Previously Unconsidered Evidence for John 8:1-11

daveleau · #11 17th December 2005, 12:42 PM

There is variety in the manuscript evidence regarding this passage. Some early manuscripts have this passage, while some do not. Other early manuscripts have a blank space for this passage like they were waiting to add it later. It does make sense that this passage would fit into the structure of John as you have pointed out Nazaroo. It also makes sense that there is motive for those copying the Scriptures afterwards would remove it because they were afraid that the passage might be construed as a support for adultery or prostitution. I am fully convinced that this passage is supposed to be there because of these arguments. The earliest manuscripts have many additions and subtractions. I see no reason to believe that this was not another example of a subtraction. As for the addition of the passage, I see no motive for the addition of such a passage since it does not support anything other than the grace of God through Jesus Christ.

John is a book of worst case scenarios. Jesus saves the outcast among outcasts (woman at the well.) Jesus saves those with the worst physical calamities (man at Bethesda and man born blind.) Here, Jesus saves one of the worst sinners under the Law in the woman caught in adultery. It fits the style of John's writing, and is surely in its rightful place in Scripture.

Nazaroo · #12 17th December 2005, 01:15 PM

It also makes sense that there is motive for those copying the Scriptures afterwards would remove it because they were afraid that the passage might be construed as a support for adultery or prostitution. I am fully convinced that this passage is supposed to be there because of these arguments. ... As for the addition of the passage, I see no motive for the addition of such a passage since it does not support anything other than the grace of God through Jesus Christ.

I think you are right on the money with this.
This seems precisely what happened to the Pericope de Adultera.
We only need look at the attitudes of the early fathers to see it flashing at us like a neon casino sign.

John is a book of worst case scenarios. Jesus saves the outcast among outcasts (woman at the well.) Jesus saves those with the worst physical calamities (man at Bethesda and man born blind.) Here, Jesus saves one of the worst sinners under the Law in the woman caught in adultery. It fits the style of John's writing, and is surely in its rightful place in Scripture.

Again, your description of John is a close to perfect as to the character of the content. And no doubt John created a lot of unhappy and uncomfortable people because of his in-your-face presentations of the 'undersirables' of society being helped rather than abandoned.

My respects to your insight and wisdom regarding the circumstances surrounding John.

peace.

Nazaroo · #13 17th December 2005, 04:12 PM

But the methodology and conclusions are stretched and you display an ignorance -- whether of knowledge or by choice -- of the work that has previously been done on the structure of the Fourth Gospel.

...just to pick up on this and clarify:

I have here a chart showing the complimentarity as opposed to conflict of the two known structural systems:

(1) The Narrative Structure identified by C.H. Dodd in his classic "The Interpretation of the Fourth Gospel", and

(2) The hitherto unobserved O.T. Quotation Structure in John discovered by yours truly.

...

Nazaroo · #14 18th December 2005, 04:24 AM

I believe John the Evangelist deliberately chose to have the two independant structural systems overlap and interlock. This was his way of providing safeguards to prevent the mutilation and breaking apart of his gospel, or allow its reconnection in the event of tampering.

Had John combined the structures so that they aligned in their deliniation of the 'sections', there would be no reason or way to perceive that there were actually two, and the danger of dividing the text physically according to a perceived difference in their content and purpose would not be alleviated.

By choosing *two* independant systems, John allows the perceptive reader to see that any literary divisions in content are not to be interpreted as physical divisions. Dividing John into physical sections along the lines of either structure destroys the other structure. Two independant hidden structures are necessary and sufficient to ensure that physical separation or dislocation cannot be accomplished without loss of structure.

John's purpose here I believe has succeeded. In ancient times, such hidden structures would be best left undiscussed except orally among the faithful entrusted with preserving and copying the gospels. The structures in John have no key didactic purpose which would be necessary to understand the gospel. The contents and teaching of the gospel are not obscured, or significantly enchanced, other than in the organization of the ideas and themes in the reader's mind.

Nowadays, with the invention of printing, and the essential contents and form of the gospels secured for the usage of Christians universally, the structures can be noted and discussed without loss of security for the integrity of the documents.

In the end times, knowledge shall be greatly increased.

Peace.

Nazaroo · #15 19th December 2005, 12:34 PM

In an unforseen twist of irony to the embarrassment of one of textual criticism's most 'certain' pronouncements, and an expose' worthy of God Himself, the infamous Codex Vaticanus (B) has become the earliest witness for the existance of the Pericope de Adultera, placing its certain origin earlier than the 4th century at the very least!

Textual critics will be scrambling to cover their donkeys over this one.

3. The Significance of the Discovery:

Since most lines of Vaticanus contain only 15-18 letters of text, an umlaut in the margin was a sufficiently specific notation to permit anyone with access to a manuscript containing that variant to identify it.

Manuscripts containing the variants noted by umlauts were probably in the library of the scriptorium where the codex was written, so both the riginal scribe and others subsequently using the codex there could dentify them. Extant textual variants make it possible in many cases to identify the variant that the scribe probably intended to note.

These umlauts demonstrate both that the scribe was aware of these variant readings and that he or she regarded them as sufficiently important to note. Notation of textual variants should not be surprising since this practice was well established even in Sumerian and Akkadian texts.29 Origin’s Hexapla and Bishop Victor of Capua’s Codex Fuldensis also employ symbols which combine dots with other pen strokes to note textual variants.30

There is a remarkable convergence between the text of Vaticanus and the surviving text of the Bodmer papyri, especially p75, "copied about the end of the second or the beginning of the third century."31

In light of this convergence, it is reasonable to conclude that the original scribe of Vaticanus copied a manuscript closely related to the Bodmer papyri. Thus, the scribe must have copied either a very old manuscript or one that was based on a very old manuscript. Umlauts marking the location of textual variants throughout the manuscript prove that the scribe had access to more than one manuscript.

Presumably, then, the scribe chose to copy one particular manuscript because it appeared to be old or because of its reputation as preserving an ancient or more original form of the text. This helps explain the remarkable similarity of its text to that of the Bodmer papyri. It also fits the scholarly consensus that Vaticanus is a remarkably good guide to the original form of the text.

These umlauts offer new light on a host of textual questions such as the following two examples:

First, the chocolate-brown umlaut at the end of John 7:52 is at the point where the account of the woman taken in adultery traditionally occurs. Thus, although Vaticanus does not include this account, this umlaut, presuming it was traced over an original one, provides the earliest evidence for the presence of this account here in the text of John, even earlier than Jerome’s reference to its occurrence in many Greek codices.
...

...The discovery that eleven umlauts unambiguously match the original ink of Codex Vaticanus has four significant implications for textual criticism.

1. It demonstrates that its scribe was aware of textual variants and believed them to be sufficiently important to note.

2. It supports the view that its scribe desired to preserve the most original form of the text possible.

3. The third implication follows from the evidence for the originality of the Vaticanus umlauts in general and from two correlations between umlauts and documented textual variants.

First, in the vast majority of lines where Vaticanus has umlauts, other manuscripts preserve signi. cant variants.

Second, the frequency of significant variants in these lines is far higher than in lines without umlauts. These two correlations provide a statistical basis for the first time for concluding that the majority of variants that were available to the scribe of Vaticanus have survived in other manuscripts.

4. These umlauts are windows that give insights into the history of the text before Vaticanus, even for passages where no early papyri have survived. Demonstration of the originality of these umlauts enhances respect for the scribe of Vaticanus and breaks new ground for NT textual criticism.

(THE ORIGINALITY OF TEXT-CRITICAL SYMBOLS IN CODEX VATICANUS by PHILIP B. PAYNE Edmonds WA and PAUL CANART)

Note that already the critics are putting the spin on the findings that somehow the reputation of Codex Vaticanus is enhanced. Of course it may very well be that Vaticanus' reputation will now go up in direct proportion to how much the reputation of critic's previous conclusions go down! This news may be good for Vaticanus fans, but not for the results of textual criticism.

Second, one can only observe with incredulous amusement that while Vaticanus' value does indeed now rise as a source of evidence for the existance and penetration of variant readings, this is NOT true for the text it contains! The existance and popularity of opposing readings can only weaken codex Vaticanus' witness for its own text!

The hand of the scribe has truly reached 16 centuries beyond the grave to tip us off!

One final point about this must be made: The most unique case in NT textual criticism, has now been reduced to another similar case, that of the ending of Mark! What was assumed to be in independant and pristine witness against the passage, turns out again to be a colluder.

The most important witness against inclusion is found in possession of guilty knowledge of the existance and popularity of the passage. It is even possible that the scribe executing the copy of the older Alexandrian text did so with reservations, which could only be expressed in the form of diacritical notes of its departure from what he knew to be the right reading.

justified · #16 19th December 2005, 04:44 PM

From what I've read, the umlaut-in-margin theory is a crackpot idea. Care to argue?

Nazaroo · #17 19th December 2005, 07:25 PM

Originally Posted by justified

From what I've read, the umlaut-in-margin theory is a crackpot idea. Care to argue?

Sounds like you're going to offer an interesting attempt at staving off the damage... please go on!

justified · #18 19th December 2005, 08:45 PM

I don't have a great amount of experience with it, actually. I've never read that anything about the umlauts was proven, so I'm waiting to hear what, exactly, is apparently proven by this dude. Can you summarize?

Nazaroo · #19 19th December 2005, 09:32 PM

Originally Posted by justified

I don't have a great amount of experience with it, actually. I've never read that anything about the umlauts was proven, so I'm waiting to hear what, exactly, is apparently proven by this dude. Can you summarize?

In a nutshell, they have tested and shown that the most ancient and important layer of diacritical marks on the manuscript are the same ink, and therefore the same scribe as the original hand.

This means they are as ancient as the uncorrected text, but they clearly show the scribe's knowledge of a virtually complete set of (Byzantine) variants, probably from other manuscripts in the scriptorium where the exemplar was made.

Furthermore, although the scribe appears to have simply faithfully copied an Alexandrian papyrus from the 3rd century, he thoroughly deliniated its defects for posterity.

Finally, even though there was another later scribe who reworked and darkened the faded text, in all cases tested, the original ink lay under the reapplied touch ups overtop of the markings.

That sums it up. The bottom line is, the scribe of Vaticanus knew all about the Byzantine text-type and the 'majority' readings.

Nazaroo · #20 20th December 2005, 06:40 AM

In a previous post, I made the following statement:

"The internal evidence is overwhelming for its authenticity as part of John's gospel. Although as long ago as 1848 Samuel Davidson made as good a case as could be made against its authorship, based upon an analysis of vocabulary and phraseology, it was extremely flimsy. (An Introduction to the NT Vol 1 ,1848 pg 359-360.)"

To which a mysterious poster replied:

"I sincerely dislike it when someone without a name comes a long and bashes an established and well-regarded author with almost no evidence."

The time has come to provide and examine the evidence. So I am afraid we are in for a lot more 'Samuel Davidson bashing' in the next few pages. Hopefully our friend will be able to ride out the storm: I will pre-apologize now for any 'bashing' that takes place. This perhaps will help others cope.

But first I think we need to provide an overview and set the stage for the farce to come:

Introduction and Background to Internal Evidence

As noted in the other thread, Zane Hodges' pointed out the irony and absurdity of the modern text-critical position long ago:

The anomaly is impressive. On the one hand the passage is stigmatized as an unauthorized insertion in to the sacred text, while on the other hand it is frequently hailed as bearing the "stamp of truth."

To which we added, that the suspicion is strong that there is really a lot of posturing and shuffling going on here. The critics are afraid to openly attack the verses as a fraudulent insertion of spurious material, because they would turn away a large part of their Christian market base. (Call me jaded.)

However, since the critics have separated the problem of the authenticity of John 8:1-11 into two questions:

(1) Is the passage properly a part of John and authored by him?

(2) Is the passage an authentic event in the life of Jesus?

(i.e., a faithful tradition handed down by 'posterity' about him?)

...and have chosen to sidestep the 2nd question in a politically expedient manner, not so much from fear of being hit by a lightning bolt, but in fear of the reaction of the churchgoers who buy modern bible translations,
we also can deal simply (and at least for now only) with the first question.

This question naturally breaks down into two parts:

a) Does John know anything about the passage?
(which we have answered in part by an observation of Johannine structure)

and,

b) Does the passage know anything of John?

Which we are going to look at next.