John 8: Part 4

Most of you have lost interest in this thread, but I am no quitter and I mean to finish sharing my thoughts.

Let me recap the arguments against the inclusion of the story regarding the woman caught in adultery at John 8.
1. The author couldn't be John because of the use of uncommon words.
2. Oldest collections of the text put it somewhere else in John, the NT, or do not include it.
3. No comments are made about the story from bible commentators in the first and second centuries.

The first argument was already concluded to be unsatisfying as it proved too restrictive to limit an author's vocabulary, fails to note that there are other places where the author uses unique word choice, and does not explain how the story fits so well into the context.

In dealing with the second and third arguments, it should be noted that by the time the Bible was being circulated as a whole (the 66 books of the OT and NT), the episode was included at its location in John 8 and was received as authoritative.
In the early 300's AD, Eusebius, a critic of Constantine's administration (he felt Constantine made it too easy to take on the name "Christian"), "the most eminent of early Church historians” and “usually discriminating in his evaluation of data” believes that this story is a part of John’s gospel and should be included in the text (Latourette, Kenneth Scott. A History of Christianity, vol. 1, p. 91-92). He equates it with a story that is told by one of John’s disciples (Papias) in other places.

St. Augustine explains why it is difficult to find the earliest copies of the story. He states, "Certain persons of little faith or rather enemies of the true faith, fearing, I suppose, lest 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." If the story was removed from the lessons, then early teachers would not make comment on the text.

Given the wide support for the historicity and the likelihood that the event took place, the fact that it follows the nature of Jesus' attitude toward sinners, the fit into the context, the tie to Papias (a disciple of the Apostle John), and the inclusion into the formal Scriptures, the burden lies with detractors to prove from where the story came, and why it became associated with the Apostle John and his gospel if it were not part of the original.

We follow the conclusion of William Hendricksen who writes, "Though it cannot now be proved that this story formed an integral part of the Fourth Gospel, neither is it possible to establish the opposite with any degree of finality. We believe, moreover, that what is here recorded really took place, and contains nothing that is in conflict with the apostolic spirit. Hence, instead of removing this section from the Bible it should be retained and used for our benefit” (Hendricksen, William. New Testament Commentary, The Gospel According to John, Vol. 2, p. 35).

John 8: Part 3

I hope that the thought process has been convincing to either embrace the episode of the adulterous woman (the Pericope Adulterae or P.A. from hereon) and learn from it as inspired by God, or to remove it from the texts of Holy Scripture and consider a nice story, but not as authoritative in how we learn of God's grace and Kingdom. We cannot have our proverbial cake and eat it on this.

There are basically three arguments against including the P.A. in the text of Scripture:
1. Some of the words used in this passage are not common in the rest of the account (i.e. terms like "Scribes," etc.).
2. The most ancient manuscripts (collections of Greek texts) do not have the story, or it is placed somewhere else (usually at the end of John's Gospel or after Luke 21:38).
3. The earliest church Fathers (Ante-Nicene) do not comment on the story.

The focus of this post will address the first argument.

It is entirely indecisive to determine that a Scripture text was not written by a particular author simply because of the use of vocabulary. The same argument has been made by many to claim that Paul was not the author of the book of Ephesians. This is far too assumptive and restrictive as it limits an author to a particular vocabulary, style, etc. which is far too narrow in reality.

Probably the nature of the story required John to use words that he didn't use elsewhere. John includes a comprehensive view of Jesus life and ministry, from His creative activity to time before calling out the first disciples to time spent after the resurrection. Therefore, his vocabulary would be broad and many of the individual stories would include words not used in other writings (i.e. the way John uses "Word" to refer to Jesus is unique in Chapter 1, this does not mean he didn't write it).

Beyond this, the story fits quite well into the surrounding context. Consider the following:
a. While subtle, the story fits into the theme of light and darkness, as Jesus is presenting himself as light in contrast to the darkness of the woman caught.
b. The religious leaders are consistent in John's account as being more concerned with the Law of Moses than with broken people (consider the cleansing of the temple in John 2, the discussion with the Samaritan woman at John 4, the healing of the lame man at John 5...)
c. The teaching of Jesus is consistent with what he has been teaching in regards to the religious leaders. Namely, that they expect people to keep a law that they themselves do not keep (consider the argument about circumcision at John 7:19-24).
d. The character of Jesus that John is stressing is also consistent. Jesus is presented in this account as coming not "to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him" (John 3:17). Here he tells the woman, "Neither do I condemn you; go, and from now on sin no more."

The grammatical argument falls far short of being convincing and we must dismiss it as a legitimate reason for doubting the authorship by the Apostle John and authority of the P.A.

John 8: Part 2

We are evaluating the inclusion of the adulterous woman episode in John 8. The main issue that must be resolved in determining the authority of the episode is whether or not this story is part of the original text that was inspired by God.

If the self-disclosure of God is contained in the Bible, then to ignore the words of Scripture is equivalent to ignoring God. But to say, "Thus saith the Lord," when God didn't say it, is taking His name in vain, a practice which is tragically too frequent various churches and is equally offensive as ignoring Him. This is one of the "big ten" rules that we're not supposed to break (it's number three).

Most theologians (i.e. the theologians who go by their initials) consider the event to be a true event in the ministry of Jesus. In fact, Stephen Harris, a fellow of the Jesus Seminar (a group of college professors who got together to vote over which sayings of Jesus could be attributed to the Jesus they considered "historical") says, "Whether this episode belongs in John or not, it is consistent with Jesus’ nonjudgmental attitude toward individual ‘sinners’ in all four Gospels” (Harris, Stephen. The New Testament, p. 180). Harris seems okay with the text because it promotes something he wants Jesus to be, "nonjudgmental." However, we don't have the luxury (or perhaps the audacity) of voting on which texts are authoritative and which are not. It would be a better practice to simply reject the Scripture as authoritative at all, rather than picking those teachings that we like best (I realize that people do this practically all the time, but that does not mean it is a good practice and we all could stand to repent on this one).

Determining whether or not the episode took place in the life of Jesus is superfluous and is not the issue. John tells us at the end of his account that, "There are many other things that Jesus did. Were every one of them to be written, I suppose that the world itself could not contain the books that would be written" (John 21:25).

If the episode was not in the original text, then it cannot be said to be Inspired by God and it is not useful for preaching and teaching as a source of authority. It should be demoted from the text into a footnote or removed entirely.

In the next post, we will take a look at the arguments against including the adulterous woman episode and whether or not they are strong enough to constitute removing it from the text and we'll look at the arguments for inclusion....

John 8: The Issues

At Missio, we believe that the Bible (the 66 books comprising the Old and New Testament) were verbally inspired in their original languages. While some teach that God was directly involved in the translation of these copies into English (i.e. the King James Version), we do not. But we believe that the texts, in their original form are inspired by God and seek translations that preserve the original form.

Thus, John 8 presents a big question. If you have a copy that is worth reading, it will note that the episode involving the adulterous woman brought to Jesus is not found in the most ancient copies of the text. Untold amounts of ink have been spilled speculating on this issue and because it directly effects us in the study of the Gospel according to John, we are looking into this matter.

At Missio Dei, we utilize the English Standard Version (ESV) for teaching and preaching. In the spirit of the NASB, the ESV follows a word-for-word translation of the original languages and in the spirit of the NIV translates it into a readable format. This seems to be a good corrective for the often difficult syntax of the NASB and the idea-for-idea translation of the NIV.

At John 8, the ESV includes in the text, "The earliest manuscripts do not include John 7:53-8:11." This poses a big problem for our view of Scripture and our approach to the text. If it is not an original part of John's Gospel, should we view it as the authoritative word of God?

Many conservative scholars including B.B. Warfield and A.T. Roberston exclude the passage from John, but consider it authoritative. In fact, D.A. Carson (there must be something about writing theology books that allows one to drop his name and go by initials), a scholar whom I lean upon heavily, writes, "Modern English versions are right to rule it off from the rest of the text (NIV) or to relegate it to a footnote (RSV)…. On the other hand, there is little reason for doubting that the event here described occurred” (Carson, D.A. The Gospel According to John, 1991, p. 333).

This approach seems too good to be true and severely untested for my taste. If this is not an original text, then I cannot say with confidence that it is inspired and authoritative. While I respect the work of these men, I do not embrace this approach to the text. And, for those of you in the Missio Dei community, you are aware that I preached from the text and consider it to be authoritative. I will explain further reasons why in a later post....