The pericope de adultera: John 7:53-8:11

John 7:53-8:11 is said to be absent in the best and earliest Greek MSS. So says the modern scholarly consensus. In other MSS, there are different portions of the text that are present, and in still others the account is found after Luke 21:38. D. A. Carson remarks that, “All the early church Fathers omit this narrative: in commenting on John, they pass immediately from 7:52 to 8:12.”1 The whole twelve verse unit does not show up in the record until the fifth century Codex Bezae (D). In addition to the textual evidence it is said to have a few literary strikes against it; as Herman Ridderbos notes “a clear interruption in the text,” and that it “differs sharply in language and style from John.”2

Now a nearly identical story is provided by Papias, through the Church History of Eusebius [III.24.16]. That may at least explain the association to John (as Papias was known to be his disciple). Additionally, a single phrase—“neither do I condemn you”—is detected in a second century work called the Protoevangelium of James.3 Nevertheless the modern consensus presents what appears to be weighty evidence against its inclusion in John.

If the testimony against this text’s inclusion was so universal, and so early, then how did it find its way into our Bibles? It was held to belong in its present place by Augustine. He maintained was that it began to be removed out of fear of enabling adulterers. It is difficult to altogether throw out this claim by the bishop of Hippo, who said,

“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.”4

The real key to its inclusion may have been Jerome’s esteem of it, as it was included it in the Latin Vulgate. This was the main biblical translation used throughout the Middle Ages. So for a thousand years this story was taken to be Scripture without a second thought, except to a handful of commentators who were aware of the text critical issue. The 1611 King James Version has standardized the inclusion of John 7:53-8:11 into the modern era.

Implications

Two questions usually follow our discovery of the issues surrounding this text: (1) Is this any ground to doubt the Bibles that we have? (2) Should a preacher preach a sermon on this text?

First, with respect to biblical reliability, there needs to be some initial ground clearing. We must first distinguish between biblical inerrancy and the biblical canon. Inerrancy refers to the text of Scripture never erring, while canon refers to the line of demarcation between what is that text of Scripture and what is not.

In other words, if a text is not a part of the canon of Scripture, then it is, by definition, not a biblical text. From this it follows that such texts are not the subject matter of inerrancy to begin with. If such a text erred, it would have absolutely no bearing of the inerrancy question.

But then this only raises the question: Why retain the text in our modern Bibles if it is only going to confuse people? One answer has to do with reverence for God's word. Supposing that the early MSS that include it are correct? There is at least some evidence of that, as mentioned above. But perhaps our second question about preaching this text might shed some more light.

Second, with respect to preaching such a text, there are two serious matters that pastors need to reconcile for their congregations. Neither one can be treated lightly. One has to do with misrepresenting God's authority and the other with protecting and building up the Christian's faith. Sound Christian teaching must distinguish between the Word of God and words of men. Naturally, a safe position would be not to preach on it. But there it is, brackets and all! So to skip over it without a word will only stir unnecessary suspicions in church members.

The better solution is to take the opportunity to teach everyone how to handle such a text, how to distinguish between the matters of error and canon, and how to compare God's authoritative word with extra-biblical truth (since, after all, the passage may still contain important truth). Whether one does that in a sermon, or uses the Sunday school hour, is a matter indifferent. In the case of this text, there really is a truth to be retained and taught, as anyone who has been deeply affected by the gospel can attest.

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1. D. A. Carson, The Gospel According to John (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1991), 333.

2. Herman Ridderbos, The Gospel of John (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1997), 285.

3. Andreas Kostenberger, John (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2004), 248.

4. Augustine, Corpus Scriptorum Ecclesiasticorum Latinorum, Academia Litterarum Vindobonensis, vol. xxxxi, 387.