Last Sunday I looked at John 8 in the sermon and made some comments on 7:53-8:11. I wanted to follow up with a few more details on this issue, because some things about it are a little complex to bring into a Sunday morning. My view here is not the only one, but I'll lay it out for your consideration.
This is not a new issue, by the way. Even Augustine, who died in 430 A.D., offered a theory about why the older manuscripts do not contain this passage. His view was that women would become too loose in their morals and so people removed it. I don't think he's right, but he does tell us that this problem has been around for a very long time.
Most of our Bibles at 7:53-8:11 have markings around the text to show the lack of confidence the editors have about whether it should be included in our Bibles. The ESV, NIV, and NASB would certainly have these. Others do not. The basic reason for the special treatment is what they say in a footnote—The earliest manuscripts do not contain it.
It's All Greek to Me
That means the Greek manuscripts from the 3rd and 4th centuries include John but lack 7:53-8:11. There are four of these, and they are significant:
- Greek Papyrus P66 from A.D. 200
- Greek Papyrus P75 from 3rd century
- Codex Sinaiticus (Aleph 01) from 4th century and
- Codex Vaticanus (B or 03) also from the 4th century.
When you go back this far you don't have many texts you're dealing with, so to lack the passage in all of the available ones and to have no text this old that contains it is an important point.
In about 400 A.D. the passage appears in Jerome's Vulgate—the Latin version of the Bible—and in the 5th century it is found in the Codex Bezae (D or 05). These are important as well, and for some people, this is enough to call the passage Scripture.
Many early translations don't contain the passage, and the church fathers don't comment on it until very late. Some of their running commentaries on John, in fact, skip from the end of chapter seven to 8:12. Some would say this is because they only commented on the lectionary readings, and 7:53-8:11 wasn't part of the lectionary assigned passages. That's possible, but still we have that gap.
A last observation is that the vocabulary and style are not typical John. Some think it's more likely even that Luke wrote it.
For all these reasons the editors of the ESV and other translations think the text has serious questions surrounding it.
Men like D.A. Carson, Leon Morris, and John Piper—all PhD's in NT, all strong evangelicals, and all having a high view of the Bible—would agree and say that this passage is not Scripture. Edifying, maybe even historical, but not Scripture.
This means we don't place the stamp of "breathed out by God" (2 Tim. 3:16) on it. We can see other texts that support what it teaches (forgiveness for sins and the call to leave our sins behind), but we need to distinguish between what is helpful and what is the Bible.
The Other Verses
But this issue does remind us of a couple things. One is to be grateful for how solid the rest of our Bible is. We have ancient texts in a continuous chain from the year 200 on the entire New Testament and from many texts even before that.
That's why there's no need for these kinds of footnotes and markings in almost every other verse of our New Testament.
Our Bibles: Solid Translations of Strongly Supported Texts
This is also a good reminder of what we have in our English Bible: It's a very solid translation of a strongly supported Greek and Hebrew text. It isn't what the original authors wrote themselves, but the texts we have allow us to read the equivalent of what they wrote with great accuracy. We can have the greatest confidence in basing our faith, our doctrine, our prayers, and our very lives on what our English Bibles tell us. That's a strong statement, but that's why we want to make a distinction between what is strongly supported in our Bible and what is questionable in the eyes of many scholars.
For a Closer Look at These Issues
Two places to go if you want explore these issues further are a sermon by John Piper called "Neither Do I Condemn You" and a book called Truth Matters by Andreas Kostenberger and Darrell Block. The book is not lengthy and is an excellent resource for those about to go to college and maybe be questioned on issues like these and other common ones.
I'll close this section with a helpful quote by John Piper if you're still uncertain about how to approach this text:
The story may not belong to John's Gospel. In fact, the story may never have happened. But this point of the story is unshakably true. This is the pervasive message of the New Testament. Jesus exalted himself above the Law. He wrote it! Jesus altered some of its sanctions. He pointed to its main goal of Christ-exalting love. And he reestablished righteousness on the basis of an experience of grace.
The story points us to the message of the whole New Testament: We are called to be holy as God is holy. God hates sin. But pursuing holiness without a profound experience of grace in our own lives produces hypocrisy and doctrinaire cruelty. Jesus came into the world to provide that grace through his cross, and to establish holiness, righteousness, and justice on the foundation of our experience of his grace. So come to him for grace, and set your face to sin no more.
John Piper, sermon, "Neither Do I Condemn You"
Daniel
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