Playing in the dirt.

I've made a connection that I can't recall ever hearing.

Jesus, confronted in John 8 with the woman caught in adultery, stoops and draws in the dirt.

Well, the word usually translated "wrote" is from the root grapho. Usually it means to write. There is an Attic sense of the word as meaning "to indict." That's interesting. But it gets better. Grapho can also mean "to draw."

The word translated "dirt" is "ge". And, you guessed it, ge can mean dirt. And land. And earth.

Jesus drew in the earth.

Peeking at the Septuagint, Genesis 2:7 says God made (plasso, too bad it wasn't grapho) man from the dust (xous) of the earth (ge).

Everyone I've heard fixates on what Jesus wrote in the dirt. We don't know, not that that keeps most people from guessing. I think the gesture is entirely symbolic and meant to be understood as such. Jesus, confronted with snarky tempters, gives the harshest response possible: By playing in the dirt he says, "I created you." I'm tempted to read into it, "I created you and this is the hardest test for me you can think of?" We might also throw in an overtone of "To dust you shall return."

Jesus' tempters don't get it and he lowers himself to make a response that is just as neutralizing but less profound.

Increasingly I think that symbolism is the key to understanding the Bible. Dig the symbols and understand them and you understand the Bible.

Time to go see if I can find any commentaries that associate Gen 2:7 with John 8:6.