Tag: John 7:53-8:11

Is the Pericope Adulterae A “True Story That’s Not Inspired”?

The Young, Textless, and Reformed2 Comments

Introduction

The Pericope Adulterae (John 7:53-8:11) is said to be “A true story that is not inspired” by many modern seminary professors and pastors. Recently, Dr. Lanier from Reformed Theological Seminary presented the case that this passage does not belong in our Bibles today. Dr. Riddle took him to task in his Word Magazine (and James Snapp in the comments) for his lopsided (and in some places inaccurate) presentation of the data. In this article, I want to explain how the argument against the PA is only convincing due to biased presentations of the data. In other words, if the average person had the full picture of the data, they would likely not find any argument against the passage convincing.

A Summary of the Argument

The ESV Study Bible includes a note at John 7:53-8:11 which says, “There is considerable doubt that this story is part of John’s original Gospel, for it is absent from all of the oldest manuscripts…it is best to view this story as something that probably happened during Jesus’ ministry but that was not originally part of Scripture and should not be used as the basis for building any point of doctrine unless confirmed in Scripture.” In the various copies of the ESV, there is bracketed material that simply says, “[THE EARLIEST MANUSCRIPTS DO NOT INCLUDE JOHN 7:53-8:11]” and the entire passage is in double brackets. In short, translations like the ESV and NIV inform the reader that this passage should not be read as Scripture on the basis that “All” early manuscripts do not include it. Some commentators like Dr. Lanier and James White make the claim that it was a “floating tradition,” where it was allegedly never in the text at John 7:53-8:11 due to the fact that it is found placed at other locations in some manuscripts.

Problems with the Argument

In the first place, the strategy for arguing against this passage as authentic starts by under informing the layperson who reads any number of the popular modern translations. I want to start by addressing the argument on two points, 1) the claim that “All early manuscripts” exclude it is misleading, and 2) that dating a manuscript as early means very little as to the matter of authenticity.

The first claim, that “all early manuscripts exclude the passage” seems to rely on the assumption that the average Christian is unfamiliar with the manuscript evidence. It is simply not the case that “all” early manuscripts exclude the passage. GA 05 (400AD) includes the passage, so to exclude that witness you must say that late 4th century/early 5th century is not an “early” witness to the passage. In addition to GA 05, GA 02 and GA 04 from the same time period have what’s called a lacunae at John 7:52, a gap in the manuscript, leaving room for the passage. This indicates the scribe was aware of the passage as he was copying. If the claim is that the early church wasn’t aware of the passage at John 7:52, it would be an erroneous claim. This is further evidenced by references to the passage by Papias (100-130), the Didascalia (230), Didymus the Blind (350-398), and most importantly Augustine (more on that later).

The second assumption is that early dating of a manuscript means it is authentic. There is no textual scholar alive that would agree with the claim that the early dating of a manuscript indicates authenticity. Dr. Peter Gurry, in his book, A New Approach to Textual Criticism, states, “A text of a manuscript may, of course, be much older than the parchment and ink that preserve it” (3). In other words, there is no rule of textual criticism that says, “oldest means authentic.” While we’re on the topic of text-critical rules, Dr. Gurry says, “As with so much textual criticism, there are no absolute rules here, and experience serves as the best guide” (ibid. 57). The built in argument to the claim that “All of the earliest manuscripts exclude” a passage is that early must mean authentic. As I have demonstrated, the claim itself is erroneous, and even if it were true, it wouldn’t be a singular case for or against authenticity. In other words, the entire body of evidence should be considered, if we’re considering evidence at all. You can’t just look at one slice of data and make a conclusion.

If you’re going to provide manuscript evidence, however, I think it important to include all the evidence. James Snapp points out that 1,503 manuscripts include the passage and 272 omit it. Further, only 68 manuscripts support the “floating tradition” idea. According to Wilbur Pickering, the vast majority of extant manuscripts (85%) include the passage at John 7:52 and the minority exclude it (15%). There is also no evidence to support that the passage spontaneously appears later on in the manuscript tradition because it is in GA 05, and there are lacunae at the location in GA 02 and GA 04. Further, early citation of the passage dispels the notion that a scribe merely invented the passage in the 5th-8th century.

In short, presenting the argument in such simple terms as “all early manuscripts exclude it” is in the first place incorrect, and secondly it severely under represents the data. On the note of under representing the data, Dr. Lanier cites Chris Keith to support his “floating tradition” argument. For the uninitiated, Chris Keith is the foremost PA scholar alive, next to Tommy Wasserman and Jennifer Knust. In the very same article Dr. Lanier uses to support his “floating tradition” argument, Keith comes to the very opposite conclusion when he says, “There is no extant evidence that PA was read in a canonical gospel text in any location other than John 7:53-8:11 until the late ninth/tenth century CE” (Chris Keith. “The Initial Location of the Pericope Adulterae in Fourfold Tradition”. Novum Testamentum 51 (2009). pp. 209-231). In other words, another way to describe the “floating tradition” theory is pure textual mythology.

The Argument Against the PA is Well-Poisoning

If you have only ever heard that the PA doesn’t belong because “All of the earliest manuscripts exclude it,” you have had the well poisoned against your understanding of the data. In the first place, there are early manuscripts that have it, and there are earlier citations of the passage. You have been primed to disbelieve this passage by simply reading the ESV or NIV or any number of Bibles that bracket the passage (NASB) without hearing both sides of the matter. The Bible says, “He that answereth a matter before he heareth it, it is folly and shame unto him” (Proverbs 18:13). Yet the publishers of these translations and the scholars that present the argument in a lopsided way force people into a conclusion before they have heard the whole matter. This is an egregious abuse of authority by translation committees to funnel readers into a conclusion in this way without presenting all of the evidence.

Answering the Real Question of the PA

What my reader needs to understand is that the passage was in fact early and found at John 7:52. The question is not, “Is this authentic?” but rather, “Why did a small number of manuscripts exclude it?” Before I answer this question, I want to touch on a problem with using extant manuscript evidence at all. When scholars say, “all manuscripts,” what they actually mean is “surviving manuscripts.” It is foolish to assume that there were only several hundred early manuscripts, and we have all of them. The reality is, that thousands of manuscripts were destroyed due to the fact that paper is fragile. The reason we have early ones from Alexandria is partly due to the fact that Alexandria is dry, and has the best climate for paper to survive. The fact that a manuscript has survived does not speak to its authenticity or quality.

Further, there are early manuscripts that have survived that contain the reading, and were therefore copied from somewhere. That is to say, if a manuscript dated to 400 had the reading (GA 05), manuscripts before it had the reading, because that manuscript was copied from somewhere. We do not posses now most of the manuscripts that have existed in history. The fact stands, that we have less manuscripts now than have ever existed because more time has passed now than ever before. In fact, Dan Wallace says that we have lost somewhere in the ballpark of 500 manuscripts in the last ten years. So my statement is objectively true, even in the last ten years. We have less manuscripts now than we did ten years ago.

Now to answer the question of, “Why do some manuscripts not have the PA?” Fortunately, we have an answer from Augustine. “Certain men of little faith, or rather enemies of the true faith, fearing, I suppose, that their wives should be given impunity in sinning, removed from their manuscripts the Lord’s act of forgiveness toward the adulteress, as if He who had said, ‘sin no more,’ had granted permission to sin” (De adulterinis coniugiis 2.7). This is the context that helps us understand why GA 02 and GA 04 have a lacunae at John 7:52 and why GA 05 includes it. According the Augustine, there was a doctrinal controversy where men were concerned this passage gave their wives’ permission to commit adultery, and it was being excluded as a result.

The fact is, that Augustine considered the passage authentic, and even provided a polemic against those who were removing the passage from their manuscripts. This tells us two important things: 1) The passage was in manuscripts in the 4th century and 2) some people were removing it from manuscripts. If we trust that Augustine wasn’t lying, than it is a matter of fact that manuscripts had the passage, and the passage was being removed. This is important, because by the 9th century all of our manuscripts included the passage. A question I have is, do we think we have more context in 2026 than Christians in the 6th-9th centuries? Do we somehow know more, despite having less extant data? I think not. Christians were clearly aware of the textual controversy, and by the 9th century, it was concluded.

In Conclusion

It is quite apparent that the argument against the PA is biased from the start for most people due to the fact that their translation under represents or misrepresents the argument. Further presentations from modern scholars commit the same errors. Hardly any Christian even gets a chance to hear a positive presentation for the case to retain the PA before they’ve heard the negative multiple times. This means that anybody making the case for the PA is arguing as though the passage should be included and not retained. The fact is, the PA has overwhelming evidence, and the argument is not whether we should put the passage back into the text, because there was no good reason ever to eject it. It is our prerogative as Christians to retain the PA.

If the argument is that “earliest means authentic,” you stand alone in believing this axiom because readings found on later manuscripts could be the earliest witness to a passage. If the argument is simply counting manuscripts, you especially have no reason to doubt the PA because 1,503 manuscripts have it, including early ones. What this comes down to, and most scholars won’t admit this, is the secret rule of textual criticism: always prefer Sinaiticus (GA 01). The problem with this is that nobody knows who copied Sinaiticus, what manuscript it was copied from, and the text of Sinaiticus is hardly copied after the 4th century. In other words, Sinaiticus stands nearly alone in the manuscript tradition. It is a novel manuscript in our tradition of manuscripts. The church had set aside this manuscript for over 1,000 years, for good reason.

Many people believe that Sinaiticus represents a “text-type,” but this manuscript is not related closely enough to any other for that to be the case. Use of computer models has demonstrated this unequivocally, even though Burgon demonstrated this decades ago. Dr. Peter Gurry states, “The most significant and, for that reason controversial is that it has convinced the editors to abandon the concept of text-types traditionally used to group and evaluate manuscripts” (ibid. 7). This is primarily in reference to the so-called Alexandrian text type, because these same computer models have demonstrated the early readings of the Byzantine text (11). The point is, that even the computer models have demonstrated that later manuscripts contain early readings, and have validated the “later” Byzantine text as early.

Many people believe that the reason early manuscripts are so important is because they represent authenticity. There are no scholars making this claim today. So the bracketed material which serves as an entry point for most into the discussion means very little when considered. If it is the case that early does not mean authentic, and some early manuscripts include the PA, not only is the bracketed material in modern Bibles incomplete, it is inaccurate, and therefore misleading. Therefore it is my strong conviction that the PA should not only be retained, but defended as authentic and inspired.

For more on the topic, see Dr. Jeff Riddle’s pamphlet here.

John 7:53-8:11 is Scripture

The Young, Textless, and Reformed2 Comments

Introduction

John 7:53-8:11, called the Pericope Adulterae, is an excellent example of how the determinations of textual scholars can directly impact the people of God. This passage in particular is also a perfect text to demonstrate how textual interpretation can spoil the people of God with misinformation. I was young in my faith the first time I heard that this passage was “not originally in Scripture” from a John Piper sermon. From that point on, I heard many people repeat the lines such as, “It is my favorite passage in the Bible that’s not Scripture,” and “I wouldn’t preach this text.” The arguments I considered most compelling were that the passage was a “floating tradition” and that “the earliest manuscripts do not contain this passage,” and that the “church fathers do not quote this passage.” Based on the information I was given by pastors that I trusted, I felt justified in simply skipping over the passage as I read through the Gospel of John. The note in the Reformation Study Bible reads this way:


“These verses are not present in some Greek manuscripts, and in others they appear at different locations, such as after 7:36 or elsewhere in John, or even in Luke. This diversity makes it uncertain that this incident with the adulterous woman and her accusers appeared at this or any point in John’s original document, but its presentation of Jesus is consistent with the rest of the Gospels and it may preserve an authentic tradition of an event in Jesus’ life.”

R. C. Sproul, ed., The Reformation Study Bible: English Standard Version (2015 Edition) (Orlando, FL: Reformation Trust, 2015), 1870.

When I abandoned the modern critical text and began to do my own research, I was dismayed to find that many of the claims made by pastors I previously trusted were either incorrect, or based on higher critical principles. This made me realize how deeply rooted the axioms of modern textual criticism were in the mainstream evangelical Calvinist world. In this article, I am not attempting to “prove” the authenticity of the Pericope Adulterae (7:53-8:11), but to demonstrate how easily a passage can be removed from Scripture, and how easily it is for a theory to become a fact to the people of God. Before I answer some of the claims against this passage, I’d like to survey some scholarly perspectives on the verse:


“Still, of this we can be sure: By the fourth century, two different Gospels of John were circulating, one with the pericope adulterae and one without it”

Knust & Wasserman. To Cast the First Stone. 50. 

Some scholars even recognize the validity of it’s inclusion:



“Present in the Vulgate, preserved in the “received text of the Byzantine Church,” and incorporated in the King James Version of the Bible, this story is still widely and appropriately accepted as Scripture”

(Raymond E. Brown. Gospel according to John I-XII, AB 29. 336)

More importantly, the scholars recognize what is commonly avoided within Christian circles – that the text-critical axioms do have a meaningful impact on the church’s perspective of Scripture. The Pericope Adulterae is the perfect example of this.


“As these many editions also show, however, textual traditions can and do change, and in significant ways. Advances in textual criticism brought material changes to the text(s) printed in these various editions, altering both texts and the attitudes towards them. Even so, the older forms of text continued to circulate alongside these various textual “improvements,” and there are noticeable differences among these many critical editions, at both the textual and paratextual level.”  

Knust & Wasserman. To Cast the First Stone. 29.

“The gradual but but now “traditional” placement of the pericope adulterae in brackets, in an appendix, or in a critical apparatus – as well as the continued rejection of such editorial (mis)placements – encapsulates fundamental theological divides about the degree to which faith ought to be confirmed by science and science by faith, and does so within the material text of the New Testament.”

(Ibid., 17). 

So it seems that the modern scholars are in tune with the shifting theological perspectives that removing a passage such as John 7:53-8:11 brings. Now let’s examine some of the common claims made by pastors, study Bibles, and commentaries, and see if these claims support removing the passage from Holy Scripture. Again, this is not a “proof” for the passage, but a demonstration that sometimes popular opinions are founded on thin evidence.

Answering Common Objections Made by Pastors, Study Bibles, and Critics

The Pericope Adulterae is Not a “Floating Tradition” 

The most common claim, and possibly the most misleading, is that the Pericope Adulterae is a “floating tradition.” Though this argument is popular, it is not one that is responsibly supported by the extant manuscript data. The phenomenon of this story “floating” doesn’t occur in any of the early manuscripts that have the passage, and the manuscripts that contain the Pericope Adulterae in a different location do not occur until much later, and only in a handful of manuscripts. Until the 9th century, this passage is supported in only in one location – John 7:53-8:11. In other words, the “floating” tradition of the Pericope Adulterae is not a phenomenon that occurs in most manuscripts of John, and the tiny amount of manuscripts it does “float” in are late. So if the method of choice for authenticating Scripture is textual criticism, the evidence simply doesn’t support a “floating tradition” until the passage is well established. If one wants to continue making this claim, they should revise it to say, “This passage floats in several later manuscripts, but is overwhelmingly testified to being at John 7:53.” I hardly think this is a good reason to eject this passage from the text. 

The Manuscript Evidence Does Not Prove it Inauthentic 

The second common claim is that “the earliest manuscripts do not contain this passage.” In the first place, it does exist in Codex Bezae (400AD), which is an early manuscript. Even though the manuscript is generally thought of as not useful for creating Greek texts, its existence in the text itself is enough to demonstrate that manuscripts had it. Appealing to several early manuscripts is not a meaningful argument because a passage being excluded from these “earliest” manuscripts in no way demonstrates that the passage was not there to begin with, simply that whatever exemplar(s) were used  didn’t have the passage. The only thing the early extant manuscripts demonstrate is that the exemplar(s) didn’t have the passage, and says nothing about the originality of the verse. Further, the verdict is still out as to where the most influential of these early codices came from, especially two of the Great Uncials which are appealed to so often as authoritative.

“The fact that there are no extant Greek manuscripts with texts that are particularly close to the text of Codex Sinaiticus weighs against any theory of lasting influence. The specific context(s) of Sinaiticus and Vaticanus…cannot be established”

(Ibid 190,191).

If the whole manuscript tradition is inspected, John 7:53-8:11 is found in 1,476 manuscripts. Since we do not know where the earliest manuscripts came from that do not have the passage, they do not seem like a stable guide, if we are using them to remove passages from Scripture. The ejection of this passage from Holy Scripture hardly seems warranted if we take into consideration that early manuscripts had the passage. One could be skeptical if they wish to put a lot of weight in several early manuscripts, but that doesn’t seem to be a good enough reason to argue against the passage.  

The Early Church Was Well Aware of the Passage 

The third common claim is that “none of the ancient fathers mention this passage,” which is picked up by most people from DA Carson. If the goal is to demonstrate its existence in the early church, there are more than enough references to it to show that the early church knew about it. Take for example the Didascalia, a third century book of church order.

“In the Didascalia, church leaders are reminded to receive the repentant back into the fold in imitation of of Jesus, who did not condemn “she who had sinned” when “elders” brought her before Jesus for judgement. Jesus’ saying, “Go, neither do I condemn you” is quoted, and the circumstances of the episode (men bring a sinning woman before Jesus and ask his opinion about the matter) are identical to what is found in the later Pericope Adulterae…The Didascalia is definitely referencing the Pericope Adulterae…”   

(Ibid. 63).

Further, the early latin writers considered it authentic: 

“Latin writers like Ambrose, Jerome, and Augustine understood it to be fully Johannine”  

Ibid,11.

Even in the 16th century, Erasmus concluded the same:



“Erasmus reviewed much of the same evidence known to scholars today…Even so, he decided, the story is likely to be Johannine: known to Papias, worthy of the gospel, sanctioned by the church, especially well received in Latin.”  

(Ibid. 21)

If the reason people make this claim is to show that the “church didn’t know about this passage for 1,000 years,” it falls flat on its face. I will include several more ancient references to the passage at the end of this article. Even scholars such as Chris Keith admit the passage was early, and located at John 7:53. 

“Ambrose is particularly significant for the present discussion because he is the first Christian writer to remark upon Jesus’ acts of writing in PA, the main subject of this thesis. In a letter dated between 385–387 CE, he claims that PA is located in GJohn, and also remarks that the story is, by his time, quite familiar in Christian communities. In Epistle 68 (26), he writes, ‘Numerous times the question [regarding bishops’ involvement in secular courts, specifically concerning capital punishment] has been raised, and well known, too, is the acquittal of the woman who in the Gospel according to John was brought to Christ, accused of adultery.’33 It is clear, then, that Ambrose knows PA in GJohn, and further evidence makes it probable that Ambrose read PA at John 7.53–8.11.”

Keith, Chris.  Jesus Began to Write: Literacy, the Pericope Adulterae, and the Gospel of John. PhD. University of Edinburgh. 2008. P. 119.

The fact is, that the early church knew of this passage, and knew that manuscripts were circulating with and without it. The problem is not the evidence, dear Christian.

Conclusion

So it seems that the passage in question is not a “floating tradition,” is found in one extant early manuscript, and is referenced by early church fathers. If the goal is to defend the text of Holy Scripture, why adopt an interpretive lens that tries to disprove the authenticity of variant passages? It does not seem like an appropriate perspective, in any case. This further highlights the fact that the axioms of modern textual criticism consider the Scriptures corrupt until proven pure. The point of this article is not to “prove” the Pericope Adulterae original based on evidence, but to demonstrate the importance of our own interpretive lens and heart.

An important question we should ask ourselves here is, “What reason do I have to question every passage of Scripture simply because somebody says so?” I argue that it is not our job to act as critics of the Holy Scriptures. It is not well advised to be one of the few who reject this passage, especially considering the claims against it are thinly supported and even outright misleading. If the reason you reject this passage is due to it being a “floating tradition” or because “the early church didn’t know about it,” I encourage you to reconsider your position. There is no good reason, based on the claims against this passage, to reject it.

“We deny the legitimacy of any treatment of the text or quest for sources lying behind it that leads to relativizing, dehistoricizing, or discounting its teaching, or rejecting its claims to authorship”

Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy

Appendix: Early References to the Pericope Adulterae

“Why delay ye, O Novatians, to ask eye for eye, tooth for tooth, to demand life for life, to renew once more the practice of circumcision and the sabbath? Put to death the thief. Stone the petulant. Choose not to read in the Gospel that the Lord spared even the adulteress who confessed, when none had condemned her;”

Against the Treatise of the Novatians – 4th Century

“The acquittal of the woman who, in the Gospel of John, was brought to Christ accused of adultery, is very famous”

Ambrose, Epistle 26 – 4th Century

“In the Gospel according to John, there is found, in many of the Greek, as well as the Latin copies, the story of the adulteress who was accused before the Lord”

Jerome, Against the Pelagians 2:17 – 4th Century

 “Certain persons of little faith or rather enemies of the true faith fearing I suppose less their wives should be given impunity in sinning removed from their manuscripts the lord’s act of forgiveness to the adulteress. As if he who had said, “sin no more” had granted permission to sin.”

Augustine of Hippo – 4th-5th Century