Previously Unconsidered Evidence for John 8:1-11

[Nazaroo]

What really happened in the 4th century?

There are a few basic options which have been offered to explain the omission of John 8:1-11 from the two 'Great Bibles' of Constantine, Codex Vaticanus (B) and Codex Sinaiticus (Aleph).


The Hortian Hypothesis:




Hort in 1881 proposed that the passage was effectively inserted late into the Greek NT in the 5th, 6th or even 7th century. He conceded but downplayed the early existance of the passage, characterizing it as a floating piece of ancient tradition:

"the Section first came into St John's Gospel as an insertion in a comparatively late Western text,..." (Notes, pg 88).​

Yet the testimony of Jerome suggests that if it was an insertion, it must have happened at a much earlier date. Hort acknowledges this, but dismisses Jerome quietly in a few lines:

"According to Hier. 3 l.c. "in the Gospel according to John many MSS, both Greek and Latin, contain an account of an adulterous woman" &c.: at the close he implies that the narrative belonged to Scripture." (ibid.)​

If Jerome is accurate, the pericope must have been inserted much earlier, between 250 and 350 A.D. This would be right about the time of Hort's supposed 'Lucian Recension'. Hort had previously explained the Byzantine Text (his 'Syrian/Constantinopolitan' text) as the result of a revision of Lucius (actually mentioned by Jerome).

But Hort himself avoided this explanation (Lucius) for the Pericope de Adultera, in spite of its utility. He probably didn't want the controversy and unique problem of these verses to cloud or jeopardize his main purpose, the 'slaying of the Textus Receptus'.




Instead Hort downplayed a variety of earlier evidence like Jerome's, and pressed for a different description of events:

"It further appears that the Section (Jn 8:1-11) was little adopted in texts other than the 'Western' till some unknown time between the 4th or 5th and the 8th centuries, when it was received into some influential Constantinopolitan text." (ibid)​

But this version of the story loses real credibility, for the pericope appears widely known and used from the 5th century until the invention of printing all over the former Roman Empire.

It does little to protest that most of this activity was conducted in Latin, for that was the lingua franca (common language) of the era. The Greek language had retreated first to the Eastern half of the Empire (formerly the Greek Empire and cultural core), and finally just to Greece and Western Turkey.

The Pericope was adopted quickly also by other churches: the Syrian, Armenian, etc. by at least the 5th century. It seems to have been in the Ethiopic version from early times.

And of course, the majority of Byzantine manuscripts contain the passage. Again it does little to protest about the lateness of most of these manuscripts (10th to 14th century). For they represent a diverse and independant group of transmission streams reaching back into the Byzantine era (480 A.D. to 630 A.D.).

Although earlier manuscripts are rarer, the majority of manuscripts from the 5th to the 10th century nonetheless contain the verses. If this is a reasonable sample of manuscripts from this period, then the passage was probably in the majority of manuscripts from the 5th century forward.

Finally, the theory that the passage 'crept into' the Greek (Byzantine) texts from the West (Latin) tradition is farfetched to the point of absurdity. The Early Empire had been divided into three parts after Constantine, into West, Middle, and East. The Eastern (Orthodox Greek) Empire had become permanently split from the West in 364 A.D., when Emperor Valens took power.

After this, the Greeks ruled themselves, and remained fiercely independant from the Latins. Even Attila the Hun avoided the East, making a treaty in 443 A.D., and instead attacked the more vulnerable West. After the collapse of the Huns, Ricimer ruled as Patrician under Emperor Leo of the Eastern Empire, who appointed the Roman general as 'emperor' of the West in 467 A.D. After Leo, Emperor Zeno ruled the East, while again appointing a puppet ruler, Julius Nepos to the Western half. Thus the Greeks maintained independance from the Latin West right up until the final collapse of the old Roman Empire in 480 A.D.

The idea that during this period the Latins could have influenced the Greeks to abandon their own original Greek version of John in their very own language to adopt a 'Latin/Western interpolation' is utterly preposterous, and vigorously denied by Greek historians.


.

 

[Nazaroo]

We saw previously that Hort painted a picture of 'Western insertion', followed by an even later adoption into the Byzantine Greek text:

Hort immediately classifies the passage as 'Western'. By this he literally means only in the Latin tradition, not the Greek, in spite of its presence in the majority of Greek manuscripts from all parts of the Empire. His begrudging acknowledgement of its Greek presence is a backhanded slap. He calls the Greek tradition here late 'Constantinopolitan': he has coined his own term. He implies the spread of the text into the Greek began in one Eastern city, late in the 4th century.

The city of Byzantium was the commercial center of the Eastern Greek provinces, and was renamed 'Constantinople' after Emperor Constantine made it the new capital of the Empire in 326 A.D.

According to Hort then, the passage originated in the Latin tradition, and was first brought into the Eastern Greek text from Rome in the 'late' 4th century via Constantinople. From there, it only slowly gained dominance sometime between the 5th and 7th centuries in the Greek lines of transmission.

Its easy to see why Hort's theory of an imposed Latin insertion was popular among extreme anti-Papal Protestants. Yet the full evidence concerning the history of the verses cannot really be dismissed so simply. The passage is actually found to have been popular all over the Empire at least before 400 A.D.

And its apparent origin appears to be in the Far East according to Eusebius, not the West. The first explicit notice of the passage is given by Papias around 120 A.D. in the middle of Turkey. As Hort himself notes further on:

"[Eusebius] closes his account of the work of Papias (Cent. II) with the words "And he has likewise set forth another narrative (istorian) concerning a woman who was maliciously accused before the Lord touching many sins (epi pollaiV amartiaiV diablhqeishV epi tou kuriou), which is contained in the Gospel according to the Hebrews". (ibid, pg 83) ​

Hort had no doubts over the identity of our passage here, and few others do either. The only real questions remaining concern the reliability of both early fathers as to some curious details in this report.

Papias is independantly confirmed as "a hearer of John and companion to Polycarp" by Irenaeus. He apparently lived from about 60-135 A.D. Eusebius calls him 'bishop of Hierapolis' (the modern town of Pamukkale, in Turkey near Colossae) but little else is known. Although Eusebius scorns him as "a man of small mental capacity", this is apparently because Eusebius himself interpreted the Gospels allegorically, while Papias believed in their literal truth.

On a related issue, the statements of Eusebius (the Bishop of Rome at the time of Constantine) are odd to say the least, and have a strange air of wrongness about them. We will investigate Eusebius further in connection with Constantine.

Regardless of how conservatively we approach the testimony of Papias, some remarkable things can be said:

(1) The story is known to have existed in a central location in the Eastern (Greek) half of the Empire, as early as about 120 A.D. This evidence actually appears older than the oldest physical fragment of John's Gospel.

(2) It apparently circulated in Hebrew among Christian converts of the Diaspora (Exiled Jews). As a report of an incident in Judaea (the temple in Jerusalem) which occured primarily before Jewish witnesses, it would understandably be of special interest to them, and not of as much interest to non-Jews.

(3) It circulated right in the middle of the cradle of Christianity (Greece), where most of the churches of Peter, John, Philip and Paul were started. This was home-soil for the Gospel, and a hot-bed of Christian activity. An area where a large number of the original followers and witnesses of Jesus had fled after the War between the Romans and Jews.


One might justifiably say, "If only we had such early and powerful evidence for many other sayings and stories in the Gospels."

For a 'late Constantinopolitan insertion', this little passage has a remarkable story behind it, and yet with little direct information that would support Hort's theoretical construction of its history.

 

[Nazaroo]

(Hier. = St. Jerome 340-420 A.D., converted 360 A.D.)

Jerome is quite clearly one of the most important early fathers to comment on the verses. About 380 A.D. Jerome went to Constantinople to study under the Greek Bishop Gregory of Nazianzus. In 382 he went back to Rome for a council held by Pope Damasus. Jerome did so well as council secretary that Damascus kept him on as his own secretary.

At the Pope's request he revised the Latin Gospels, using the original Greek MSS, and the Latin psalter. Later he retranslated the OT from Greek and Hebrew MSS. The result of his 30 years of work is the Latin Bible (Vulgate), which is still in use.
To (Pope) Damascus:

"You urge me to revise the old Latin, and judge between the copies of the Scriptures scattered throughout the world: and where they differ, you wish me to decide which one agrees with the original Greek. The labour is one of love, but also perilous and bold: for in judging others' work, I must be content to be judged by all. ...Is there a single man, learned or unlearned, who, when he reads what doesn't suit his mindset, won't make a violent outburst, calling me a 'forger' and 'profane', for having the gall to change anything or make corrections to the ancient books?​

"But there are two consolations that help me bear the notoriety: In the first place, you the supreme bishop have given the order. And secondly, even according to our opponents, readings differing from the ancient copies can't be right. ​

"For if we hold to the Latin, its up to our opponents to tell us which to follow, for there are almost as many text-forms as there are copies! And on the other hand, if we try to determine the truth by comparing them, why not just go back to the original Greek and fix the mistakes made by sloppy translators, blundering editors and the changes of half-asleep copyists?​

"I'm not discussing the Old Testament...I am now speaking of the New Testament. This was undoubtedly composed in Greek, with the exception of Matthew the Apostle, who was the first to put in writing the Gospel of Christ, and who gave his work in Hebrew from Judaea (Palestine). ​

"We must confess that as we now have the N.T. in our language (Latin), it is marked by discrepancies, and now that the stream has diverged in different directions we must go back to the fountainhead.​

"I avoid those manuscripts connected to the names of Lucian and Hesychius, the 'authority' of which is perversely claimed by a handful of quarrelous persons. It is obvious that these writers were unable to change anything in the Old Testament after the work of the Seventy; and it was also useless for them to 'correct' the New, since Scripture translations already existing in many languages show that their additions are false.​

"Therefore in this short Preface, I promise simply the four Gospels, in the following order: Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, as corrected by comparison to the Greek copies. Only ancient manuscripts have been used. But to avoid any great divergences from the Latin which we are accustomed to read, I have used my pen with some restraint, and while I have corrected only such passages as seemed to convey a different meaning, I have allowed the rest to remain as they are. " ​

(St. Jerome, Preface to the Latin Gospels, 383 A.D.) ​

Jerome's Preface gives us several key pieces of information:

(1) The Old Latin MSS had many diverse texts and readings. ​

(2) Jerome relied only upon the Greek for correcting the text. ​

(3) Jerome spurned the work of previous editors, specifically Lucian. ​

(4) Jerome used only ancient manuscripts for corrections. ​

(5) Jerome only corrected where he found significant differences in meaning.​

To these factors, we add two more,

(6) Jerome included the passage in his Latin translation, defending its authenticity without hesitation,​

(7) and specifically says it was present in "many MSS, both Greek and Latin". (cf. Hort above) ​

This appears to leave a rather large difficulty concerning Jerome's evidence. For we can either accept Jerome's basic version of events, or we must suspect him of some kind of fraud, however pious in intent.

As secretary to the Pope, Jerome cannot possibly have been unfamiliar with the 50 'Great Bibles' made by order of Constantine a mere 35 years earlier, and sent to every major church in his Empire. Yet Jerome clearly spurned the editorial choices of such manuscripts, if Codex B and Aleph are anything to go by.

These two surviving manuscripts, Vaticanus and Sinaiticus, would have looked virtually 'brand new' to Jerome. They would have been made with techniques 'modern' in his time and would have had at most 30 years of gentle church use. Thus Jerome could not have mistaken such contemporary copies for 'ancient manuscripts'.

And indeed he didn't: Jerome published a text that is apparently somewhere in the middle between the Western, Alexandrian and Byzantine extremes. He hardly favoured the Byzantine text-type or the Alexandrian. And whatever manuscripts Jerome used, ancient in his time, they were not the ancestors of B and Aleph.

But it isn't even the rejection of the Alexandrian text by Jerome that really matters here. Its the astounding fact that the Pope actually ordered and embraced Jerome's text and the entire Latin church seems to have followed suit. And more importantly, its the corollary: in 380 A.D. the ecclesiastical authorities deliberately rejected the Alexandrian text-type, in spite of its 'official' imposition by Constantine and Eusebius only a few decades before.

Of course there was initial criticism and resistance to Jerome's text, but this was relatively short-lived, and confined to his revision of the Old Testament. Even with 'official sanction' for the new text however, Jerome's Vulgate didn't really dominate until the 7th century: Only in the 6th century did Pope Gregory the Great declare it equal to the Old Latin, and it was only by the 12th century that it finally took over almost everywhere.




But all this only makes the problem of the Pericope de Adultera more acute: At first we are sorely tempted to blame Jerome and Pope Damascus themselves for its actual insertion. It is 'absent' in the Greek text of Constantine (340 A.D.), but present in the Latin of Jerome (380 A.D.). Hort tells us,

"When the whole evidence is taken together, it becomes clear that the Section first came into St John's Gospel as an insertion in a comparatively late Western text,..." (Notes, pg 88). ​

Ignoring Hort's vagueness about just exactly when the passage was inserted into the Latin, the theory faces severe obstacles:
Most importantly, the Old Latin had it before Jerome: The passage is copiously attested in the Old Latin, quite independantly of Jerome. It was in popular use by many of Jerome's contemporaries before he'd even started translating the Gospels.

That is the real significance of the evidence of older fathers like Ambrose. It can't have been added later under Jerome's influence. He simply assented to what he'd already found. He was obviously telling the truth about finding it "in many Latin MSS".

And the only people hanging onto the Old Latin were those who rejected Jerome: Why would they embrace what would then be the most outrageous addition of all, and yet stubbornly reject all his relatively minor changes?

But if the adoption of Jerome's Latin was so tediously slow in the West, he must have had even less, in fact almost no influence at all upon the Greek transmission.

And now we come face to face with just how much Dr. Hort has actually inverted the plain sense of the facts. The simple truth is, Jerome was not translating the Latin into Greek, but Greek into Latin, and only accepting or correcting the Latin when it was supported by the Greek.

The flow of influence is wholly in the other direction: First Jerome went to study Greek under the Bishop of Constantinople, then he took the Greek (Byzantine) text back with him and corrected the Latin.

Without overwhelming contrary evidence, the only sensible course is to take Jerome at his word again, and acknowledge that the dominant and approved Greek text of the East also had the verses. Jerome had found in the East "many Greek MSS also" containing the story of the adulteress.

And he brought his knowledge of the ancient Byzantine texts with him to restore the Latin. There is no evidence of any attempt to influence the Greeks, and Jerome made no new edition of the Greek text. And if he had, it would never have been received by the Greeks.

Jerome: the First Reformer


Why was resistance to Jerome so minimal, and short-lived? Was it a 'Papal conspiracy' imposed from above? Hardly. Jerome was popular for one reason only among the Latins, in spite of being hated by ecclesiastical authorities so much he had to flee to the Middle East:

Jerome was the first real 'protestant reformer'. He insisted on creating an accurate, 'modern language' version of the Bible in the common tongue of the people: The Latin Vulgate. It was for this that he was resisted and hated, just as the early protestants following his pattern were a thousand years later. To the ordinary Latin laymen of Rome Jerome was a hero, shining a light where darkness had fallen.

But to the Greeks Jerome had no such status or significance. They already had the Bible in their own language, and hardly needed a translator or 'corrector'. In Greece, Jerome was just an ordinary bible student.

Hort has taken some perfectly plausible aspects of the history of the Latin transmission, and attempted to apply them in parallel to the Greek textual history. But the known facts contradict Hort, both in the potentially possible timing of an event such as an insertion, and also the likely source for the passage's entrance into the Latin stream.

Hort's textual history for the Greek manuscripts has no historical reality.

 

[Nazaroo]

We have now added another fantastic article to the Pericope De Adultera Website:
The entire 2nd chapter of Scrivener's Plain Introduction to the NT,
This is the famous chapter on the Syriac versions. It stands as an excellent introduction to this complex group of manuscripts, And although out of date on some details and new discoveries, it remains a very balanced overview of the evidence.

Scrivener on Syriac Versions

 

[Nazaroo]

We have now updated Part I of our discussion of Hort's mishandling of the evidence for the authenticity of John 8:1-11.

The new Annotated article on Hort goes into much greater detail on Hort's methods of argumentation and the missing evidences that Hort avoided in framing his presentation.

Hort Doesn't Hear a Who

 

[Nazaroo]

We have been hinting all along, that Emperor Constantine was not really the great Christian hero that people might think he was.

And we have hinted that Eusebius, as nice as he was to provide us with his own version of early Church history, was Constantine's "YES"-man.

Let's review the main facts:

The previous Emperors who had a habit of sending the army off to do outrageous and grandiose feats at great personal risk, were usually killed off by their own Praetorian Guard at an opportune moment.

In fact, the previous emperor, who tried to stomp the Christians out of existance, lasted only two years as emperor, then was killed.

The new Emperor Constantine had the 'vision' to embrace Christianity (his army was now mostly Christian), and hold onto his empire.

But the 'sect' had to be tamed, and he immediately engaged in a series of 'cleansings' of 'heretical' segments, as well as a series of Doctrinal Councils to settle the basic flavour of Christianity he was going to tolerate for the next 30 years.

Eusebius was made 'Bishop of Rome', and put in charge of making '50 new bibles' according to the wishes of the Emperor.

The two surviving examples of these bibles left out both the Pericope de Adultera, and the Ending of Mark...

Although the omission of the Pericope de Adultera was not invented by Constantine or Eusebius, we have strong reason to believe it was readily adopted by them.

What evidence do we have, that conclusively shows Constantine was not really a dedicated Christian?

(1) He wasn't baptized until his deathbed...when apparently he gave it a final serious consideration.

and,...

what other evidence supports this thesis, as well as the thesis that Constantine ordered the removal of the Pericope de Adultera?

Get ready for the zinger: the awfully important fact that Eusebius his fawning biographer left entirely out of the record of Constantine's life-story and great deeds:

(2) Constantine had his queen BOILED ALIVE and murdered his son.

Presumably for adultery, and in doubt of his "son's" lineage. Not exactly Christian Spirit, we feel obligated to note.

The Defence rests.

Constantine was the ass who tried to remove the Pericope de Adultera the second time. After his death, his momentuous decision was completely ignored by the Christian world.

I can imagine them singing, like the Lilliputian midgets in the Wizard of Oz:

"Yee Hah! the Jerk is dead! ..."

 

[Nazaroo]

The more detailed version of the story of Constantine's wife is instructive of the true character of Constantine, as well as that of other participants in the fracas.

Fausta
Wife of Constantine
Fausta was the second wife of the Roman emperor Constantine. She would probably have been forgotten in history except for the fact that she brought tragedy to the house of Constantine and her own death as well by committing an act of the lowest form of treachery.
Fausta was a young woman, not too many years older than Constantine's first - born son Crispus. Though Crispus' mother was one of Constantine's concubines, he had won the army's abiding affection because he was a popular and successful commander. Fausta evidently fell in love with the young man and tried to have an affair with him. When he refused her advances, she became indignant at his rejection of her and told Constantine that Crispus was the one who was making the improper advances.
Constantine became enraged and did not bother to check out the truth of the matter. He could not very well have Crispus executed in public because he was so popular, so Constantine had his son murdered in secret.
Helena, Constantine's mother suspected that Fausta was lying and had falsely accused Crispus of unfaithfulness. There were also rumors that Fausta was having an illicit affair with a slave. After she used her influence with her son to convince Constantine that he had acted hastily, the old emperor began to see that he had been lied to and had unjustly put his son to death.
Constantine now compounded the tragedy by having Fausta murdered. He instructed his servants to lock her in her bath and heat the water so much that she either boiled to death or was suffocated by the steam.
Fausta had borne three boys, all of whom were much younger than Crispus. Some historians have suggested that she had wanted to get Crispus out of the way so that her own sons would be in line for the throne, but, if this was true, she surely chose a dangerous way to eliminate Crispus' competition. Fausta's sons Constantius II, Constantine II, and Constans all became emperors of different parts of the empire after Constantine's death. The last emperor of the house of Constantine was Constantius II, who died in A. D. 361.

(taken from:
http://www.crystalinks.com/romewomen2.html )

So although we can understand the motivation of Constantine in the torture and murder of his Queen, it is quite clear his notions of justice were primitive and his respect for the Law of the Lord was almost non-existant.

He clearly had an interest in the Bible, and was involved in councils and heated debates concerning New Testament issues.

But as a Godly man he fell on his face repeatedly, and in no small way either. There seems the typical attitude of an Emperor/dictator. He himself was his own law, and would have had little patience for correction according to the Light of Jesus the Christ, Light of the World and Truth.

Was this just a lapse, or a primitive version of Christianity? No. Sadly, list of highlights of Constantine's life leaves little doubt about his enduring character while alive:

CONSTANTINE: Emperor of the Roman Empire;
step-father of the christian religion;
legalized Christianity of a certain brand;
was one of the most sainted characters in church history;

compelled his father-in-law to commit suicide;
ordered his son Crippus murdered;
steamed his wife to death while in her bath;
murdered his sister Constantina;
condemned his nephew and brother-in-law to death;
murdered the Emperors Maxentius and Licinius;
fixed legal interest at the rate of twelve percent;
established christianity upon a firm basis;
inaugurated persecution of dissenters in the name of Jesus;
enacted the first Blue Sunday law;

repented on his death bed, was forgiven,
baptized and went straight to heaven.
taken from (http://zetetics.com/queen/gdict.htm)

Relatively few items on this list would appeal to the modern Christian, even a fundamentalist Protestant. We have highlighted in red the more pleasant items.

 

[Nazaroo]

Constantine actually becomes the last piece in a remarkable but challenging puzzle.

For one difficulty facing any reconstruction of the history of these verses is this:

Why did no one discuss them at all in the very period (250-350 A.D.) of the battle waged over them?

And why did no one come forward just after this period, if Constantine and Eusebius were the mechanism for the second (and major) attempt to remove the verses?

But Constantine himself provides the cause and explanation for both problems:

Like all King/Dictators, and fawning ecclesiastics, this pair engaged in a collusion, which served political and earthly purposes far more than Godly ones.

We only need consider the case of King Henry the 8th as a typical example of dangerous political and military pressure put upon the Church and its hierarchy, and the caving on principles in deference to Royal wishes.

Here again, there would be few willing to stand up to Constantine openly, especially since he was the first emperor to grant the Christians some peace from persecution (at least those willing to play the game).

It is straightforward to see the emperor who ordered 50 Official bibles to be made without the Pericope de Adultera also issue related orders, such as the destruction of all copies of the key chapter of Origen's commentary on John. What else but an Imperial Order can account for both the missing verses and the incredible accompanying silence?

The appointment of Eusebius as Bishop of Rome was approved by Emperor Constantine in the same manner as the puppet High Priests were in the days of Herod!

Eusebius was lucky to achieve anything of lasting worth to the Christian cause under these conditions.

Once the 'corrected' version of Constantine's 'heroic deeds' was underwritten by the Bishop of Rome from the 'chair of Peter', it would be difficult to suddenly tell an entirely different story.

Even after the death of Constantine, his immediate sons, hiers to the Empire, would hardly tolerate open exposure of their dead father to accusations and ridicule.

It comes as no surprise then that it is only 60 years later, beginning with Ambrose, and long after Constantine and Eusebius, that many early fathers, almost a flood of them beginning in 360 A.D. now come out of the closet to utterly and 'fearlessly' confirm the authenticity of John 8:1-11.

The originators of the omission, now long dead, can no longer threaten the Church in its duty to proclaim the Holy Gospel without hindrance.

By the way, this thread alone has now received...
5000 hits!
I thank everyone for their interest and support,
and praise our Father and His Christ, Jesus
for this amazing response!

May the Lord bless you all!

 

[Nazaroo]

In 1848 Samuel Davidson wrote:

'It [Jn 7:53-8:11] is also quoted by Jerome, Ambrose, Augustine, Sedulius, Leo, Chrysologus, Cassiodorus, the author of the Synopsis Sacrae Scripturae, and by Euthymius as "an addition to the Gospel not without use". ...Euthymius [also] says, that it is not found in the most accurate [copies], or is marked with obeli. '​

(Davidson, Introduction to the NT, pg 356)​

The reference to Euthymius here exposes the problem facing all overly simple schemes for categorizing evidence. Much of the evidence cannot fit neatly into either a 'for', or 'against' authenticity category, nor is it easily weighted for its significance. Since Euthymius doesn't unambiguously belong in either category, so Davidson places him in both. But not only is Euthymius ambiguous (see the 2nd half of his quote under 'against'), his evidence has little credibility, since he is talking through his hat in the 12th century A.D. As Hort has more accurately noted:

"Euthymius Zygadenus (Cent.12) comments on the Section as 'not destitute of use'; but in an apologetic tone, stating that "the accurate copies" either omit or obelise it, and that it appears to be an interpolation (pareggrapta kai prosqhkh), as is shown by the absence of any notice of it by Chrysostom."
(Hort, Introduction, Notes on Select Readings, pg 83)
​

Although Hort also passes over Euthymius without comment, this is hardly adequate. Not only is he a late witness, but Euthymius completely undermines his own credibility while speaking. For the absence of notice of the passage in Chrysostom (early 5th century) cannot have any bearing on the authenticity of the passage. If it was added, this must have occurred long before Chrysostom. Euthymius' evaluation of Chrysostom is offbase.

At best, Chrysostom's silence would only have indicated Chrysostom's own opinion concerning the passage, long after others such as Ambrose, Jerome, and Augustine had testified to its popularity and authenticity.

But such church commentaries cannot discuss a scripture that is not even actually read publicly at the service. In the Greek Lectionary system, our passage was deliberately skipped over, and read later on the feast days of obscure saints. The ancient church commentaries were used at a completely different time of the year.

The Lectionary tradition and practice most plausibly accounts both for the absence, and the cause of the absence of any discussion of these verses in the public commentaries.

 

[Nazaroo]

Davidson in 1848 was able to assert (although skeptically) that:

"On the whole, it cannot be shewn that the Greek church had it in their MSS before the fifth century; or that the Latin church had it before the fourth." (Intro. pg 359)​

This statement was based however, upon the omission of the passage by the only two surviving 4th century Greek MSS, Codex Vaticanus (B) and Codex Sinaiticus (Aleph), and simultaneously ignoring the testimony of Jerome and the Latin fathers.

Yet these same MSS both acknowledge the existance of the passage as a well known variant, even while omitting it.

There is little merit in trying to explain this evidence as if it indicated only Latin variants sourced in Rome, when both MSS were likely made for Constantine by Eusebius in Caesaria in the East. Elsewhere the critical marks consistently indicate Greek (Eastern) variants. These MSS themselves are dated at the earliest at about 325-350 A.D., during Constantine's reign.

Even in Davidson's time, the evidence of the 10th century Greek father Nicon plainly revealed a longstanding knowledge of the passage in the Eastern Greek traditions.

Hort in 1886 discredited Nicon as an 'Armenian', and a petty 'Constantinopolitan' bigot seeking to slag Armenian tradition (Hort, Introd., Appen. Notes..pg 82). But the very fact of a Greek father confirming the longstanding existance of the passage imposes inconveniently upon Hort's theory that it did not enter into the Greek traditions until very late.

Nonetheless, Davidson, and even Hort can be excused somewhat for claiming that the passage was 'a Western reading', not attested by 'any Greek Ante-Nicene writer' (Hort, Notes pg 86).

Jerome was discounted by most early critics because he was a Latin writer, even though he testified of the existance of 'many MSS, both Greek and Latin' containing the passage.

Yet just how precarious this denial was, being based upon the 'argument from silence', became clear back in 1941:

"Didymus of Alexandria (313-398 A.D.)​

The accidental discovery in 1941 at Toura, south of Cairo, of a group of papyrus codices, dating from the 6th or 7th centuries and comprising nearly 2000 pages, has brought to light the text of half a dozen additional commentaries. Although these commentaries are on Old Testament books, Didymus includes in his exposition hundreds of citations from the New Testament. These come from all the books of the New Testament with the exception of: Philemon, 2 John and 3 John. ​

(http://www.ntcanon.org/Didymus.shtml)"​

What is of interest to us, is that Didymus, writing in the mid to late 4th century actually discussed the Pericope de Adultera, in Greek:

Didymus of Alexandria: ​

feromen oun en tisin euaggelioiV: gunh, fhsin katakriqh upo twn Ioudaiwn epi amartia kai apestelleto liqobolhqhnai eiV ton topon, opou eiwqei ginesqai, o swthr, fhsin, ewrakwV authn kai qewrhsaV oti etoimoi eisin proV to liqobolhsai authn, toiV mellousin authn katabalein liqoiV eipen: oV ouk hmarten, airetw liqon kai baletw auton. ei tiV sunoiden eautw to mh hmarthkenai, labwn liqon paisatw authn. kai oudeiV etolmhsen, episthsanteV eautoiV kai gnonteV, oti kai autoi upeuqunoi eisin tisin, ouk etolmhsan kataptaisai ekeinhn. ​

(Didymus'Commentary on Ecclesiastes, according to the Tura Papyrus). ​

["We find, therefore, in certain gospels: A woman, it says, was condemned by the Jews for a sin and was being sent to be stoned in the place where that was customary to happen. The saviour, it says, when he saw her and observed that they were ready to stone her, said to those who were about to cast stones, 'He who has not sinned, let him take a stone and cast it. If anyone is conscious in himself not to have sinned, let him take up a stone and smite her.' And no one dared. Since they knew in themselves and perceived that they themselves were guilty in some things, they did not dare to strike her."]​

(http://www-user.uni-bremen.de/~wie/)​

The point is this, not only is there certainly a Greek father writing in Greek, from the 4th century testifying to the existance of the passage in some Greek manuscripts, he is a generation earlier than Jerome, who sought him out in 370-380 A.D., when Didymus was already 80 or 90 years old.​

Perhaps even more to the point, what was excusable in Davidson (1848) as a lamentably faulty methodology (ignoring the patristic evidence), and what became a contrivance in Hort (1886) to sustain an artificial theory, becomes a blatant denial in Metzger (1967), who surely knew all about the testimony of Didymus: ​

"No Greek Church Father prior to Euthymius (12th cent) comments on the passage, and Euthymius declares that the accurate copies of the Gospels do not contain it."​

(Metzger, A Textual Commentary on the Greek New Testament 1971, pg 219-221 )​

This outrageous statement was not 'corrected' until Ehrmann edited a revised version of Metzger's work in 2005, and notice of Didymus was placed in a small footnote.​

In Dr. Metzger's work The Text of the NT (4th ed.) Dr. Ehrman (as co-editor for the revision) places this information about Didymus in a footnote.​

This notice by Ehrmann is Ironic however, since throughout the promotion of his new book, he has chosen not to disclose this stunning testimony from Didymus.​

Instead of taking the opportunity to correct the errors and exaggerations of the past, Ehrmann has instead multiplied them, by deliberately misleading the public into thinking that the Pericope de Adultera was 'added from the margin by a scribe in the Middle Ages'. ​

For full documentation on this deceit see the following link:​

Bart Ehrman's Propaganda Campaign Against Jn 8:1-11. <-- click here​

 

[Nazaroo]

One might wonder just how exactly the world of Textual Criticism went so far astray in attempting to assign the authorship of John 8:1-11 to Luke.

Well, wonder no more. We have posted one of the original articles that led to such a ridiculous conclusion, and more importantly, why it left the textual critics without a leg of faith to stand on.

Cadbury (1917) on John 8:1-11 <-- click here!

Be warned. The author paints himself into such a corner that he is left wondering if he even has a bible.

 

[Nazaroo]

Photos of the important Tura manuscript, discovered in the 1940's are available online.

This manuscript, a 5th century copy of the commentary of Didymus of Alexandria (312-296 A.D.) on Ecclesiastes is one of the most important finds of the 20th century.

In it, Didymus discusses the Pericope de Adultera for about a paragraph. The testimony of Didymus in favour of the existance, authenticity, and placement of John 7:53-8:11 in its normal place, makes him the earliest Greek father to write in Greek about this passage (circa 350-380 A.D.).

The evidence of Didymus completely destroys the fanciful theory of Hort that the passage was unknown in Greek and to Greek commentators before the 7th or 8th century.

The sample page here is from Didymus' commentary on Eccl. 5:13-14.

Photos of all the pages are available online here:
http://www.uni-koeln.de/phil-fak/ifa/NRWakademie/papyrologie/Turapap/ekklesiastes.html

 

[Nazaroo]

An excellent description in English of the discovery of the Tura MSS is given here:

The Tura / Toura Discovery of Manuscripts (1941)​

Around the start of August 1941 the British military authorities in Cairo sent a gang of native Egyptian workmen to clear some galleries in the stone-quarries of Tura, 10 miles from Cairo, in order to store munitions there. These discovered a pile of papyrus codices among the loose debris in one of the three galleries in quarry 35, around 20-25m from the entrance in the central rotunda.

The books were not hidden, but simply buried under the rubble and dust of ages which reached almost a metre high at the sides of the tunnels.

As such people do, they stole them all. The police and members of the Antiquities Service learned of the find on 10th August, but were too late to seize more than a small portion. Later still, portions of these books, quire by quire, began to be sold to the Cairo antiquities dealers and sold on at exorbitant prices.

Much was purchased by the Egyptian museum; others remain in private hands. Rumours circulate that the ignorant workmen burned others for fuel, which Puech dismisses as a common folk-story in such cases; wilder rumours speak of thousands of pages.

The manuscripts contained lost works by some of the church fathers. Doutreleau drew up a list of the physical codices and their contents:

Since the books are not as they were found, some estimate of original size is important.

Each codex is comprised of quaternions/quires/'cahiers' -- groups of 16 pages -- made by taking 4 sheets of paper and folding them once. The maximum practical size of such a codex seems to be 30 quaternions (480 pp), which makes a book around 10 cm thick. By comparison, none of the Nag Hammadi codices, which were found complete, has more than 175p -- some are only 88pp.

The Tura books have reached us, quire by quire, through the dealers. It is possible that the books were unbound when found, and placed in the corridor as piles of quaternions in antiquity. The differing page sizes allow us to assign each quire to a codex, if there is no better guide.

All the texts are in Greek.

(http://www.tertullian.org/rpearse/manuscripts/tura_papyri.htm)

This webpage also gives a brief description of each of the books identified, and the extent of their contents. The third book, the commentary on Ecclesiastes is described as follows:


III Didymus (?), Commentary on Ecclesiastes

Doutreleau has evidence of the existence of 15 quires. Only some of the quires are in the Egyptian museum. The pages are difficult to read. One of the quires has been reduced to small fragments. Quires 3, 6, 11, 15, 20, 21 can be recognised. 8 others are incomplete or damaged, and the quire number is unreadable. Quire 13 contains notes on Eccl. 6:12. As Ecclesiastes has 12 chapters, it may be inferred that the complete codex had around 25 quires.
27.5 x 2415 (of 25?).

The Identity of Didymus for this section is inferred from the fact that most of the other books are also by Didymus, as well as the style and content.

 

[Nazaroo]

The extraordinary story of Didymus should be studied by every bible student. Let us quote the Catholic Encyclopedia Online for openers:

"Didymus the Blind, of Alexandria, b. about 310 or 313; d. about 395 or 398, at the age of eighty-five. ​

Didymus lost the use of his eyes when four years old, yet he became one of the most learned men of his period. He prayed earnestly in his youth, we are told by Rufinus, not for the sight of his bodily eyes, but for the illumination of the heart. He admitted to St. Anthony that the loss of his sight was a grief to him; the saint replied that he wondered how a wise man could regret the loss of that which he had in common with ants and flies and gnats, and not rather rejoice that he possessed a spiritual sight like that of the saints and Apostles. ​

St. Jerome indeed habitually spoke of him not at "the blind" but as "the Seer". Didymus studied with ardor, and his vigils were long and frequent, not for reading but for listening, that he might gain by hearing what others obtained by seeing. When the reader fell asleep for weariness, Didymus did not repose, but as it were chewed the cud (says Rufinus) of what he had heard, until he seemed to have inscribed it on the pages of his mind. Thus in a short time he amassed a vast knowledge of grammar, rhetoric, logic, music, arithmetic, and geometry, and a perfect familiarity with Holy Scripture. ​

He was early placed at the head of the famous catechetical school of Alexandria, over which he presided for about half a century. St. Athanasius highly esteemed him. The orator Libanius wrote to an official in Egypt:

"You cannot surely be ignorant of Didymus, unless you are ignorant of the great city wherein he has been night and day pouring out his learning for the good of others. "​

He is similarly extolled by his contemporaries and by the historians of the following century, Rufinus was six years his pupil. Palladius visited him four times in ten years (probably 388-398). Jerome came to him for a month in order to have his doubts resolved with regard to difficult passages of Scripture. ..."
(http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/04784a.htm)

​

However, concerning Jerome's apprenticeship under Didymus, the Catholic Encyclopedia is likely in error here, as it was actually Rufinus who tells us:

"12. I think very little, indeed, of one reproach which he levels against me, and think it hardly worthy of a reply; that, namely, in which, in recounting the various teachers whom he hired, as he says, from the Jewish synagogue, he says, in order to give me a sharp prick, &#8220;I have not been my own teacher, like some people,&#8221; meaning me of course, for he brings the whole weight of his invective to bear against me from beginning to end. Indeed, I wonder that he should have chosen to make a point of this, when he had a greater and easier matter at hand by which to disparage me, namely this, that, though I stayed long among many eminent teachers, yet I have nothing to show which is worthy of their teaching or their training. He indeed, has not in his whole life stayed more than thirty days at Alexandria where Didymus lived; yet almost all through his books he (Jerome) boasts, at length and at large, that he was the pupil of Didymus the seer, that he had Didymus as his initiator, 2959 that is, his preceptor in the holy Scriptures; and the material for all this boasting was acquired in a single month. But I (Rufinus), for the sake of God&#8217;s work, stayed six years, and again after an interval for two more, where Didymus lived, of whom alone you boast, and where others lived who were in no way inferior to him, but whom you did not know even by sight, Serapion and Menites, men who are like brothers in life and character and learning; and Paul the old man, who had been the pupil of Peter the Martyr; and, to come to the teachers of the desert, on whom I attended frequently and earnestly, Macarius the disciple of Anthony, and the other Macarius, and Isidore and Pambas, all of them friends of God, who taught me those things which they themselves were learning from God. What material for boasting should I have from all these men, if boasting were seemly or expedient! But the truth is, I blush even while I weave together these past experiences, which I do with the intention, not of showing you, as you put it, that my masters did not do justice to my talents, but, what I grieve over far more, that my talents have not done justice to my masters."​

(The Apology of Rufinus. Addressed to Apronianus, in Reply to Jerome's Letter to Pammachius. Book 2, chapter 12)​

(http://www.sacred-texts.com/chr/ecf/203/2030700.htm)

Yet Jerome responds:

"13. I am told, further, that you touch with some critical sharpness upon some points of my letter, and, with the well-known wrinkles rising on your forehead and your eyebrows knitted, make sport of me with a wit worthy of Plautus, for having said that I had a Jew named Barabbas for my teacher. I do not wonder at your writing Barabbas for Baranina, the letters of the names being somewhat similar, when you allow yourself such a license in changing the names themselves, as to turn Eusebius into Pamphilus, and a heretic into a martyr. One must be cautious of such a man as you, and give you a wide berth; otherwise I may find my own name turned in a trice, and without my knowing it, from Jerome to Sardanapalus. ​

​

Listen, then, O pillar of wisdom, and type of Catonian severity. I never spoke of him as my master; I merely wished to illustrate my method of studying the Holy Scriptures by saying that I had read Origen just in the same way as I had taken lessons from this Jew. Did I do you an injury because I attended the lectures of Apollinarius and Didymus rather than yours?​

Was there anything to prevent my naming in my letter that most eloquent man Gregory? Which of all the Latins is his equal? I may well glory and exult in him. But I only mentioned those who were subject to censure, so as to show that I only read Origen as I had listened to them, that is, not on account of his soundness in the faith but on account of the excellence of his learning. ​

Origen himself, and Clement and Eusebius, and many others, when they are discussing scriptural points, and wish to have Jewish authority for what they say, write: &#8220;A Hebrew stated this to me,&#8221; or &#8220;I heard from a Hebrew,&#8221; or, &#8220;That is the opinion of the Hebrews.&#8221; Origen certainly speaks of the Patriarch Huillus who was his contemporary, and in the conclusion of his thirtieth Tome on Isaiah (that in the end of which he explains the words &#8220;Woe to Ariel which David took by storm&#8221 uses his exposition of the words, and confesses that he had adopted through his teaching a truer opinion than that which he had previously held. He also takes as written by Moses not only the eighty-ninth Psalm which is entitled &#8220;A prayer of Moses the Man of God,&#8221; but also the eleven following Psalms which have no title according to Huillus&#8217;s opinion; and he makes no scruple of inserting in his commentaries on the Hebrew Scriptures the views of the Hebrew teachers."​

(Jerome's Apology for Himself Against the Books of Rufinus. Book I, chapter 13)​

While Rufinus minimizes (and probably inaccurately) the time Jerome spent studying under Didymus, Jerome indicates that the long time Rufinus boasts of spending in Alexandria was not spent under instruction from Didymus, but rather teaching in competition with him.

Jerome does not expand upon his discipleship under Didymus, because Didymus had later come under suspicion as heretical. Thus Jerome, who may well have spent a long and intense sojourn at the foot of Didymus, now downplays this fact, and distances himself from Didymus' doctrines.

Ironically, it was the fault of the Church, or rather the paranoia of the 4th century which caused the almost complete loss of Didymus the Teacher of Alexandria. And this oppressive attitude of censorship, even of moderate and orthodox Greek fathers nearly resulted in the loss of crucial evidence for the authenticity of John 8:1-11. As the Catholic Encyclopedia Online goes on to explain:

"
Later ages have neglected this remarkable man. He was a follower of Origen, and adopted many of his errors. Consequently when St. Jerome quarrelled with Rufinus and made war on Origenism, he ceased to boast of being a disciple of Didymus and was ashamed of the praise he had formerly given to the "Seer".

When Origen was condemned by Justinian and then by the Fifth General Council, Didymus was not mentioned. But he was anathematized together with Evagrius Ponticus in the edict by which the Patriarch Eutychus of Constantinople gave effect to the decree of the council; and he was (perhaps in consequence of this) included in the condemnation of the Origenists by the sixth and seventh councils.

But this censure is to be taken as applying to his doctrine and not to his person. It has had the unfortunate effect of causing the loss to us of most of his very numerous writings, which, as the works of a supposed heretic, were not copied in the Middle Ages.

Didymus always remained a layman. the idea that he was married rests on a mistaken identification of him with a Didymus to whom one of the letters of St. Isadore of Pelusium is addressed. He seemed on the contrary to have lived the life of an ascetic, although in the city and not in the desert.

A curious story was told by him to Palladius. One day, when dwelling on the thought of Julian as a persecutor, and on this account having taken no food, he fell asleep in his chair and saw white horses running in different directions, while the riders cried out, "Tell Didymus, to-day at the seventh hour Julian died; arise and eat, and inform Athanasius the bishop, that he may also know it." Didymus noted the hour and the month and the week, and it was even so. "
.(ibid. Catholic Encyc. Online)

 

[Nazaroo]

One might wonder just how exactly the world of Textual Criticism went so far astray in attempting to assign the authorship of John 8:1-11 to Luke.

Well, wonder no more. We have posted one of the original articles that led to such a ridiculous conclusion, and more importantly, why it left the textual critics without a leg of faith to stand on.

Cadbury (1917) on John 8:1-11 <-- click here!

Be warned. The author paints himself into such a corner that he is left wondering if he even has a bible.

Cadbury's argument may have a surface appearance of soundness, however it is deeply and fatally flawed.

We intend to do an in-depth analysis as we carried out on Davidson's internal evidence.

But for now we can sketch an outline of the main faults in Cadbury's presentation.

(1) Firstly, Cadbury argues that since we don't know which of the three main texts (and sub variants) is the original version of the story, we can safely use them all as sources for 'Lukanisms'.
​

This methodology is preposterous, and obviously inflates his examples an outrageous amount, essentially doubling the number of 'Lukanisms' he claims to have found. But if one version of the passage is original, it logically excludes the others, especially their differences (variant readings), from being original.

These other readings must of necessity be later alterations and have no bearing on the authenticity of the original story.

As a preliminary method for 'example hunting' there is some merit to examining all the versions of the story, since from Cadbury's viewpoint, it was unknown which is the original.

But unless one in turn sorts, categorizes and interprets the variants in the context of a plausible textual history, and so eliminates what must be half or two thirds of them from consideration, one has no case to present at all.

The variants should have been sorted according to which text they occurred in, and used to help decide which text was the original one, if any.

One text can be original, or perhaps none of the extant texts remains unedited, but they simply can't all be orignal. Even if the original text is found spread across the two or three main texts, the actual number of plausible variants useful to categorize the style of the passage will be only half or a third that of Cadbury's 'master list'.

Cadbury tries to turn this inside out, when he states,

"And while of course some of the variants must be rejected, any form of the text which we accept, even von Soden's, which is the shortest, will include more than half of our list of examples."
​

But the nature and quality of each sublist of variants applicable to any given choice of text will greatly vary, and so will its power to convince one of 'Lukan' or some other style.

Which brings us to the second problem with Cadbury's master-list.

(2) None of the examples have been sorted as to strengths or plausibility, or possible candidacy for a true 'Lukanism'.
​

Some examples are claimed to be 'Lukanisms' on the basis of vocabulary, others on usage, still others on syntax or contextual arrangement.

Some are simply 'Lukanisms' in the incredibly weak sense that some common expression or figure of speech is also found elsewhere in Luke or Acts. Many of these potential examples melt away into meaninglessness when examined critically.

What is needed is at least some kind of rating system, which can reflect the relative merits of both the example variants, and also the texts which contain them. Without this, the data is unordered, unquantifiable even roughly, and essentially unusable.

(3) The Counter-Evidence for Johannine authorship is only sporadically and briefly sampled.
​

This is also a flaw, which leads to a false impression of the relative merits of Johannine versus Lukan authorship. Cadbury gives a few examples of Johannine style and diction, but hardly a complete list.

Worse, he does not use the same methodology in considering the Johannine case. If Cadbury had considered ALL THREE main versions of the story, and all the significant textual variants, as he did in his search for Lukanisms, the list of Johannine traits would have been at least tripled.

(4) Cadbury does not present the Johannine parallels elsewhere in John for the passage.
​

This is completely unacceptable, since this kind of evidence represents the strongest internal evidence that can fall under the category of style or diction. Cadbury presents a list of seven examples of Lukan parallels, but fails to show us that there are at least as many Johannine parallels for the passage.

(5) Cadbury dismisses the exhaustive work of von Soden in reconstructing the textual history without offering any reason why, or better alternative.
​

A vague remark that von Soden's stemma and reconstruction "will not seem convincing" is woefully inadequate. Whether or not von Soden's work in this specific area had flaws, Cadbury offers no reason at all for outright rejection or dismissal.

Von Soden's work at this time was 'hot off the press' (1912), and could hardly have been analyzed or critiqued intelligently so soon.

Instead the main reason for the rejection of von Soden was a combination of distain for the work carried on in Europe by the Germans and Italians, and the difficulty of access to works in other languages. This had little to do with the quality of von Soden's work.

(6) Cadbury offers no alternate plausible textual stemma, or reconstruction of the transmission of the passage.
​

This also is unacceptable, since no convincing placement of the passage in the larger history of the transmission and possible editing of the Gospels can be made without a clear picture of the passage itself and its own history.

(7) Cadbury offers no plausible explanation for the textual evidence, which goes directly against the Lukan (or Lukan imitator) Hypothesis.
​

As it stands, all the textual evidence is wholly against any theory of Lukan origin. Only by hypothetical and completely conjectural pre-histories of the texts of John and Luke can the two items be reconciled, that is, the known textual history and the Lukan Hypothesis.

The best Cadbury can offer is some variation of a 'two edition' theory of Luke. But this is even more implausible than a 'two editon' theory of John, which at least would reflect or account for some of the EARLY textual evidence.

(8) The best idea Cadbury has is that later scribes assimilated the passage to a kind of general 'Luke-like' style, as a sort of early Christian diction or 'jargon'.
​

But this completely undermines the whole theory of a Lukan origin, since the bulk of the 'Lukanisms' would then become evidence of a later editing and assimilating process. This by default implies that the passage must have originally been much less, if not wholly UN-Lukan!

And that brings us right back to the idea that the passage is originally Johannine, not Lukan, in both content and form.

It is far too much to swallow, that the passage was also somehow forged out of a 'tendency to Lukanize' everything.

This simply cannot account for the creation and existance of such a huge and significant passage, anymore than 'survival of the fittest' can account for flowers, butterflies and rainbows.

Cadbury apparently hasn't got anything to say at all, except that, hey, there appears to be a textual problem with the transmission of the verses which he can shed no light on.

And worse, the 'internal evidence' he thinks he has found offers no rational help or coherent interpretation of the textual evidence he acknowledges.

 

[Nazaroo]

The discussion on Bultmann was put into an html file in the summer, but it was long and difficult to wade through.

We have cleaned it up alot, and replaced it on the Website.

The article has been re-formatted .

Also added was a brief biography and introduction on Bultmann,
and an indexing system so that you can go directly to parts of interest.

Particularly important is the section on chapter 8 of John, where we see yet more evidence that John without 7:53-8:11 just doesn't work, even for Bultmann.


http://adultera.awardspace.com/INT-EV/bultmann1.html

 

[Nazaroo]

We have taken all the posts discussing EI MH from page 5 of this thread and put them into an easy-to-read HTML file you can view or download here:

http://adultera.awardspace.com/INT-EV/EI-MH.html

This article is a good refutation of the nonsense that has been claimed to be 'evidence' against John's authorship of the passage (Jn 7:53-8:11).

 

[Nazaroo]

We have updated our article on Bart Ehrman's misleading statements on National Television about John 8:1-11.

In his 3rd Interview on the COLBERT REPORT, Ehrman again makes absurd mis-statements about the evidence.

The ongoing propaganda campaign against the New Testament now appears to be bankrolled by the American Jewish lobby.

The Jewish establishment has always hated this passage, because it inevitably reveals that the Jewish authorities were willing to murder someone in order to trap Jesus.

These forces historically have always been hostile to this passage and now the war is on

Beware 'friendly Jewish comedians' in sheep's clothing...

Bart Ehrman on John 8:1-11 <-- Click here


Peace,
Nazaroo

 

[Nazaroo]

We have collected the posts on A. T. Robertson's commentary and converted them into an online article for the Pericope de Adultera Homepage.

You can browse and download the HTML article here:

A. T. Robertson on John 8:1-11 Annotated <-- Click Here

 

[Nazaroo]

We have cleaned up the article by John Burgon on the Pericope de Adultera.

Formatting, New easy to use headings and a hypertext (linked) Index,
as well as an introductory biography have been added.

Of perhaps more importance for research purposes, the original
footnotes from Edward Miller's Edition of Burgon's 2nd volume have
been added.

These include the dozens of Patristic references so that researchers
can look up the context of the support that Burgon cites.

Dean Burgon on John 8:1-11 <-- Click Here