Adulterous woman

[Rev. Rye]

The answer is pretty simple really, they weren't acting in accordance to Mosaic law since it clearly states that BOTH the man and woman were to be stoned.

“If a man is found lying with a woman married to a husband, then both of them shall die—the man that lay with the woman, and the woman; so you shall put away the evil from Israel. - Deuteronomy 22:22

Since they stated they caught the woman in the act, where was the man?

That is one of the problems of the story, which are indicators that the story never happened. The fact that there is no man is equally nonsensical as people listening to Jesus on these matters. Like, if they were obviously not acting in accordance to Mosaic law, why wouldn't Jesus notice it and point it out?

I get the impression that if they were actually following Mosaic Law, Jesus wouldn’t have batted an eye.

To me, it makes more sense if you assume they weren’t following Mosaic Law. Especially since the Sanhedrin IRL had stupefyingly high standards of proof for capital punishment  

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Highlights of how high the burden of proof was:

• There needed to be two witnesses, who had to be men, well-versed in the law, without a speech impediment, and unrelated to each other or the accused.
  
• They both had to warn him seconds (specifically, the time it took to say “"Peace unto you, my Rabbi and my Master") before the act that it was a capital offense, and the accused had to say he knew, but was going to do it anyway. 
  
• The judges, all 23+ of them, had to examine both witnesses separately, and if they disagreed on any point, no matter how minor,  the evidence had to be thrown out.
  
• The judges had to vote on the guilt of the accused, but the results had to have at least two more judges voting for conviction than acquittal, but if all  the judges agreed to convict, the perp was let go because there obviously has to be something wrong with the court.

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and they were most likely in the process of abandoning it anyway around that time. As I said earlier, I think it makes sense if you see this as a vigilante mob killing a woman and not a capital punishment in progress. And that Jesus’ rebukes worked because he’s calling them out on their hypocrisy. Perhaps if he was as intimidating in this scene as Willem Dafoe, it would have helped even more.

It’s a far more Watsonian explanation than a Doylist one, but, then again, a Doylist explanation would probably just leave it at “this probably didn’t happen, what with it not appearing in the manuscripts until fairly late.” And where’s the fun in that?