In order to maintain their dogma about "no early Greek writer" knowing the verses, critics are now reduced to explaining away Didymus as referring to "some other story".
As independant investigators however, it is in our interest to examine not just the 'differences', exaggerated or not, but also the
similarities between
John 8:1-11 and Didymus' paraphrastic account.
After all, it is in the striking similarities (and the improbability of a mere coincidence) that any case for their being one and the same story can be made.
Similarities and Points of Contact between Didymus and John 8:1-11
While some similarities will be insignificant, at least in themselves, because they could readily be explained as a coincidence, other connections are far stronger, and when all the evidence is taken together, a strong impression of the original story seems indicated:
1. Both stories are about a person under arrest or in captivity.
2. Both stories are about a lone person.
3. Both are about a woman.
4. Both involve the Jewish religious authorities, or a religious party headed by Jews.
5. The person is accused of a crime involving the death penalty.
6. Both stories indicate a stoning as the specific penalty for the crime.
7. Both stories involve Jesus while He is at the temple.
8. In both stories, the religious party consults or invokes the opinion of Jesus.
9. In both stories, Jesus reluctantly appears to intervene because of the danger of a real killing.
10. In both stories, Jesus makes a pronouncment, which effectively draws the proceeding to a halt.
11. In both stories, the lynching party holds back from participating in any further action after Jesus' pronouncement.
12. In both stories, the lynching party relents on their plan due to the action of conscience.
13. Both stories are found in 'gospels', i.e., manuscripts (evangelisteria) which are copies of gospels, as opposed to the book of Acts, or an apocryphal work, or the account from another early father.
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14. In both stories, a strikingly similar speech from Jesus is related:
" ος ουκ ημαρτεν,
αιρετω λιθον και βαλετω αυτον."
"Whoever has not sinned,
let him lift a stone and cast it." (Didymus)
"
ο αναμαρτητος υμων πρωτος επ' αυτην,
τον λιθον βαλετω ."
"who is a sinless one among you (let him be) first upon her,
the stone to cast." (Trad. Text)
While there are obvious differences in the exact wording of the two texts, the fact remains that the basic statement of Jesus and its import is essentially one and the same.
In this case there can be no doubt that Didymus continues to 'paraphrase', even when attempting to quote the passage. He is after all giving an oral commentary which is being recorded by a copyist/assistant.
It must be remembered that Didymus the Blind was in fact physically blind, and had been from childhood. Oral dictation from memory was the ONLY method available to Didymus, and he was physically incapable of looking up any exact quotations himself.
The version Didymus then gives, is exactly the kind of thing we would expect him to offer, given that
he is operating from memory of oral recitations of a rare story from John in the first place, as he comments on an entirely different book, Ecclesiastes.
Didymus' language in relating the story is just what we would expect from someone talking a version of Greek 300 years more recent than the dialect of the original Evangelists. Didymus is speaking 4th century Greek to his own contemporaries.
The final confirmation of Didymus' operating 'off the cuff', is the fact that his version corresponds to no known written version of any story at all, except his own. It cannot be traced to texts like Codex Bezae, or the vague anecdote about Papias from Eusebius.
In regard to which gospel Didymus is referring, his notice of "the Jews" as a kind of synonym for the religious authorities is precisely the same terminology that John the Evangelist uses, and this is unique to John. No other gospel, canonical or apocryphal, speaks of "the Jews" meaning the Southern Judaean religious authorities: this is Johannine language through and through.
Just as DominusDei remarked in regard to his list of "differences", we also would make the same statement:
Let the reader consider this list of Points of Contact between the story related by Didymus and that presented by the NT text of John itself.
Let them also search far and wide for any other story with anything like the same number of strong connections, as between Didymus and
John 8:1-11.
Let them decide for themselves what story Didymus is relating to us, in 350 A.D., at a time when it is admitted that "many manuscripts, both Greek and Latin contained the story" of the Woman Taken in Adultery.
Peace,
Nazaroo
