A woman with a reputation walks uninvited into a Pharisee’s dinner and weeps on Jesus’ feet. The host says nothing aloud; Jesus answers him anyway, and settles the arithmetic of forgiveness with a story about two men who could not pay.
Note. Not the anointing at Bethany: that is a different woman, a different town, and the week of the crucifixion. Here the ointment is spent on forgiveness, not burial. The Joseph Smith Translation leaves the scene almost untouched; its one telling change falls just past it, at Luke 8:1, where the twelve become “the twelve who were ordained of him.”
The reading is the Joseph Smith Translation, in the text of the Covenant Christian Edition, carried beside each Gospel and set against the King James baseline. Headers give both numbering systems: the CCE chapter and verse, and the traditional KJV reference.
36And one of the Pharisees desired of him that he would eat with him. And he went into the Pharisee’s house, and he sat down to a meal. 37And behold, a woman in the city, who was a sinner, when she knew that Jesus sat at a meal in the Pharisee’s house, brought an alabaster box of ointment, 38and stood at his feet behind him weeping, and began to wash his feet with tears, and did wipe them with the hairs of her head, and kissed his feet, and anointed them with the ointment. 39Now when the Pharisee who had bidden him saw this, he spoke within himself, saying, This man, if he were a prophet, would have known who or what manner of woman this is who touches him, for she is a sinner.
40And Jesus answering said unto him, Simon, I have somewhat to say unto you. And he said, Master, say on. 41And Jesus said, There was a certain creditor who had two debtors. The one owed five hundred pence, and the other fifty. 42And when he found they had nothing to pay, he freely forgave them both. Tell me, therefore, which of them will love him most? 43Simon answered and said, I suppose that he, the man to whom he forgave most. And he said unto him, You have rightly judged.
44And he turned to the woman and said unto Simon, Do you see this woman? I entered into your house. You gave me no water for my feet, but she has washed my feet with tears, and wiped them with the hairs of her head. 45You gave me no kiss, but this woman, since the time I came in, has not ceased to kiss my feet. 46My head with oil you did not anoint, but this woman has anointed my feet with ointment. 47Wherefore, I say unto you, her sins, which are many, are forgiven, for she loved much. But to whom little is forgiven, the same loves little. 48And he said unto her, Your sins are forgiven. 49And they who sat at a meal with him began to say within themselves, Who is this that forgives sins also? 50And he said to the woman, Your faith has saved you. Go in peace.
1And it came to pass afterward that he went throughout every city and village, preaching and showing the glad tidings of the kingdom of God. And the twelve who were ordained of him were with him, 2and certain women who had been healed of evil spirits and infirmities — Mary called Magdalene, out of whom went seven devils, 3and Joanna the wife of Chuza, Herod’s steward, and Susanna — and many others who ministered unto him with their substance.
For Barker, forgiveness in the Gospels is not a private transaction but the language of the Jubilee: the year in which debts were canceled, slaves freed, and everyone restored to their own inheritance. The Greek word behind “remission,” aphesis, is the Jubilee word; and she names this chapter’s parable of two debtors as one of the places where Jesus taught the Jubilee by illustration.
The LXX of Leviticus 25.10 translates the key word deror, liberty, by ’aphesis, remission, showing that by that period (perhaps the third century BCE), the characteristics of Sabbath year and Jubilee had combined… The Jubilee recreated society by restoring people to their own land and by removing the burden of slavery and debt.
He spoke of a woman bound by Satan and released her (Luke 13.16 [Luke 8:32]), of slaves to sin whom the Son could release (John 9.31-38 [John 6:21-22]). He forgave sins and illustrated his teaching with a parable of two debtors whose debts were cancelled (Luke 7. 41-48 [Luke 5:20-21]). The healing miracles restored to the community people who would have been excluded as ritually unfit: the disabled, the lepers, a woman who was bleeding. This was the great ingathering of the Jubilee.
The present form of the gospels invites us to believe that Jesus spiritualised the Jubilee, interpreting release from debt and slavery as forgiveness of sins and release from the power of Satan. This, however, is exactly the interpretation in 11QMelch, which was quite clear about the events of the tenth Jubilee.
Barker cites the parable as Luke 7:41–48 (the debtors through “thy sins are forgiven”); the section prints Luke 7:36–8:3. The same essay is drawn on in the Centurion section for the healings; the pertinent portion here is the debt language.