Jesus and the woman taken in adultery

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The Pericope Adulterae (Latin pronunciation [peˈri.ko.pe aˈdul.te.rɛ]; English pronunciation [pəˈɹɪ.kə.pi əˈdʌl.tə.ɹi]; Latin for "the passage of the adulterous woman") is the name traditionally given to verses 7:53–8:11 of the Gospel of John, which describe the attempted stoning by Pharisees of an accused adulterous woman, and Jesus' defense of her. In English, the passage is usually referred to as the woman taken in adultery. The woman was traditionally identified as Mary Magdalene, though the connection is not made in the text itself.

In the episode, the Pharisees bring a woman to Jesus who has committed adultery, and assert that the law of Moses requires that she be stoned. The chapter claims that they ask for Jesus' opinion in order to test Jesus, so that they would have something with which to accuse him.

Bible commentator Ken Collins wrote:

The trap is this: under the Roman occupation, the power of capital punishment was reserved by the Romans for themselves. All capital cases had to be referred to the Roman authorities and the sentence had to be approved before it could be carried out. So Jesus' enemies figured they could trap Him in a dilemma by presenting Him with a clear-cut case where the Jewish Law demanded the death penalty by public stoning. If Jesus deferred to the Romans, He discredited Himself as a Teacher of the Law. If He condoned the stoning, the Romans would consider Him an insurrectionist and put Him to death. Either way, they thought, He couldn't win. He would either lose His credibility or His life; either way, He would be silenced. [1]

Jesus is described as writing something (unspecified) in the sand, and says, "He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her". As a result of this statement, the Pharisees are described as slipping away one by one, until only the woman remained, at which point Jesus asks her if any of those condemning her remain. Since she responds in the negative, Jesus is described as dismissing her saying that he will not condemn her either, though he instructs "go, and sin no more".

The episode is famous for the words "He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her", spoken by Jesus to the woman's accusers, and is a favorite for film adaptations, because it is one of the clearest and most dramatic examples, in the Canonical Gospels, of Jesus rescuing someone in mortal danger.

This is also the only occasion on which Jesus is recorded to have written anything, though it is not known what was written. Many scholars suspect that it is likely for John to be implying that Jesus wrote down part of the law, possibly the ten commandments, or some cataloguing of the sins of those present.^{[citation needed]}

Contents 1 Authorship 1.1 Arguments against Johannine authorship 1.2 History of Textual Criticism on John 7:53-8:11 1.3 Arguments for Johannine authorship 2 See also 3 External links

[edit] Authorship

[edit] Arguments against Johannine authorship

The pericope is viewed by some contemporary critical scholars of the New Testament as an interpolation: it is sometimes thought to disrupt the narrative between chapter 7 and in the remainder of chapter 8; according to some scholars it appears to use Greek more characteristic of the synoptic Gospels than of John; it is found in only one surviving Greek manuscript older than 500 and is displaced in a handful of later manuscripts (circa 1000-1400). In one group of MSS (Family 13 / the 'Ferrar Group') even places it into the Gospel of Luke after Luke 21:38.

Bruce Metzger (20th century textual critic, co-editor of the UBS Greek text, 1968) writes that the evidence for the non-Johannine origin of the pericope of the adulteress is overwhelming. However other contemporary scholars, such as Maurice Robinson take a less extreme view.

Even among those scholars who reject the passage as non-Johannine, many nevertheless accept it as an authentic tradition of Jesus that was added to the gospel by another writer for the sake of completeness.

John Calvin, in his Commentary on John, wrote pragmatically:

"It seems that this passage was unknown anciently to the Greek Churches; and some conjecture that it has been brought from some other place and inserted here. But as it has always been received by the Latin Churches, and is found in many old Greek manuscripts, and contains nothing unworthy of an Apostolic Spirit, there is no reason why we should refuse to apply it to our advantage."

Although unknown to Calvin, at least two Greek authors did in fact know all about the passage, namely Nicon (10th century) and Didymus the Teacher (Alexandria, 310-390).

Apologist James Patrick Holding argues that it was an authentic account from the ministry of Jesus, but more likely to have been authored by Luke, and his "loose leaf" was incorporated into copies of John's Gospel.[2]

The 4th century church historian Eusebius quotes a 2nd century Church Father Papias, as recounting a story similar to the pericope adulterae, but attributes it to the Gospel of the Hebrews.

[edit] History of Textual Criticism on John 7:53-8:11

Printed editions of the Bible began just after 1450, when 'moveable type' and the printing-press became practical. At that time Latin was the lingua franca of the Church and the educated people of Europe. Early translations of the bible into German and English were based mainly upon contemporary Latin texts, hand-made copies called manuscripts.

The New Testament, and the Latin translation of the Old Testament were based upon Greek, the original language of the New Testament writings. The original Greek texts had been preserved and copied by hand right up until the 15th century A.D., especially in the Eastern half of the Medieval Post-Roman Empire, where Greek continued to be spoken as the native language.

Westerners, especially Protestants, desired to make fresh translations directly from the original Greek, rather than through the Latin translation, and for this purpose, printed 'critical' editions of the Greek New Testament began to appear, starting with Erasmus' NT, and followed by Stevens' and Elizaver's editions.

At this time, it was noticed that a small number of manuscripts (hand-written copies, MSS.) containing John's Gospel had removed John 7:53-8:11 inclusive. Furthermore, the earliest MSS (manuscripts)also were missing the verses. Finally, some MSS containing the verses also marked them with 'critical signs', usually a lemniscus or asterisk.

Early textual critics, familiar with the use and meaning of these marks as they were used in classical Greek works like Homer, interpreted the signs to mean that the section (John 7:53-8:11) was an 'interpolation', was not an original part of the Gospel, and should be removed.

It became clear that the passage had apparently suffered several attempts at removal from and/or re-insertion into the manuscript copying streams.

This led some early critics to doubt its authenticity, even though its obvious orthodoxy and edifying content made it appear to be a genuine incident in the life of Jesus. It was assumed that it had circulated as a piece of oral tradition, and was inserted early into the manuscript tradition in order to preserve it.

Between 1500 and 1850 were dangerous times to voice seemingly inappropriate or heretical statements about Holy Scripture, so that early scholars, even if convinced of the spuriousness of a verse or passage dared not openly express his view in those terms.

Later in the beginning of the 'modern era', from around 1840 forward, textual critics found enough freedom to voice dissenting opinion, although there were still dangers of career damage or social penalties.

At this time, several early critics come out against the verses, basing their opinion on what was then known of the manuscript evidence, and also arguments from 'internal evidence', that is, comparisons of diction and style of the passage with the rest of John's Gospel, and other Evangelists.

Beginning with Lachmann (in Germany, 1840), and with these opinions carried into the English world by Samuel Davidson (1848-1851), Tregelles (1862), and others, the argument against the verses was given body and final expression in Hort (1886). Those opposing the authenticity of the verses are represented in the 20th century by men like Cadbury (1917), Colwell (1935), and Metzger (1971).

On the other hand, many scholars strongly opposed the rejection of the verses, and presented opposing arguments and counter-analysis. This group of critics is typified by such scholars as Nolan (1865), Scrivener (1880) and Burgon (1886), and find modern counterparts and apologists in Hoskier (1920), O.T. Fuller (1978), Pickering (1980), Hodges & Farstad (1985), Pierpont, and Robinson (2005).

Today the world of Textual Criticism of the New Testament is deeply split over the authenticity and origin of the Pericope de Adultera (John 7:53-8:11).

[edit] Arguments for Johannine authorship

On the other hand, Zane C. Hodges and Arthur L. Farstad, in the introduction to their edition of the Majority Text (a version of the New Testament based primarily on the number of witnesses to a reading, rather than automatically or critically assuming the oldest texts are the most accurate), argue for Johannine authorship of the pericope. They point to the phrasing at 8:6, which follows a similar grammatical structure to 6:6, 7:39, 11:51, 12:6, 12:33, and 21:19, verses regarded as particularly Johannine by most critics. Further, the use of the vocative γύναι (woman) is a very typical Johannine usage. The phrase "sin no more" in 8:11 occurs only one other time in the New Testament, at John 5:14.

Hodges and Farstad also argue that the pericope is particularly suited to the point in the Gospel where it occurs in the majority of the 900 copies that contain it. The Feast of Tabernacles is being celebrated (John 7:14), so there would be a large number of pilgrims in the city, making it more likely that strangers would be thrown together. The pericope thus occurs naturally at this point. The confrontation would have to have taken place in the Court of the Women, and indeed John 8:20 indicates that that is where Jesus was. Hodges and Farstad conclude, "If it is not an original part of the Fourth Gospel, its writer would have to be viewed as a skilled Johannine imitator, and its placement in this context as the shrewdest piece of interpolation in literary history!"

Some of the strongest arguments in favour of the passage include the embedded structures in John's Gospel, which indicate a clear knowledge of the passage.

[edit] See also

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Pericope Adulteræ

• Comma Johanneum
• New Testament
• Textual criticism
• John 21
• Mark 16
• Gospel

[edit] External links

The text:

• John 7:53-8:11 (NIV)
• John 7:53-8:11 (KJV)
• The Pericope Adulterae, a detailed text-critical description of the evidence, the manuscripts, and the variants of the Greek text (PDF, 23 pages).
• The Pericope de Adultera Homepage Links to a wide range of material about all aspects of this text, plus links to information about the stoning of people today.

Interpretation of the story:

• John 8:1-11 The Woman Caught In Adultery - Gary DeLashmutt