to Donald Trump, I venture to point out that his knowledge of the Gospel according to John is defective (“An apocalyptic world view that has been embraced by Trump”, The Herald, December 9).
If he looks again at the relevant passage, he will find no reference to any “mob who had gathered to stone Mary Magdalene to death.” In the first place, the woman taken in adultery is not Mary Magdalene; in the second, there is no mention of a mob. The Gospel passage says that the woman was brought to Jesus by the Scribes and the Pharisees, to challenge him with the question of whether she should receive the punishment of stoning prescribed by the Mosaic law.
From what I understand, there was no question of her being stoned to death, as the punishment had gone out of use long before Jesus’s lifetime: the issue was whether Jesus would overtly repudiate a prescription of the law of Moses.
Mr McKenna’s debating technique of using the Bible to counter politicians who misapply its teaching is entirely respectable and could be effective but he needs to know his weapons (if that is a fitting word) better than he evidently does.
Derrick McClure,
4 Rosehill Terrace,
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