Recent Symposium on John 8:1-11 gives Favorable Verdict on Authenticity

A leisurely look at how opinion has drastically changed over the last 100 years,
and especially just the last 10 years is worthwhile.

Opinions on John 8:1-11 were heavily against its authenticity
by the middle to the end of the 19th century, and extending to the 1950s.

However, those opinions were based on the exaggerated importance
of textual evidence, especially 'early' evidence, such as 4th century Uncials
(i.e., Codex B and Aleph) and (later on) two 3rd century papyri (P66 and P75).

100 years later, as Biblical studies have vastly expanded into everything from
Form Criticism and Literary Crit to Sociological studies and modern Archaeology,
Textual Criticism has taken a less and less important role in determining
questions of authenticity.

In fact, questions of authenticity themselves have taken a back seat to
questions of more interest to moderns, such as the development of church
communities and theology in a community and political context.

All that having been said, just as other literary disciplines have become
more important than textual criticism per se, so has the value of
Internal Criticism and related fields.

These have been very fruitful in providing new evidence that can be
brought to bear upon the issue of the authenticity of John 8:1-11,
as we have already shown.

Last year, an actual Symposium was held on the subject of these verses,
perhaps something unheard of 100 years ago,
in which experts and researchers in various disciplines could come
together academically and share their research and new branches of
investigation.

Interestingly, while some places and people in the field of Biblical Criticism
have stayed stubbornly polarized and even extremist in their position
on the authenticity of John 8:1-11 (Daniel Wallace being an example,
who recently demanded that the passage actually be struck from Bibles
and placed in footnotes),
others have approached the question from a much less ideologically informed
position and have left the question as an open scientific inquiry.

The result of the recent conference was that in spite of several talks
both in favour of and against the authenticity of John 8:1-11,
the majority of those attending the Symposium gave a tentative
view that the passage was indeed authentic and should be retained
in John's Gospel in its traditional place.

Westcott and Hort must be turning in their graves at this turn of events.


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http://evangelicaltextualcriticism.blogspot.ca/2014/04/live-update-from-pericoep-of-adulteress.html

- posted in comments on Evangelical Textual Criticism Blog:

James E. Snapp, Jr.4:44 pm, April 28, 2014
I enjoyed this conference very much.

Anyone who was at the conference who didn't get a printed copy of "John 7:53-8:11 - A Tour of the External Evidence" - I'll be glad to send free digital copies; just e-mail me with a request.

I thought it was notable that as the panel-session wrapped up, Dr. Black asked those in attendance for a vote, along the lines of "Is the PA original? Yes or no?" Of those in the room who responded, by turn, the "Yes" prevailed over the "No," and it was not close.

Also: Punch said that he would preach from the PA; Wasserman indicated that he has no problem with preaching from the PA inasmuch as Jude had no problem using the Book of Enoch (twice he raised the question: should we remove Jude from the Bible to?); Knust seemed in favor of using the story for the instruction and edification of the church (though she seemed strangely reluctant to say whether or not it echoes historical events) and by the end of the conference she even seemed willing to reconsider the whole question of omission-via-lectionary-influence; Robinson favors the complete canonicity of the PA.

Keith, even though he make it clear that he regards the passage as an interpolation -- that is, he considers the PA to be a composition written by *somebody,* which was then reworked by *someone else* who wanted to show that Jesus was able to write (but who, strangely, did not take the step of stating *what* Jesus wrote), who, after making extensive John-mimicking adjustments to this already-existing story, inserted it into the text of the Gospel of John after 7:53), did not -- iirc -- make any drastic statement to the effect that the passage should be removed from the Bible.

The conference's publicity-image asked if the PA should be proscribed, or proclaimed? The consensus of the speakers, as well as the audience at the end of the conferences, was clear: the Pericope Adulterae should be proclaimed.

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The Internal Evidence for John 7:53-8:11 (pt 2)

In the 19th century, Textual Criticism of the Bible was in its infancy,
and it was a crude attempt at best to 'restore' or perfect the NT text.


Textual Evidence

The emphasis in those days was on the Textual evidence, i.e.,
actual manuscripts and readings found.

The Conservative trend was to disallow 'conjectural emendations'
(something commonly practised with classical author reconstructions),
and only consider 'hard evidence' like the variations that actually
could be shown to have existed, via early manuscript copies or
quotations of 'early fathers' which might vary from familiar verses.

In the early days of the Reformation, people edited and printed
a 'consensus text', i.e., chose the readings in the majority of reliable
copies available.

Later, researchers began to try to evaluate various handwritten copies
of the New Testament, using criteria such as age, quality of materials,
probable source, and the quality of execution (# of errors and corrections).

This naturally led to an emphasis on textual evidence, rather than
'internal evidence', which seemed rather vague, and subjective in comparison.


'Internal Evidence'

However, recent trends in Biblical criticism have given much more weight
to the subtle problems of 'internal evidence', and by that critics and
researchers have meant things like the probability of a reading based on
what we know about the author's ideas and habits elsewhere in the same work,
or the structure, style and format of a given document, and similar expectations.

Thus, the choice between two variations in a verse might be decided
on the basis of say John the Evangelist's style or diction, or on the
basis of what John may have written elsewhere, and how well one
reading or another agreed with what we might expect John to have said.

As researchers have continued to study these matters,
much progress has been made both in methodology and credibility
of various approaches and means of weighing the likelihood of certain
kinds of evidence.


The Pericope de Adultera - "the PA" (John 7:53-8:11)

The new 'Internal Evidence' in favour of the authenticity of passages
like John 7:53 - 8:11 has advanced considerably, and has been given
much more serious consideration than in the past.

Here we hope to present some of the more interesting 'Internal Evidence'
for this famous passage.



A Quick Look at Some New Internal Evidence for PA

All four Gospel writers created elaborate structural patterns in their choice of quotations. These structures have deep meaning, for they collect and organise the incidents and speeches of the Gospel into great themes and logical sequences of development. If we miss these contexts and thematic associations, we also miss important clues as to the literary and didactic purpose of each Evangelist.

O.T. Quotation Structures - Meaning and Purpose
And yet for all its sophistication, the O.T. Quotation Structure embedded in each Gospel is a model of clarity and simplicity. We only need list the quotations in order, note who they are quoted by, and what they are quoted about, to see beautiful thematic patterns unfold. These patterns were not meant to be hidden, but rather discovered by those who truly seek truth and labour to discover it.
While this structural patterns serve a very important purpose in preventing or at least exposing severe tampering of the Gospels by the ignorant, we are convinced this was not their only purpose, or their main one. Instead, these structures were meant to be found and appreciated by Bible students everywhere.

O.T. Quotation Structure - John's Gospel
John's Gospel begins like all four canonical Gospels, with a standard introductory formula, Isaiah 40:3 (John 1:23). This is common to all the Synoptics, Matthew, Mark, and Luke as well. He compliments this with a quote from Psalm 69:9 (John 2:17) in the narrative/commentary.
After this, the Evangelist follows with a series of two chiastic patterns of quotations. These are like mirrors unfolding backward and forward from around a central core-point. It is a beautiful and quite common feature of John's Gospel in fact, which is virtually laced with smaller chiastic patterns throughout.
Each of these chiastic patterns centers around a critically important part of the Gospel, both in content and in evangelical/didactic theme. The first pattern centers around the Pericope de Adultera (John 8:1-11), obviously an important point in establishing its Sitz en Leben in the Gospel. The second pattern encircles the Great Commandment, which is presented in two developing forms, very close together.
Other complimentary and supplimental clues are provided by the Evangelist, such as the introduction of 'Dawn' and 'Night', symbolizing Light and Darkness, one of the many powerful themes coursing through John.
Without further ado, we present the majestic O.T. Quotation Structure for the Reader to view:  
Click to Enlarge: Backbutton to return.




We encourage fellow Christians to download and print this chart, and use it for Bible study and research.

The Internal Evidence for John 7:53-8:11 (pt 1)

(1) LARGER CHIASTIC PATTERNS IN JOHN


Chiastic Patterns at the Paragraph Level
John the Evangelist does not limit himself to simple word matches or phrase patterns. He continuously builds ever higher and larger, constructing his gospel from the bottom up as well as from the top down.
The next higher distinct class of chiastic structure in John is at the passage or paragraph level. These larger blocks of text are not coordinated by mere words or phrases, but rather by concepts and themes.
In this case also, the very structure of the Gospel can be used for textual-critical purposes, to help determine the plausibility of a given arrangement, or the integrity of a given extant text-type, manuscript or variant.
In the Part of John known as the "INFESTO SCENOPEGIAE JERUSALEM" (John 7:1-10:19), we have again a large set of sections or passages which are chiastically organized, as can be seen by their self-contained themes and content.
We call this chiastic section of John the Mount of Olives Chiasm for reasons which will become obvious when the section is examined. 

The Mount of Olives Chiasm

 

Nazaroo's footnotes: 

The amazing insight this chiasmic structure offers is that the earthly Temple is a mere outer gate, an interface to the world. All that is important takes place well inside the ascending ladder to ...
the Mount of Olives.  

The real Holy Place, the launching pad where Jesus literally ascends to heaven and returns is here.
On His way back from the Mount, He is confronted with the adultery test-case. There is little doubt that the author of this incident intends us to see the woman as a typology for the Southern kingdom of Judaea, an Adulteress.
The irony in their persistence should not be lost, as Jesus mercifully declines to judge her, and postpones the trial.
Instead He again preaches as the Light of the World, a last attempt to save men from the coming judgement.

What Causes LARGE Omissions?

Back in the 19th century, maverick textual critics were not afraid to confront the two biggest textual variants in the NT, namely Mark's Ending (Mk 16:9-20) and the Pericope de Adultera (Jn 7:53-8:11).   It was considered essential in those days to investigate them and have a position on such important matters.   Nowadays, flying a holding-pattern is the norm and critics rarely come in to land on either side of any issue.  Its hard to get anything except the standard Metzger quote when inquiring about either passage.

But every critic knows in his heart that the standard explanations and canons of TC simply cannot accommodate such gigantic variants.  "Prefer the shorter reading." appears absurd next to something as monumental as Mark's Ending, for no mere copyist could have invented it.  Describing John 7:53-8:11 as a "marginal gloss" is just ludicrous, when manuscripts don't even have margins that big.

Its no surprise then, that early critics gave their shot at a more plausible mechanism and account of the matter.   Mark's Ending seems to be just about the size to fit on a lost last page.  The so-called Western order Had Matthew, John, Luke and Mark last, making the ending the final page not only of a copy of Mark, but also of many a copy of the Four Gospels bound together.

As early as the 1880s, Rendel Harris posited the idea that the PA had slipped out of a quire in some early copy of John.  He supposed that it was spread  in four pieces, filling a small folded papyrus quire-sheet.    But this need not be the only arrangement in an early papyrus that could have resulted in the lost text.  It could also (perhaps with more likelihood) have covered both sides of a single folio, having been flexed or torn out of an early Gospel.

Click to Enlarge: Backbutton to return

Intriguingly, G. D. Bauscher in 2009 proposed a kind of homoeoarcton error, where two columns written in Syriac had begun with similar looking string of letters:

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  Any one of these common scenarios could have caused the initial omission, and subsequently also have caused suspicion to fall upon either passage, as confused copyists noted the absence of the verses.

It is easy to imagine how any initial error could have generated much deliberate interference later, and caused quite a complex history among at least a handful of early manuscripts, just as we seem to see now in the transmission record.

peace
Nazaroo

The Pericope Adulterae: What's in a name?

In any debate, in order to start out with a level playing field, it's important to agree ahead of time on a definition of terms. This is because "He who defines the terms wins the debate." I suspect that this may have already happened before one particular discussion even got out of the starting gate, because of the name by which all scholars refer to that passage of Scripture located at John 7:53-8:11. In using the same term as its detractors, we have all but conceded the debate.

Actually, there two terms used, but that concedes nothing. "Pericope Adulterae" and "Pericope de Adultera" both mean essentially the same thing in Latin. "Pericope," from the Greek word meaning 'to cut out', in its ecclesiastical meaning refers to a portion of Scripture that is used separately in a public reading. It's synonymous with the Latin-derived word 'excerpt.' The rest of the phrase simply means 'of, or concerning, the adulteress.'

There are two huge problems with using this term in regards to John 7:53-8:11. First of all, the overwhelming tendency with this passage has not been to cut it out from its greater context in the Gospel of John, but to cut the rest of John out from it. It is being excised, not excerpted. And this has been the tendency of all who separate it from the rest of John for as far back as the history of the public reading of pericopes reaches. If this indeed be a pericope, it is like none other in the entire Bible.

Secondly, despite what its detractors may call this passage, it's not "the passage concerning the adulteress." That is to say, any "pericope of the adulteress," should we chose to identify one, runs from John 8:3 to the end of verse eleven; but they start theirs way back in the previous chapter. We could, for the sake of being reasonable, even stretch things out a bit to set the scene, and begin at the start of the chapter. But under no circumstances does it make any sense to begin a story that takes place in the temple courts with the sentence, "And then everybody went home."

In other words, the very structure of this so-called pericope belongs to something that was cut out of a passage, not because it had any coherent structure of its own, but because it contained whatever was necessary to leave the least trace of its excision behind in the broader context from which it was cut out. So what should we call this passage? I suggest, as a working title, The Johannine Excision.

But whoever excised this passage didn't do a very good job of sizing it; it still doesn't fit. As the mutilated context now stands, we go directly from the priests talking to Nicodemus, to Jesus "speaking to them again." But he's not speaking to the priests--he's addressing the people last mentioned in 7:43. So in order to have a coherent context left behind, the Johannine Excision should have really begun at 7:44--not nine verses later. This would have been the best way for the Exciser to cover his tracks--including verse 53 in the excision didn't quite cut it.

Of course, had he not included verse 53, we would have the problem of the pericope beginning with the word 'but.' Not in the King James version--which does not pericope this passage--but in those that do. And we know that pericopes don't start with 'but.' And verse two (although not in the English versions) has the same problem! Alas, so does verse three. So, having to cut somewhere, the Exciser went all the way back to the first verse that started otherwise, settling for beginning the whole story with the word 'and.'  Why he didn't just finish up his hatchet job by going clear back to the end of the previous story, instead of starting with the end of the present one, we don't know. Apparently he wasn't quite willing to cut out the only mention in the gospels of the priests' Bible Study recommendation for the day.

So, to recap, this is no Pericope--a passage cut out from its context in order to be read publicly. It's an Excision--a passage deliberately (and rather clumsily) removed from its context in order to avoid having to read it publicly. And despite the almost universally successful (at the time) efforts to erase it from Scripture, it yet remained, down through the ages. And it has remained, even in this day of tarnished translations and duplicitous definitions--despite all the still-clumsy efforts to set it aside from a context that still doesn't quite scan without it.

And if it's not a Pericope, we have no business referring to it as one--especially those of us who actually see it as something that was there to cut out to begin with.

More on Codex X

Here are the relevant pages of "Codex X" containing two portions of John's Gospel, along with commentary.

Codex X is a commentary manuscript, which also includes the text of the four Gospels interspersed or rather in sections alternately  between sections of the commentary.

The first two pages include the portion of John from about 7:39-52, embedded in the commentary text (which is written in minuscule characters, a form of connected handwriting).  The Gospel text is written in a different style, namely a kind of "pseudo-Uncial" style, although many letters are written the same in both areas of the document.

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Pages containing John 7:39-52:

Page 49: Click to Enlarge

Page 50: Click to Enlarge

Pages containing John 8:12-18:

Page 51: Click to Enlarge

Page 52: Click to Enlarge

The commentary text seems to have been taken from one written originally by Chrysostom (5th cent), but extensively modified, probably relatively recently (e.g. 8th or 9th century).

The Gospel text seems to have been taken from a "continuous-text" manuscript of the Gospels, likely containing all four, but not particularly old.

The 10th or 11th century copyist that made this document probably chose a copy of the Gospels approved or in use at that time, namely a 9th century contemporary text.  This was done to combine text and commentary into one single document.

In order to do this, the scribe 'cleverly' used a different style of alphabet (a 'mini-uncial'-like font) to distinguish it from the commentary easily.   There was no attempt at deception here, it was just a stylism.

The layout (Gospel sections randomly located between commentary, falling where they may), and the line-scoring show that both texts were written at the same time by the same hand, as does the similarity in letters and size between the two types of text.

One can see from the photos that Codex X is not an ancient Uncial (4th-6th century copy written in Capital-letters), but just a Minuscule Manuscript from the 10th century, some 6 centuries after the original dispute concerning the inclusion of the Pericope de Adultera (John 7:53-8:11).

There have been two basic myths about this manuscript perpetuated in textual critical literature:

(1)  That the manuscript is an ancient Uncial, when in fact it is nothing more than a late Minuscule manuscript.

(2)  That the manuscript itself is a "continuous-text" copy of the Gospels, when it is really a commentary that has copied in sections a continuous-text manuscript which is actually now lost.

Both of these myths are just falsehoods, as a simple inspection of the photos clearly shows.

Peace
Nazaroo

Gerd Mink on Commentary MSS

In his article on textual stemmas for the NT - "Problems of a Highly Contaminated Tradition", found in the recent volume, Studies in stemmatology II , By Pieter Th. van Reenen, A. A. den Hollander, Margot van Mulken (2004, p.49) Gerd Mink makes the following concise and accurate statement on "commentary manuscripts", useful for a clear understanding of these special copies:

"Commentary manuscripts contain, apart from the commentaries, the continuous NT text. It is unlikely that these commentary manuscripts served as exemplars for manuscripts containing the continuous text. But it is very plausible that that text form was chosen as the basis for a commentary which was the most highly esteemed at that particular time and place. Accordingly, [that text-type] would also have been used as an exemplar in the scriptoria."

That is, the text chosen for the commentary would be the one popular for regular copies in that scriptorium where the commentary was made, at the time it was made. It would not normally be an "ancient text", but rather an 'approved text'.

This is an important observation regarding the conventions for such commentaries, because the discussion in the commentary itself would often be incongruous with the text presented alongside it. This is because the commentary would often have been composed some 5 or 10 centuries earlier than the commentary manuscript, and the author's text would differ from the one popular many centuries later. The commentaries would not be rewritten to correct this, and in fact it would probably not be noticed, as the two tasks were done separately in sections, even when written by the same scribe.

To take a specific case, 'Codex X' is not an ancient Uncial manuscript, in spite of its conventional letter ('X'). It is actually a late 12th century commentary, with gospel text included. The commentary and text is alternately placed in sections in the manuscript body.

Only parts of text which will be relevant to the commentary will be copied alongside the commentary. Because of this, there is a perfectly obvious explanation as to why this manuscript does not contain the Pericope de Adultera (John 7:53-8:11). The ancient commentary doesn't discuss it, because this passage of John was not read publicly during Pentecost services. The commentary follows the sections of John as they are read in public worship, so the commentary doesn't comment on a passage which is left out of the services.

The scribe who copied the sections from a continuous manuscript into the commentary did not bother to copy Jn. 7:53-8:11, since it was not relevant to the commentary. So even though this commentary manuscript generally gives a faithful copy of the continuous manuscript used to make it, the commentary manuscript itself (Codex X) cannot tell us what the original continuous copy had or did not have in its own text.

It is wrong to call this commentary a "continuous text manuscript". It is not. It is a commentary which contains text from a continuous text manuscript. But it cannot tell us more about that lost exemplar than it has bothered to record. As it is, the passage up to John 7:52 is copied for one section, and the passage beginning at 8:12 is copied a page or two later for the next section of the commentary. We can never know from this what the original continous-text manuscript looked like at the critical junction, 7:52/8:12. It may or may not have contained John 7:53-8:11. If it did, the copyist of Codex X did not record this fact for us, as it was of no concern to him when constructing the commentary with text.

In view of this, it is pointless to cite "Codex X" as if it were a witness for or against the text of the Pericope de Adultera (John 7:53-8:11). It is not a 'continuous-text' manuscript, except in the sense that it contains text from a real 'continuous-text' manuscript. It is not even a NT manuscript at all; it is a commentary, which happens to contain text from all four gospels, but not entirely complete.

Much confusion regarding the 'witness' of Codex X would be eliminated if it were simply dropped from the apparatus, as it has nothing to say about the authenticity or position of the Pericope de Adultera.

peace
Nazaroo