Previously Unconsidered Evidence for John 8:1-11

[Nazaroo]

Collation of Hodges and Farstad vs. Robinson and Pierpont
The following is a list of differences between the texts of Hodges & Farstad (2nd ed., 1985) and Pierpont & Robinson 1991. This list was prepared by Jonathan C. Borland, who posted it on the TC-List on 2 May 2003. Borland asserts that this list includes all differences, and that he used "R-P's computer edition (2000) for the collation, which is exactly like the original 1991 printed edition, only without a few typos the printed edition had."

Note that the Robinson-Pierpont reading always comes first, followed by the Hodges-Farstad reading.

(NOTE: only variants for JOHN are reproduced here)
John (variants between Majority/Byzantine texts)

1.29 [o iwannhV] ] --
1.42 [de] ] --
6.39 auto ] auton
6.39 [en] ] --
6.54 [en] ] --
6.70 [o ihsouV] ] --
--------------------------
8.1 ihsouV de ] kai o ihsouV
8.2 palin ] + baqewV
8.2 paregeneto ] hlqen o ihsouV
8.3 en ] + tw
8.4 legousin ] eipon
8.4 [peirazonteV] ] --
8.5 liqoboleisqai ] liqazein
8.6 mh prospoioumenoV ] --
8.7 erwtwnteV ] eperwtwnteV
8.7 anakuyaV ] anableyaV
8.7 proV autouV ] autoiV
8.7 ep authn ton liqon baletw ] liqon baletw ep authn
8.9 kai upo thV suneidhsewV elegcomenoi ] --
8.10 kai mhdena qeasamenoV plhn thV gunaikoV ] eiden authn kai
8.10 auth [gunai] ] -- gunai
8.10 ekeinoi ] --
----------------------
8.39 [an] ] --
11.53 sunebouleusanto ] sunebouleusato
14.14 [me] ] --
14.20 kai egw ] kagw
15.13 twn ] --
15.16 dw ] dwh
15.24 ouk ] ouc
18.2 hdei ] hidei
18.37 [o] ] --
19.7 uion qeou ] qeou uion
19.26 idou ] ide
19.36 ap [ --
21.1 [autou] ] --
21.7 simwn oun ] simwn --

Note that almost half of the variants between the two published texts fall within the Pericope de Adultera.

The reason for this is that Hodges and Farstad have attempted their own reconstruction of the text here, using Von Soden's data. They have presented their own stemma and genealogical arguments in the introduction of their Greek NT according to the Majority Text. There they also discuss specific variants within the pericope and explain their choices.

From this one thing should be clear: In terms of numbers of variants and the question of possibly needless marginal notes in the apparatus, the issue of what text is adopted as the original is of major importance.

This is why we feel the need to translate Von Soden's original work into English and make it available independantly to scholars and researchers.

A more complete list of the variants between the two very similar Critical Greek texts can be found here:

Majority vs. Byzantine

Naz

 

[Nazaroo]

I promised I would deal with this one variant next:

(13) "plhn .............ei mh " ("except" versus "if not"):

However, I mentioned that this is a grammatical problem.

Up until now, every piece of internal evidence against the authenticity of the passage was really just fluff. And it could be understood as easily in English as in Greek. Appealing to the Greek in those cases was just a smokescreen, which made the pronouncements appear artificially authoritative. Once stripped of their veneer, it became apparent that there was nothing mysterious or compelling to the claims.

This however is a grammatical matter of some complexity and subtlety, so I will have to prepare the reader by offering first a technical article for you to review.

In the end, it will turn out that this case is no different than the others in its lack of value as evidence against the authenticity of the pericope. However, in this case, to be thorough, we will have to learn some grammatical information of no small level of difficulty. If we did not do this, then the analysis would be deficient.

So I will ask the reader here to first absorb all they can from this prepatory article on the 'ei me' construction:

EI MH Clauses in the New Testament

Please understand that we do not necessarily agree with everything in this article, as will become apparent in the ensuing discussion. We are merely acknowledging its thoroughness in presenting the grammatical issues and its evenhandedness and accuracy as to the state of the art in NT Greek grammar.

 

[Nazaroo]

Another thorough examination of the internal evidence for and against the Pericope de Adultera can be found here:

Intrinsic Probability and the Pericope de Adultera

Enjoy!

I will be commenting on the question of 'Ei Mh' versus 'plen' shortly.

Nazaroo

 

[Nazaroo]

Okay I'm ready to start a brief grammar lesson in preparation for this last variant:

My purpose here is to make the arguments easy to understand for non-professors, and non-grammarians, and non-Greek speakers.
So those who are already experts in these things are asked to relax and may ignore the next bit of introductory talk. Its purpose is to remind or instruct if necessary, some basic facts about grammar. Geniuses may go out for a break and read a book.

Adjectives and Adjective modifiers:

Many common nouns are too inclusive, and ambiguous in typical situations.

If I say "pass the book" in a library, it might be confusing.
To narrow down which book, and exclude others which are irrelevant,
I might simply add an appropriate adjective, forming a phrase: "the green book".

The adjective is the word "green", and it is not merely descriptive, but also exclusive.
In gesturing to a pile of books, "pass the green book" excludes those that aren't green.

With a pile of objects on the table, "pass the book" excludes the objects that arent books,
and with a pile of books on the table, "pass the green book" excludes other books.

In both cases, "the book" or "the green book" do the same job.
They simply identify an object and exclude other objects that might accidentally be included.

These groups of words are called phrases, and they simply act like names, or nouns.
In fact they have a special name, "substantive phrases".

Phrases aren't sentences. They don't really describe actions or tell a story by themselves.
They just identify something, a person, a thing, or even an idea.


"Except" and "But": Words that narrow meaning by exclusion

As well as simple adjectives, like "green" we can have other ways of excluding the objects we don't want to refer to:
"Pass all the books except the red ones." Is indeed a sentence,
but the last seven words (underlined) in it all act as one single name, or "substantive phrase"!
The sentence really just says, "Pass something." and that something is a group of objects.

That group of objects could be a bit ambiguous,
so an adjective modifier or "adjective phrase" (another group of words) is added
to exclude some objects we don't want: "except the red ones".

This particular "adjective phrase" is an exclusionary phrase:
it excludes some objects from the group we want to talk about.
This is done with a special connecting word, "except".
This word is normally used just like it is here, and quite often,
to build a more specific name out of the common words at hand,
by adding an excluding phrase to the name or substantive phrase.

We also commonly use another connecting word in just the same way:
"Everyone but John went to Jerusalem."
Here again, 'everyone' would be too ambiguous, so an exclusionary phrase,
"but John" is added to show who isn't in the group.

"but" is the connecting word making the following phrase exclusionary.
This is just like the case with the word "except".

Both words can connect an excluding phrase to a name, making it more specific,
and both words are often interchangable in ordinary English.

*This usage of these connecting words is simply to join two phrases together,
to make one big (and less ambiguous) phrase, which acts as a noun, or name.

But the group of words formed by these connections are just bigger phrases.
They are NOT sentences in themselves: they will be used as Subjects or Objects later
in a larger structure which has a verb, called a clause or sentence.

*KEY POINT: Notice that in Greek the word for joining phrases to give the exclusive meaning is "plen" (plhn) = "except, but". The other popular word with this function is "alla" (alla) = "but".

"plen" (plhn) = "except, but" is actually a general purpose word, most easily rendered 'but' in most contexts inthe Synoptic gospels, where it appears dozens and dozens of times.

A good example of its use as an exclusive modifier is in Acts 8:1, where not much else other than "except" will fit:


"...and they were all scattered abroad throughout the regions of Judaea and Samaria, except the apostles."

...panteV de diesparhsan kata taV xwraV thV IoudaiaV kai SamareiaV plhn twn apostolwn. (Acts 8:1)

Allthough this is statistically rarer as a usage generally than plhn as a more general connector of contrasting clauses, it is perfectly normal, and good Greek. The statistical preponderance in the NT really doesn't reflect normal usage as such, so much as it reflects the subject matter, namely the large sections of Jesus' speechs in the Synoptics, where it mostly appears.




Thus ends Lesson One: Phrases with "but" and "except" .

That was the easy part...

 

[Nazaroo]

Once again I remind experts that this section is for ordinary people,
so that they can follow what is being discussed.
Those who consider themselves well educated and formally trained in grammar questions
may continue to coast and sip their non-fermented grape-juices.
Please don't criticise these sections for their lack of technical terms,
or some simplifications and inaccuracies regarding 'elipsis', 'apodosis' or 'optative moods'.
This is not the place to impress us with your superior knowledge.
The whole idea in these little excursions is to lay out the basics
WITHOUT introducing a whole pile of needless technical terms.
Thanks in advance - Nazaroo

Okay, lets go to lesson 2:

Simple Clauses and Compound Sentences:

We call a simple statement with a single Subject and predicate (and one basic verb) a 'clause'. This is one step up in size and complexity from a 'phrase', discussed in the previous section. (Recall that 'phrases' are just complicated names of people, objects, places and ideas.)

"The disciples went to Jerusalem." is a simple sentence, i.e., a "clause".

"Jesus stayed behind." is another simple clause.

If we join two clauses together, we get one long sentence:

"The disciples went to Jerusalem, and Jesus stayed behind." - is a "compound sentence".

We can connect two clauses with a variety of words, each with slightly different nuances, but all essentially doing the same basic thing:

"The disciples went to Jerusalem, but Jesus stayed behind."
"The disciples went to Jerusalem, yet Jesus stayed behind."
"The disciples went to Jerusalem, while Jesus stayed behind."

This allows us to relate two statements or contrast them, in telling a story.

In Greek these functions are handled similarly, with a few connecting words,
like "kai" (kai) = 'and' , "de" (de) = 'but, and', "alla" (alla) = "but" (stronger form).

*KEY POINT: Notice that in Greek these words for joining clauses are different than the word used for phrases (plhn).

(In English there is an overlap in the use of 'but' and even 'except' because these words can do both jobs.)

 

[Nazaroo]

Once again I remind experts that this section is for ordinary people,
so that they can follow what is being discussed.
Those who consider themselves well educated and formally trained in grammar questions may continue to coast

Conditional Sentences:

Of course if all we could do was make flat statements, stories would be boring, and we would not be able to do much reasoning or science. But we can also ask questions, make exclamations, and most importantly make hypothetical statements and proposals. This allows us to express certain facts and 'truths' which are more abstract, not based on what did or didn't happen, but what 'might' have happened, and what we know about what the consequences might be if this or that happened.

And so we come to 'IF-statements', or Conditional Sentences. A Conditional Sentence has the basic skeleton-form of:

If __(STATEMENT A)__ , then __(STATEMENT B)__.

A Conditional Sentence is a COMPOUND sentence, made up of two clauses, each with a verb. Each clause is a statement of its own right, and asserts an action or state.

On the 'IF' side, we put a hypothetical idea, perhaps something that did happen, or could happen. The actual truth of the statement, whether or not it is a historical fact, either at the time we say the sentence or later, is for the moment irrelevant and put aside.

On the 'THEN' side, we put what we know about the consequences of the statement found for the 'if' side. Let's see how two people can share information that neither of them possesses when they start the conversation(!):

Disiple A: "Did John go to the market?"

Disciple B: "I don't know.
But, IF John went to the market, THEN Judas went to the market.
I know this because Judas has the money pouch."

Disciple A: "Well, I know this:
IF Judas went to the market, THEN John went with him.
I know this because Judas said he would not go without John. "

Disciple B: "Well if so, then John went to the market.
I know this because Judas left with John just now."

Using some 'if-statements' (conditional clauses), the disciples were able to share their partial knowledge about the situation and combine it to arrive at a conclusion regarding the actual facts. They were able to do this by considering some hypothetical cases and their consequences.

Elipsis:

Notice that in the third bold Conditional Sentence, the word 'so' appears. It is not a real clause, but acts as a 'place-holder' for the clause that is implied:

"If so (Judas would not go without John), then..."

This 'dropping out' of various ideas, like verbs, or even whole clauses, is a natural time-saver in conversational speech. It is called 'elipsis'. (a skip or hole).


Greek Examples:

In Greek, the 'if - then' conditional Sentence uses the following words:

ei (if) __(hypothetical statement)__ oun (then)__(consequence)__.


"Lord: If he sleeps, (then) he does well." (John 11:12)

"kurie, ei kekoimhtai, swqhsetai."

KEY IDEA: A whole clause (with verb) can be implied, even when it is actually left out, and is assumed by the reader or speaker familiar with these shortcuts and conventions.

 

[Nazaroo]

The most common occurance of the Conditional Sentence in the New Testament is in dialogue (or monologues like Epistles) during an argument or debate, or to prove a point. In this case, the speaker will make an assertion, and then justify it, or prove it by using a NEGATIVE Conditional sense:

"Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher come from God.
(Assertion: God is with you.)

For no one is able to do these signs, if God were not with Him." (John 3:2)

___(Counter-factual Consequence)__, if not ___(Counter-factual premise)__.

Here the basic structure is this:

The speaker makes an assertion, a claim, or a statement of fact.
Then he proves it by pointing to an obviously false consequence that would result if the statement he made were NOT true. The lack of any evidence for the alternative 'if' statement (the negation of the main thesis) proves that the main thesis is true.

The 'Optative' Mood

In a purely hypothetical statement, the speaker can emphasize the hypothetical-ness or falsity of the statement by using a rare 'optative' form of the verb. In English, we use the plural form of the past-tense for this job.

We might say,

"Were John going to the store, he would have taken Judas."

Here we use the plural past tense of the verb 'to be' to indicate the actual falsity or hypothetical status of the assertion in the (in this case abstract) 'if' clause.

Notice that the word 'if' is actually left out completely here. (even 'if' is optional!) The full version is:

"If John were going to the store, he would have taken Judas."

This is an English idiom only, since English doesn't really have an 'optative mood' for verbs, although we accomplish the function of one. This is because English is a much less 'inflected' language, where things like idioms and word order take the place of special verb forms.


The Negative Particle:

In English, the 'negative particle' ("not") floats around and is most comfortable either immediately preceding the verb, or inserted between the parts of a 'compound' predicate.

"John would have no money, if Judas did not go with him."

Here we see the word 'not' stuck between the two verb-parts (underlined). Again in English (only), since it is not highly inflected, many special forms like past and future tenses are made by combining a verb with the verb 'to be' or 'will/shall'.

In Greek however, this is not the case. a typical verb has all the information packed into its form.

The negative particle 'mh' ("not") tends to stick to the word 'ei' ("if") and both sit between the two clauses being joined together. At most, sometimes the word 'de' ("but") by force of its own natural place in a sentence in Greek will insert itself between the two.


Basic Form and Examples:

So typically in Greek we will see a three clause grouping:

Clause 1: (leading thesis) "_(assertion A)_.

Clause 2 & 3: (supporting argument)
ei mh [if not]__(assertion A)__, oun [then]__(counterfact)__."

Often, as in English, the opposing counter-assertion is just left out entirely, by 'elipsis', but it is still there in force, being assumed by the speaker and hearer. It is often represented in English by a simple comma!:


"In my Father's house are many homes.
But if not, (that is, "if there were not many homes," )
(then) I would have told you!." (John 14:2)

"en th oikia tou PatroV mou monai pollai eisin.
ei de mh[elipsis of counter-assertion],
eipon an umin!"


Often, it is not the whole clause that is left out, but just the main predicate, and the Subject (a noun or phrase) functions as the placeholder:

"And no one ascends to heaven,
if not the One descending." (that is, "if the One descending does not ascend.") (John 3:13)

"kai oudeiV anabebhken eiV ton ouranon,
ei mh o ek tou ouranou katabaV."

Here the phrase is a placeholder for the entire clause or thought.

Almost any part of a complex clause or sentence can stand in for the whole thing, depending upon the emphasis or focus. Just like English, Greek is equally flexible and similar in the thought-construction:

"No one comes to the Father,
if not through Me." (that is, "if they do not come to the Father through Me") (John 14:6)

"oudeiV erxetai pros ton Patera
ei mh di' emou!"

Here a secondary modifying phrase for the action is standing in for the whole complex sentence. Why? Because this is the essential point and focus of the argument at hand.

We have seen that although the expression 'ei mh' is common in the gospel of John, it almost invariably appears in dialogue, specifically during an argument, debate, or special instruction or teaching.

KEY CONCEPT: In Greek and English, the Conditional Sentence, and especially the Negative form, with 'if not' appears in dialogue, particulary argument and debate, not narrative!

 

[Nazaroo]

I've taken the trouble to type in Scrivener's comments here, because he is often misquoted or incompletely quoted:

Scrivener

on the

Pericope de Adultera

​

An Extract from​

A Plain Introduction to the

Criticism of the New Testament

by F.H.A. Scrivener 4th Ed.

Edited by E. Miller

pg 364-368



​

hand-typed into Microsoft word
by Nazaroo

(pg 364f 2nd para.)


​

22. John vii..53 - viii.11. On no other grounds than those just intimated when discussing ch. v. 3, 4 can this celebrated and important paragraph, the pericope adulterae as it is called, be regarded as a portion of St. John's Gospel. It is absent from too many excellent copies not to have been wanting in som of the very earliest; while the arguments in its favour, internal even more than external, are so powerful, that we can scarcely be brought to think it an unauthorized appendage to the writings of one, who in another of his inspired books deprecated so solemnly the adding to or taking away from the blessed testimony he was commissioned to bear (Apoc. Xxii. 18, 19). If ch xx. 30,31 show signs of having been the original end of this Gospel, and ch xxi be a later supplement by the Apostle's own hand, which I think with Dean Alford is evidently the case, why should not St. John have inserted in this second edition both the amplification in ch v.3, 4, and this most edifying and eminenetly Christian narrative? The appended chapter (xxi) would thus be added at once to all copies of the Gospels then in circulation, though a portion of them might well overlook the minuter change in ch v. 3, 4, or, from obvious though mistaken motives, might hesitate to receive for general use or public reading the history of the woman taken in adultery.

It must be in this way, if at all, that we can assign to the Evangelist chh. Vii. 53-viii. 11 ; on all intelligent principles of mere criticism the passage must needs be abandoned: and such is the conclusion arrived at by all the critical editors. It is entirely omitted (ch.viii 12 following continuously to ch. Vii 52)

in the uncial Codd. A A 1 B C 1 T(all very old authorities) L X 2 D, but L/ D leave a void space (like B's in Mark xvi.9-20) too small to contain the verses (though any space would suffice to intimate the consciousness of some omission), before which D* began to write ch. vii. 12 after ch. vii. 52.

Add to these, as omitting the paragraph, the cursives 3 12, 21, 22, 33, 36, 44, 49, 63, (teste Abbott), 72, 87, 95, 97, 106, 108, 123, 131, 134, 139, 143, 149, 157, 168, 169, 181, 186, 194, 195, 210, 213, 228, 249, 250, 253, 255, 261, 269, 314, 331, 388, 392, 401, 416, 453, 473 (with an explanatory note), 486, 510, 550, 559, 561, 582 (in ver. 12 palai for palin): it is absent in the first, added by a second hand in 9, 15, 105, 179, 232, 284, 353, 509, 625: while ch. viii 3-11 is wanting in 77, 242, 324 (sixty-two cursive copies). The passage is noted by an asterisk or obelus or other mark in Codd. MS, 4, 8, 14, 18, 24, 34 (with an explanatory note), 35, 83, 109, 125, 141, 148 (secunda manu), 156, 161, 166, 167, 178, 179, 189, 196, 198,201, 202, 219, 226, 230, 231 (secunda manu), 241, 246, 271, 274, 277, 284 ?, 285, 338, 348, 360, 361, 363, 376, 391 (secunda manu), 394, 407, 408, 413 (a row of commas), 422, 436, 518 (secunda manu), 534, 542, 549, 568, 575, 600. There are thus noted vers. 2-11 in E, 606: vers. 3-11 in P (hait ver. 6), 128, 137, 147: vers 4-11 in 212 (with unique rubrical directions) and 355: with explanatory scholia appended in 164, 215, 262 3 (sixty-one cursives). Speaking generally, copies which contain a commentary omit the paragraph, but Codd. 59-66, 503, 526, 536 are exceptions to this practice.

Scholz, who has taken unusual pains in the examination of this question, enumerates 290 cursives, others since his time forty-one mre, which contain the paragraph with no trace of suspicion, as do the uncials D F (partly defective) G H K U G (with a hiatus after sthsantes authn ver. 3): to which add Cod. 736 (see addenda) and the recovered Cod. 64, for which Mill on ver. 2 cited Cod. 63 in error. Cod. 145 has it only secunda manu, with a note that from ch. viii. 3 touto to kefalaion en polloiV antigrafoiV ou keitai. The obelized Cod. 422 at the same place has in the margin by a more recent hand en thsin antigrafhV outwV. Codd. 1, 19, 20, 129, 135, 207 4, 215, 301, 347, 478, 604, 629, Evst. 86 contain the whole pericope at the end of the Gospel. Of these, Cod 1 in a scholium pleads its absence wV en toiV pleiosin antigrafoiV, and from the commentaries of Chrysostom, Cyril of Alexandria, and Theodore of Mopsuestia; while 135, 301 confess they found it en arcaioiV antigrafoiV:

Codd. 20, 215, 559 are obelized at the end of the section, and have a scholium wihch runs in the text;

ta wbelismena, keimena de eiV to teloV, ek twnde wde thn akolouqian exei, and on the back of the last leaf of both copies to uperbaton to opisqen zhtoumenon. In Codd. 37, 102, 105, ch viii 3-11 alone is put at the end of the Gospel, which is all that 259 supplies, though its omission in the text begins at ch. vii. 53. Cod. 237 on the contrary, omits only from ch. viii 3, but at the end inserts the whole passage from ch. vii.53: in Cod. 478, ch. vii 53-viii 2 stands prima manu with an asterisk, the rest later. Cod.225 sets chh.vii. 53-viii.11 after ch. vii.36; in Cod 115, ch. viii.12 is inserted between ch. vii.53 and 53, and repeated again in its proper place. Finally, Codd. 13, 69, 124, 346 (being Abbott's group), and 556 give the whole passage at the end of Luke xxi. 37 with John viii.1; and wrqrize Luke xxi 38 with orthrou John vii. 2 5.

In the lectionaries, as we have had to occasion to state before (Vol.I. p 81 note), this section was never read as a part of the lesson for Pentecost (John vii 37 - viii 12), but was reserved for the festivals of such saints as Theodora Sept. 18, or Pelagia Oct.8 (see Vol. I. p 87, notes 2 and 3), as also in Codd. 547, 604, and in many Service-books, whose Menology was not very full (e.g. 150, 189, 257,259), it would thus be omitted altogether. Accordingly, in that remarkable Lectionary, the Jerusalem Syriac, the lesson for Pentecost ends at ch. viii 2, the other verses (3-11) being assigned to St. Euphemia's day (Sept. 16).

Of the other versions, the paragraph is entirely omitted in the true Peshitto (being however inserted in printed books with the circumstances before stated under that version), in Cureton's Syriac, and in the Harkleian; though it appears in the Codex Barsalibaei, from which White appended it to the end of St. John: a Syriac note in this copy states that it does not belong to the Philoxenian, but was translated in A.D. 622 by Maras, Bishop of Amida. Maras, however, lived about A.D. 520, and a fragment of a very different version of the section, bearing his name, is cited by Assemani (Biblioth. Orient. ii 53) from the writings of Barsalibi himself (Cod. Clem.-Vat. Syr. 16).

Ridley's text bears much resemblance to that of de Dieu, as does a fourth version of ch. vii 53 - viii. 11 found by Adler (N.T. version. Syr., p 57) in a Paris codex, with the marginal annotation that this 'suntaxiV' is not in all the copies, but was interpreted into Syriac by the Abbot Mar Paulus. Of the other versions it is not found in the Sahidic, or in som of Wilkins' and all Schwartze's Bohairic copies 6, in the Gothic, Zohrab's Armenian from six ancient codices (but five very recont ones and Uscan's edition contain it), or in a f l (text) q of the Old Latin. In b the whole text from ch vii.44 to viii.12 has been wilfully erased, but the passage is found in c e (we have given them at large, pp.362-3), ff 7 g j l (margin), the Vulgate (even am. Fuld. For san. ), Ethiopic, Slavonic, Anglo-Saxon, Persic (but in a Vatican codex placed in ch. x), and Arabic.

Of the fathers, Euthymius [xii], the first among the Greeks to mention the paragraph in its proper place, declares that para toiV akribesin antigrafoiV h oux eurhtai h wbelistai dio fainontai pareggrapta kai prosqhkh. The Apostolic Constitutions [iii or iv] had plainly alluded to it, and Eusebius (Hist. Eccl.ii 39 fin.) had describe from Papias,and as contained in the Gospel of the Hebrews, the story of a woman epi pollaiV amartiaiV diablhqeishV epi tou kuriou, but did not at all regard it as Scripture. Codd. K M too are the earliest which raise the number of titloi or larger kefalaia in St. John from 18 to 19, by interpolating kef. I' peri thV moicalidoV which soon found admittance into the mass of copies: e.g., Evan. 482.

Among the Latins, as being in their old version, the narrative was more generally received for St. John's. Jerome testifies that it was found in his time 'in multis et Graecis et Latinis codicibus;' Ambrose cites it, and Augustine (de adult. Conjugiis, lib ii. c. 7) complains that 'nonnulli modicae fidei, vel potius inimici verae fidei, ' removed it from their codices, 'credo metuentes peccandi impunitatem dari muleiribus suis.' 8

When to all these sources of doubt, and to so many hostile authorities, is added the fact that in no portion of the N.T. do the variations of manuscripts (of D beyond all the rest) and of other documents bear any sort of proportion, whether in number or extent, to those in these twelve verses (of which statement of full evidence may be seen in any collection of various readings) 9 , we cannot help admitting that if this section be indeed the composition of St. John, it has been transmitted to us under circumstances widely different from those connected with any other genuine passage of Scripture whatever. 10

______________________________________________________

 

[Nazaroo]

Here are the footnotes Included in Miller's edition:

1. Codd. A C are defective in this place, but by measuring the space we have shown (p. 99, note 2) that A does not contain the twelve verses and the same method applies to C. The reckoning, as McClellan remarks (N.T., p 723), 'does not preclude the possibility of small gaps having existed in A and C to mark the place of the Section, as in L and D.'

2. Yet Burgon's caution should be attended to. 'It is to mislead - rather it is to misrepresent the facts of the case - to say (with the critics) that Codex X leaves out the "pericope de adultera". This Codex is nothing else but a commentary on the Gospel, as the Gospel used to be read in public. Of necessity, therefore, it leaves out those parts of the Gospel which are observed not to have been publicly read' (Guardian, Sept. 10, 1873).

3. The kindred copies Codd. L, 215 (20 has an asterisk only against the place), 262, &c., have the following scholium at ch vii 53:

"ta wbelismena en tisin antigrafoiV oi keitai, oude Apollinariw: en de toiV arcaioiV kei[n]tai mnhmoneuousin thV perikophV tauV kai oi apostoloi, en ais exeqento diataxesin eiV oikodmhn thV ekklhsiaV" The reference is to the Apostolic Constitutions (ii.24. 4) as Tischendorf perceives.

4. Yet so that the first hand of Cod. 207 recognizes it in the text, but setting in the margin to de loipon zhtei eiV to teloV tou bibliou (Burgon, Guardian, Oct 1, 1873)

5. A learned friend suggests that, supposing the true place for this supplemental history to be yet in doubt, there would be this reason for the narrative to be set after Luke xxi, that a reader of the Synoptic Gospels would be aware of no other occasion when the Lord had to lodge outside the city: whereas with St. John's narrative before him, he would see that this was probably the usual lot of a late comer at the Feast of Tabernacles (ch. vii. 14). Mr J Rendel Harris thinks that the true place for the pericope is between ch. v and ch. vi, as for other reasons which we cannot depend upon, so from our illustrating the mention of the Mosaic Law in ch. viii 5 by ch. v. 45, 46.

6. Yet on the whole this paragraph is found in more of Bp. Lightfoot's copies than would have been anticipated: viz. In the text of 3, 8, 14, 17, 18, 23, 24, in the margin of 1, and on a later leaf of 20. It is wanting in 2, 4, 5, 7, 9, 19, 21, 25, 26.

(there is no footnote 7: this was a misnumbering on my part)

8. Similiter Nicon ejectam esse vult narrationem ab Armenis, blaberan einai toiV polloiV ten toianthn akroasin dicentibus.' Tischendorf ad loc. Nicon lived in or about the tenth century, but Theophylact in the eleventh does not use the paragraph.

9. Notice especially the reading of 48, 64, 604, 736 (prima manu) in ver. 8 egrafen eiV thn ghn enoV ekastou autwn taV amartiaV.

10. We are not surprised in this instance at Dr. Hort's verdict (Introd. P.299): 'No interpolation is more clearly Western, though it is not Western of the earliest type.' Dean Burgon has left amonst his papers an elaborate vindication of this passage, from which however the Editor cannot quote.

 

[Nazaroo]

This next post will gather up some miscellaneous matters that naturally arise in the discussion of the grammar of these passages.


(1) Translation and Dynamic Equivalence

Some readers may already have perceived quite a difference in the renderings for the examples we have been discussing under Conditional Sentences. An explanation is in order.

The differences for the most part reflect that fact that here when carefully examining grammatical issues we will almost exclusively render the Greek components as 'literally' as possible. The purpose here is (1) to directly convey the physical form of the Greek structures as well as the meaning, and (2) to do as little 'interpretation' as possible. It is a 'ground up' process.

Specifically, those familiar with the KJV and most other translations will notice that these translations render the particles "ei mh" ('if not') frequently as "but" or "except", and occasionally as "unless".

This is partially the result of the act of "dynamic equivalence" in translation/interpretation. Here the translators feel that in many cases the literal "if not" gives a more clumsy appearance, and more common English idioms can safely be substituted without loss of meaning, and give a more natural expression.

These arguments are often strong and appealing, but we should be cautioned that they still involve an element of interpretation and assumption of meaning. That meaning may not be present with the same certainty as what the literal rendering offers.

Sometimes a deliberately more inclusive, more general, or more ambiguous choice of words has been made by the original author or the Holy Spirit for a good reason. There is always some compromise or loss of meaning in translation. Here in the minute study of grammar we want to minimize the introduction of artifacts or misleading effects as a result of too free a rendering.


(2) The NON-Equivalence of "if not" and "except"

A really good example of the loss of meaning can be shown in this case with the use of the word 'except' as a substitute for 'if not'.

There is one often critically important piece of meaning completely lost in the substitution of 'except' for 'if not' in a Conditional Sentence: The sentence is no longer conditional! It actually becomes a flat statement of fact. This is often unimportant, and simply hides a Greek idiom or form of expression.

However we should never lose sight of the fact that a Conditional Sentence in Greek or English is NOT a statement of fact. Its a hypothetical statement presented to the reader for consideration. In order to consider the hypothetical truth of a Conditional Sentence, one's current belief or knowledge of the historical facts must often be suspended entirely.


Examples:

Sometimes converting a Conditional Sentence can add things or imply things that may not be true, and are not present in the Greek:

"A prophet is not without honor,
except in his own country, and in his own house." (World English Bible Matt.13:57)

However the Greek only says,

"ouk esti profhthV atimoV,
ei mh en th patridi autou kai en th oikia autou." (Matthew 13:57)

"A prophet is not without honour,
(even) if he is not (honoured) in his own country and in his own house." (Literal)

Falsely converted from a conditional sentence to a statement of 'fact', this could be mistakenly applied as a prediction or a test for true prophets: i.e., A true prophet is always rejected by country and family. But this is not what the Greek implies at all.

Again here:

Those whom you have given me I have kept. None of them is lost,
except the son of perdition, that the Scripture might be fulfilled. (Jn 17:12)

ouV dedwkaV moi efulaca, kai oudeiV ec autwn apwleto,
ei mh o uioV thV apwleiaV ina h Grafh plhrwqh. (Jn 17:12)

"Those given to Me I have kept, and not even one of them is destroyed,
if not the Son of destruction, in order that the scripture might be fulfilled."

That is, "I have kept all those you have given to Me, and not even one of them is destroyed, if even Judas has not been destroyed, in order that the scripture might be fulfilled."
In the original Greek there is still a chance for Judas to repent and be saved, at least at this point in time in the narrative. While this may not be an exciting discovery for those who have already written off Judas, other cases can be more severe.

Often the conversion of a Conditional Sentence into a flat statement can actually introduce a contradiction into the translation, where there was none in the Greek.

"Have ye not read what David did, ...
how he ... ate the showbread,
which it was not lawful for him to eat, ...
but only for the priests?" (Matt. 12:3-4, Amer.Stand.Ver)


Here the ASV (along with others) has Jesus actually contradicting the O.T. Law, which permitted not only priests, but their wives and children to eat the showbread, i.e., any descendant of Aaron or relative by marriage. (Obviously the families of priests also lived off of the temple offerings. For instance, see Lev. 22:11-13: There could be no laws regulating women eating dedicated food if they were actually forbidden to eat it at all times.)


Left as a Conditional Sentence however, Jesus' statement makes perfect sense without contradicting the Law:


ouk anegnwte ti epoihse Dabid,...
pwV ... touV artouV thV proqesewV, ...
ouV ouk exon hn autw pagein,...
ei mh toiV iereusi monoiV ; (Matt 12:3,4)


Have you not read what David did?...
How... of the showbread he did eat,...
which is not permitted for him to eat,...
(even) if not for the priests only?"
(i.e., "even if it was not only for the priests to eat? " ) (Literal)


That is, the Greek has Jesus correctly pointing out that David's act was not permitted by law, not because only priests could eat the bread, but because David was not a descendant of Aaron, or a family member. There is no need for a rendering which makes Jesus look ignorant or inaccurate.


Nor is it always a 'minor' doctrine: Consider the well-known but often misunderstood verse here, commonly rendered as a flat unconditional statement:

And he said to him, Why callest thou me good?
there is none good but one, that is, God: (Matt.19:17 Noah Webster Bible)

In this rendering, Jesus has inadvertantly excluded Himself from the class of those who are 'good'. (Unless you already know Jesus is God, you will assume He is admitting he is a sinner.) If this is what the Rich Young Ruler thought he heard, then one can understand why he walked away after being asked to hand over his fortune to a confessed sinner!

But the Greek offers no such excuse for a dispute between Christians and others who have lower christological viewpoints:

ti me legeiV agaqon?
oudeiV agaqoV ei mh eiV o qeoV. (Matt 19:17 Greek)

Why do you call me good?
No one is good, if not One, God. (Literal)

Here Jesus is not saying that other beings cannot be good, (which would leave him contradicting Luke and others) but rather that the source of all goodness is God, including His own goodness. This corrected translation removes at least two difficulties from the typical English rendering.


Summary:

Modern idiomatic or "dynamic equivalent" renderings of these verses that PRESERVE the intent of the Greek without adding anything might run like this:

(1) "Whether or not a prophet is dishonoured in his own country or home, he is not without honour."

(2) "If even the Son of Destruction, Judas is not yet lost, then I have lost none of those given to Me, so that the scripture is fulfilled."

(3) "Didn't you read what David did? How he ate the showbread?
That wasn't allowed for David, even if others besides the priest could eat it."

(4) "Why are you calling me good? If God isn't good, then no one is good!"

Key Point: "except" and "if not" are not equivalent renderings of "ei mh" and important information can be lost or added by a poor choice in translation.

The phrase "ei mh" is not a simple stylism, but is used carefully and intelligently by the Evangelists, including John.

 

[Nazaroo]

Obviously, we have seen that the conversion of a Conditional Sentence into an unconditional flat statement can have a very detrimental effect on the original meaning of a passage, adding a false "definiteness" that is not justified, and which can lead to contradictions in scripture.

Is there an English idiom that preserves the 'Conditional' aspect and hence the meaning? Yes! It can all be done with the English word "unless".


Old English "but" and "except"

But first let us examine and show that in Old English, these two common words also did the duty of "unless", with a couple of examples:

"Verily, verily, I say unto thee,
Except a man be born again,
he cannot see the kingdom of God." (John 3:3 Old King James version)

Obviously, even a modern English reader is clearly cued by the subject matter and content that the ordinary (modern) usage and meaning of 'except' is not meant here. In less stilted and more modern English, the meaning is clearly expressed with "unless".

"Most assuredly, I say to you,
unless one is born again,
he cannot see the kingdom of God." (John 3:3 New King James version)


In this instance, the modern translators had no problem understanding the intent, and most importantly, preserving the conditional aspect of this sentence. They knew from the subject matter that a modern reader would not expect or accept the word "except" in this context. Here Jesus is clearly not saying that no one can see the kingdom of God, but rather just stating some hypothetical necessary conditions.

Other 'forced' cases include John 3:5, and 6:44.

Again, with the old usage of the word "but" we see that a modern reader can often be more comfortable with "unless". This is true, even though "but" still can carry the meaning adequately for a reader familiar with its 'conditional' or 'hypothetical' usage:

"I am the way, the truth, and the life:
no man cometh unto the Father, but by me." (John 14:6, Old King James)

"I am the way, the truth, and the life:
No man comes to the Father, unless it is through Me." (modern English)

Here we see the New King James translators actually safely preserving an Old English usage, and retaining a 'King James' flavour at least, by substituting one Old English idiom for another (!):

"I am the way, the truth, and the life.
No one comes to the Father except through Me." (New King James)


In this case, the sentence has lost nearly all 'conditional' feel and aspect, and this is part of the problem with preserving an older, dying usage.

Unfortunately, the modern reader is much more used to interpreting both "except" and "but" as flat unconditional exclusionary statements. And this is where the danger of misunderstanding will inevitably creep in.


Problems with "but" and "except":

Now lets look at how things can go wrong when conditionals fade and vanish in the murky world of Old English that looks like New English:

"But of that day and hour knoweth no man,
no, not the angels which are in heaven,
neither the Son, but the Father." (Mark 13:32 Old King James)

Could Jesus really be saying that there is something He doesn't know about, that the Father does? Is Jesus really less than omniscent, less than God manifest in the flesh? Not in the original Greek!

peri de thV hmeraV ekeinhV h wraV oudeiV oiden,
oude oi aggeloi oi en ouranw,
oude o UioV, ei mh o Pathr." (Mark 13:32 Greek)

"But about that hour, no one knows,
not even the angels in heaven,
nor even the Son, if not the Father." (Literal)

That is, "if the Father doesn't know." This statement by Jesus in its most primitive form in Mark does not say that the Father doesn't know, nor does it say that the Son doesn't know. Instead, it asserts that all knowledge must come from the Father, even the Son's knowledge. This does not at all imply a lack of knowledge by the Son, but rather an assertion of the Son's source. See for instance John 5:22, 6:46,51 8:23,42,55 14:11 etc.)

"But of that day and hour no one knows,
not even the angels in heaven,
nor the Son, but only the Father. (Mark 13:32 New King James)

Here sadly, the NKJV translators have mistaken the Old English conditional use of "but" for an unconditional flat statement. They have even gone to the extreme of adding a word, "only" in order to fully form the (wrong) English idiom, a flat unconditional exclusive statement, and to harmonize it with a parallel passage in Matthew. But this was unnecessary and unfortunately the last trace of the original intent of the passage has been lost. This should have been rendered consistently with the other cases of conditional sentences, and in harmony with important scripture such as the those in John. Nor can we appeal to Acts to bolster a claim about Jesus Himself not knowing the time of the end:

"It is not for YOU to know the times or the seasons,
which the Father has put under His own authority." (Acts 1:7)

"ouc umwn esti gnwnai cronouV n kairouV
ouV o Pathr eqeto en to idia exousia" (Acts 1:7)

In this case, it is US who are not given knowledge:
Jesus doesn't deny Himself access to it.




Problems with 'unless':

So the reader may ask, why not just uniformly translate 'if not' with 'unless'? Doesn't this eliminate all the dangers of misinterpretation? Yes!
But it has one small drawback of its own. On the one hand, we can't just substitute 'unless' anywhere. It can only be used in certain cases where appropriate content allows. But in all cases where 'except' could be misleading, and 'unless' is inappropriate, we can fall back on a more literal "if not", provided we take care with word order and elipsis.

The other drawback is this: Because 'unless' is a newer term in the English arsenal, it has a stricter set of stylistic uses, and specifically, it allows less elipsis than either the English 'if not' or the Greek ' ei mh '. That means that in places where it is quite comfortable for the Greek (and English) to drop the entire clause and substitute a substantive (noun) place-holder, we have to supply the missing parts to make a 'good English' construction with 'unless'. Let's see that in action:

"No one is good if not One, God." (Good in English or Greek)

"No one is good unless One, God." (unusual or stilted English)

"No one is good unless One is, God." (comfortable or 'good' English)

Notice that to make the sentence comfortable, we had to supply at least the verb 'to be' to create the 'clause' in the "if" half of the Conditional Sentence. This was not required with the older and more common "if not". Some elipsis was allowed. A full reconstruction of the thought of the sentence would be:

"No one is good unless One is good, that is, God."

Here we can see that some of the clause was 'droppable'. This is a learned stylism picked up unconsciously by a native English speaker, but a bit harder to master with English as a second language.

It should be grasped that we are not 'adding words' to the original in this case, but rather properly constructing a good unambiguous idiom in English.

 

[Nazaroo]

Technically speaking, "ei mh" actually does appear in the narrative very rarely. However, it is so much less frequent than either "plhn" or "alla" which on the surface appear to have the same basic function, that it begs for a closer look.
(in fact, alla appears almost 700 times in the NT, while plhn only occurs 30 times, and ei mh is also relatively rare. There are about 500 'if'-statements in the NT, with about 10-15% of those being in conjunction with the negative particle.)

The one possibly significant case of "ei mh" in the Johannine narrative, is in John 6:22:

"...there was no other boat there,
if not simply that one into which His disciples had entered.' (John 6:22)

"ploiarion allo ouk hn ekei,
ei mh en ekeino eiV o enebhsan oi maqhtai autou" (Jn 6:22 Greek)

Here I think the explanation for John using such an unusual phraseology is the complication of the description of the boat. He is compelled to say there was a boat there, and so this requires almost an explanatory aside to explain why it was still an obvious miracle even so. Thus he carefully enumerates the boat as the one the disciples were in, which everyone knew Jesus had not entered upon its departure.
Note that if John had simply used "plhn" or "alla" it would problematically imply that the miracle was dependant upon the witness of the people, which John is not interested in credencing. It is his own testimony that he wishes to provide. While converting this to a flat unconditional statement makes for a smoother English rendering, I think something subtle is actually lost here. If John had simply wanted to say "no boat except the one the disciples had entered" he should have done so. Here we have the paradoxical case of a Conditional Sentence being more definite as to the reality of the miracle than an unconditional flat statement about the observation of witnesses!


No 'but's about ei mh:

In any case, it turns out that John uses ' alla ' about 20 times as often as ' ei mh'! (1:8, 1:13, 1:31, 1:33, 3:8, 3:16, 3:17, 3:28, 3:36, 4:2, 4:14, 4:23, 5:18, 5:22, 5:24, 5:30, 5:34, 5:42, 6:9 etc.)

But what can we take this to mean, except that Samuel Davidson's assertion that John was more likely to use ei mh than plhn was based on pure smoke! If any argument could be made, here, it would be that John might have been tempted by habit to use ' alla '

Once again the 'assurded results of textual criticism' based upon expert judgment is apparently more like a bad guess than a good intuitive knowledge of the author's style and habits.

 

[Nazaroo]

By the way in case anyone reading this missed it, I have posted Dean John Burgon's masterful defence of the 'Pericope de Adultera' in another thread in this forum:

Dean John Burgon Defends the Pericope de Adultera (link)

 

[Nazaroo]

One may wonder what the point was of examining Samuel Davidson's internal arguments against the Pericope de Adultera.

The simple reason is this: In 1848, Davidson was something of an authority in England. At the time, previous scholarship had been carried out mainly in continental Europe, and the English had some catching up to do. It was natural for 'local stars' like Davidson, who was able to acquire and popularize some of the early theories and results of textual criticism produced in Germany, to have a very powerful influence on textual critical opinion in England.

And this was indeed the case. Davidson influenced a whole generation of scholars, including Westcott and Hort, by introducing them to the findings and fads of German criticism. Had Davidson's work remained in a corner gathering dust, all this effort would be needless and pointless.

But like so many 'sciences' at the turn of the century (the 1900's), what actually happened was that the workers continued to 'build' upon the work of their predecessors, even though the actual results being uncovered were painting a picture quite different than the one formed by the assumptions explicit and tacit that the science had been built upon. Eventually the whole house of cards would collapse, but as long as the scholars worked with the goggles they had fashioned to view the evidence, this growing crisis and scandal went unnoticed entirely.

 

[Nazaroo]

While the 'assured results' of this amateurish period of textual criticism caused increasing alarm and concern among the faithful, few had enough of a grasp the nuts and bolts of the 'methods' to pinpoint the problems.

Only a handful of truly expert and knowledgeable people who happened also to be loyal to the faith, like Scrivener, John Burgon, and Edward Miller, were able to articulate a coherent rebuttal, and unfortunately, this small minority of serious workers was ignored in the excitement of 'new discoveries'.

Throughout the whole process two sister traits of paranoia were driving and distorting men's views:

(1) the suspicion of 'Romanism' throughout the Protestant West, which cast suspicion over every tradition or piece of historical evidence.

(2) the suspicion of 'Superstitious Extra Baggage'. Anything that appeared to suggest the 'miraculous' was suspected, challenged and often rejected, in favour of the new 'scientific' (materialistic) world view of historical events.

The combination by collusion of these two unlikely bedfellows resulted in almost a frantic effort to 'expunge' the New Testament of all possible 'additions', and get down to the 'bare bones'. The result of course of stripping the patient to the bone was that they ended up killing it: the Reformation and Revival slowed to a crawl and fell on its face, stunned.

Another strong factor in the easy abandonment of both the traditional text and orthodox Christian doctrine almost wholesale by an entire generation was the 'dulling' and pacifying concept so eloquently expressed by Bentley, after sifting the dissappointing evidence in their possession:

"the real text of the sacred writings is competently exact, nor is one article of faith or moral precept either perverted or lost, choose as awkwardly as you will, choose the worst by design, out of the whole lump of readings."

Whether or not this was really true, it was true enough to dissappoint those wishing to completely dethrone the bible, while silencing those who ought to have been concerned enough to prevent people mutilating it.

The conservatives took on a kind of Stoic attitude like that of Gamaliel in Acts:

"Refrain from these men, and leave them alone:

for if this counsel or this work be of men, it will come to nought:
but if it be of God, ye cannot overthrow it; lest haply ye be found
even to fight against God. " (Acts 6:38:39)

They seemed to have forgotten that as wise as this advice was, it apparently didn't save Gamaliel!

Just standing by while God's word is mutilated or distorted cannot be the best a Christian can do.

...

 

[Nazaroo]

In a wonderful gift to us by Mr. Pickering, his excellent but controversial book,
"The Identity of the New Testament Text" has been placed online.

But more importantly, he has consulted with Pierpont, and using a more accurate collation of Von Soden's work, has offered a new analysis and stemma, confirming the accuracy of the Majority Text, over and above the stemmatic reconstruction offered in the original Majority Text of the New Testament by Hodges and Farstad.

New Stemma for John 7:53-8:11

 

[justified]

Alright, so I’m calling it. I’ll skip dealing with your quotation structure itself since, as you said, my critique was valid. I’ll begin with where you start citing Dodd.

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.

Two things first need to be noted about Dodd. First of all, you are not being very honest with Dodd's work. That chart isn't his, it is yours. He divides the Book of Signs into 7 episodes and an epilogue; the book of the passion into the discourses and the narrative. You don't mention any of these. Secondly, Dodd writes on page 346: "The Pericope Adulterae, vii. 53- viii.11 in the Textus Receptus, is omitted as being no part of the original text of this Gospel." And this is the only consideration in Interpreation that he gives the story that I know of. With these two points, one can hardly claim that Dodd's breakthrough work can be compared with your confused diagram.

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.

A belief that cannot be proven. Additionally, I know of no other example of this sort of point for structure in ancient narrative.

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.

As I have written in a previous post, your "quotation theory" is wrong and so it can't really be called a structure. Structure's have to be organized and, frankly, yours is not. Further, you say in your early post about the quotations that "Group 1" is 1:23 and 2:17, whereas in the post describing you and Dodd, you say the "Gospel Signature" is 1:1-2:25. Honestly, you can't just put two ideas together and say "he meant it that way" without any evidence. I would say you've proven that your "structure" and Dodd's analysis are entirely incompatible. But that's only because yours isn't based on reasonable assumptions.

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.

What structures are you talking about? Which people were the "trusted" to keep the documents copied? These documents were spread all over the place! There was no "special few" after the end of the Johannine Community (whenever that was), and certainly in the discussions of the Gospel in I John there is no hint of understanding of this "structure."

Alright, onto Vaticanus:

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!

First of all, no one is denying that the Pericope is old. Most people don't deny that it is a real story. It's in Jerome's Vulgate, and in some Old Latin texts, and was part of Ambrose and Augustine's preferred texts. (R. Brown, Commentary, p.335). And as you've mentioned, it's in 5th-century Bezae (D), a known idiosyncratic manuscript.

So, that myth being taken care of, let us discuss Vaticanus and the umlauts. These little dots. What do they prove? First question: is the Pericope in Codex Vaticanus? Answer: No. Ok, good.

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.

I am unaware of any studies which have proven conclusively that the umlauts are text-critical in purpose. Also, I would appreciate a citation to determine exactly which tests were conducted and who published them so that I can read what they've written. You have a bad habit of leaving out important details.

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

Which, if true, is not that big of a deal. It's been shown (unless if you listen to Von Soden) that most variants were already apparent by end of the 2nd Century. Therefore, those which were eventually incorporated into the Majority Text must have existed. But this does not mean that those were at that time the majority. In fact, if the Alexandrian Scribe is as knowledgable as you are arguing, then he must have known what he was doing with the readings he chose. What evidence is there that he was "faithfully copying" one manuscript, rather than doing his own bit of text-critical work? (Now of course, this all hinges on you being able to show that the umlauts are text-critical marks).

Ok, moving on...

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."

I have already explained how these two evaluations can be independent. Brown, Keener, Metzger, Robertson and Bruce all believe the story is at least extremely ancient while none believes that it belongs in the Gospel of John. Keener writes, "The story may reflect an authentic tradition about Jesus, as many, perhaps most, scholars think" (Commentary, p.736). As I mentioned before, there are sayings throughout extra-canonical gnostic and Christian materials which is probably authentic tradition and oral recollections but which were incorporated into heretical documents. A passage's authenticity as historical tradition is independent of whether or not is part of the New Testament Canon as originally written.

Early in the history of the collating and printing of the NT text, (circa 1500-1800) it was noticed that these verses (7:53-8:11) in John were missing, or diacritically marked with suspicion in many manuscripts. This is in fact what raised a question and spurred an inquiry into their authenticity. Had this not been the case, critics would have had no reason to distrust the verses or the integrity of John in any way. This cannot be emphasized enough. No one was looking, nor had they any reason to look for evidence of 'editing' or even the use of previous 'sources' in John.

This is not entirely correct. The fact that the pericope appears in different places (see near the end of this thing under positive evidence for exclusion) is suggestive of critical issues. The fact that you have a 12th-century father writing that the accurate copies of the Gospel do not contain the Pericope (Metzger Commentary, p.188) proves that there was still concern over the issue. The WESTERN church didn't worry about it so much because they read the vulgate. But when people started reading Greek again, they realised it again (i.e. the humanist movement and that era of collating the NT text you mentioned).

John is so unique in fact, that even though it covers the same period and 'apparently' the same person Jesus, very little can be shown to be directly related or borrowed from any other gospel (which is NOT the case with the other three gospels!) and the Pericope de Adultera is no exception. It cannot have been borrowed from another gospel and inserted into John in any process like that which obviously affected the Synoptics.

A guy I studied under in the states did his dissertation on John's Redaction of Mark's Gospel. As far as the Pericope itself, we will see below that it bears marked similarities to Synoptic style.

Nor does the addition of the passage change the nature of John or its general slant. The incident provides no new information about Jesus or doctrine, or special esoteric or gnostic knowledge. It is just more of the same material already found in John. This takes away any motive or purpose to its addition other than the simple desire to preserve a record of an incident in Jesus' life. This is inconsistent both with known editorial practices and even John's own intent and purpose. The case for addtion is implausible in the light of the textual history of the rest of the NT.

Finally, something approaching an argument! As will be observed below, the pericope had some trouble finding its place in the NT. This, combined with some other information, may indicate its addition to the Gospel rather than its preservation. When this is discussed, we will mention the reasons why most texts which include the pericope include it after 7:52.

Critics turned to look for evidence against the authenticity of John 8:1-11 itself because of the strange behaviour of various scribes and copyists two to six centuries after its known existance as a part of John. And this itself is a logical non-sequiter: The observable behaviour is too distant in time from the early textual history and murky origins to have any direct bearing on the question. This is why the only real evidence of interest is the internal evidence.

So much for something approaching an argument. The Old Latin is earliest extant evidence we have. This is probably the same time as Sinaiticus and Vaticanus, though the manuscripts of the OL tradition date later than the manuscripts. I am suggesting the tradition is from that time. Your argument about the Umlauts cannot be called proof for "its known existance as a part of John."

 

[justified]

Some comments on what you had to say about Davidson:

a) If there is one morphological feature of NT Greek that blows around like a leaf in the wind, and yet contains no syntactic or lexical meaning, its word-order. Greek is a language that is so highly inflected that for all intents and purposes, word order, especially in its minor variations, conveys no significance at all. Because of this, it is one of the most flexible and arbitrary features. Except in a few special cases, such as with the verb 'to be' in conjunction with the presence or absence of the definite article, (i.e., Colwell's Rule etc.) nothing can be squeezed out of it except perhaps a thinker's moment to moment attention, or his flow of thought. If one were to try to pick the absolute least useful indication of style or authorship in NT Greek, this would be it (strike 1).

Umm, it would be silly to say that word order carries NO syntactical meaning. I recall one specific instance in John 1 where word order is very important to determine whether or not the author meant "was a god" or "was God." Another important part of word order in NT Greek is poetry: looking for chiasms and such. If a Hebrew is writing in Greek, it's pretty easy to notice. John's gospel is full of this type of thing. However, I do not disagree with what you're saying here -- I don't think word order is a good measure.

The W.O.R. not only unfortunately appears in DIALOGUE, meaning it cannot be clearly or unambiguously connected to John's narrative writing style at all, since he may simply be recording someone else's speaking style. To make matters worse, it appears in a pericope where there is little dialogue, but what there is, is critically important to the story, and so this dialogue is less likely to be 'altered' by John's style, if it is authentic. Lastly, it is in the speech of Christ's enemies, and even less likely to be assimilated by John himself, if recorded by him. (strike 5). How many do we need?

I'd like to comment on this idea. Specifically for John, but also for the rest of the Gospel genre, "dialogue" is not all that well preserved. In John it is quite obvious that he has not attempted to copy anyone else's style. Jesus' style in John is nothing like the Synoptics, and every single one of his speeches follows the same style. The pharisees talk the same way in every instance despite them being different people. So also the disciples. I don't think one needs to worry about the preservation of style in such a unique gospel (as you put it).

Moving onto Davidson's #s 8 & 9 in your list...γεγραπται vs. εντελλομαι.

Never mind the grammatical absurdity of it, which is as bad in Greek as it is in English: (strike 1).

Grammatical absurdity? The whole point is the unjohannine vocabulary. I think you should think about John 2:17, 6:31,45; 8:17; 10:34; 12:14,16; 15:25; 19:19,20; 20:30,31. These are all perfect participial and indicative forms of the verb, all having to do with the Law. On the other hand, εντελλομαι in John is used only for commands between God and Jesus (14:31) and Jesus and Men (15:14,17). The usage in the pericope adultere is entirely out of line with John's diction.

Is this how the leader of a gang of violent men casting a woman onto the ground is going to speak? By anybody's (even John's) imagination? (strike 2).

It is no more fanciful than "in the law Moses commanded us" -- I don't see what is strange? You're just grasping for straws.

Davidson's idea for this stilted phraseology is inspired by John 20:31, where indeed John in the narrative uses "It is written". How we are to imagine John would have the Pharisees speak in the same unimaginative and artificial way here boggles the mind. (strike 3).

I have already listed the other uses above. It's the standard way of talking about scripture in Greek and in John -- regardless of dialogue or not.

Your attacks on Davidson are basically wrong so far -- probably because you didn't understand the complexity of what he has written. For example, you put Davidson's "conjectures" together, and say that the grammar is absurd. But in fact you've entirely missed the point -- the point is that HAD John written the story, it would have used entirely different diction and grammar. he's not suggesting replacing the words. His suggestion for this would have been more like this:

δε εν τω νομω γεγραπται ημιν τας τοιαυτας λιθαζειν ουν συ τι λεγεις. This is not all that crazy in view of elsewhere in John: John 10:31-33; 11:8. The point is that John uses λιθαζω not λιθοβολεω, and therefore this passage, which uses the non-Johannine diction, is unlikely to be Johannine.

A Second glance at Davidson's list shows that at least 6 of the examples are in fact in found in Von Soden's "m6" text, one of two dominant forms of the pericope throughout the Medieval period. This means that Davidson's evidence really has more bearing and use in helping us to possibly choose between the two texts as to priority and integrity and reconstruct the direction and nature of the textual corruption.
But the very fact that these conjectural proposals are actually supported by some of the text-types that include the pericope is fatal to their application as evidence against 'authenticity'.

This could have been a good point if it were true. But you are oversimplifying. Again, you say that because there is a variant for επορευθησαν (απηλθε&#957 in 7:53 via Von Soden's μ6 (looks like a single text... and not the μ6 family) then Davidson's point is incorrect? Hardly! First of all, the rest of the phrase is not accounted for: John would use ιδια, rather than the more Semitic εχαστος-construction. According to Von Soden's collation that you posted, there is no support from μ6 for απηλθεν as a variant in 8:1. In short, I am finding your evidence severely lacking as I examine your "examples."

But it is worthwhile now to make a brief note concerning the first three variants. These variants all have to do with how the pericope is connected to the previous narrative.

I can't say that I truly understood what you were talking about. I will give my understanding of the significance of connection at the end, in the positive evidence.

The (7/12) 'en (tw) mesw ' versus 'eiV to meson /mesh ' question which involves two of the remaining cases I will leave for now since it is again a question of style versus purpose: The description of the position of the woman relative to the crowd, the followers, or the arresting party is a technical problem which does not properly compare to other cases in John. In those something quite different is meant, such as "within you/among you" and the language surrounding such cases is a special theological terminology.

Possibly. But what Davidson is getting at is a little more than this. It happens to be John's special use of the Dative and Accusative. For example, προς τον θεον in John 1:1. Semantically, there is absolutely no difference between using the Dative and Accusative here -- you say that the point is "special vocabulary" for a "special" situation -- but this in fact does not make sense because we are dealing with synonymous vocabulary. So, your only option that I can see is to chalk it up to purely "stylistic variation." Excluding John 8, there are only 4 examples of the use of μεσον in John in the critical texts (8:59 has δια μεσου in the Majority, I believe). In 1:26, μεσος is used substantivally so it cannot be evaluated as pertaining to John 8. Similarly is 19:18, which places much stress on the fact that Jesus is in the middle: μεσον δε τον Ιησουν. 20:19 and 20:26, however, both have the phrase εις το μεσον and is used without a posessive pronoun, and only with εστη before it. Considering that what is meant in both sections is the exact same thing, since the phrases are synonymous and the contexts are nearly the same, there is little reason to reject Davidson's observation.

 

[justified]

(6) paV o laoV (*) ..................paV o ocloV (var.)
These two phrases are not synonymous in either John or Luke, or even Matthew. On the one hand, 'translation Greek' or a Semiticism is suspected, and on the other, they have connotations in meaning and a usage which has been studied extensively. Both Luke and John have more than a big enough vocabulary to contain both phrases, and enough intelligence to apply them appropriately.
To argue John would restrict himself to one phrase only is absurd, and would be equivalent to saying a modern American couldn't have used the phrase 'folk-song' in a sentence, since he has previously often quoted, "We the People..." in several books.

It is absurd, I agree, to restrict John to a single phrase without good reason. However, Davidson is correct that John uses οχλος to suggest a crowd that follows Jesus -- it is a theological term chosen for whatever reason. Thus in John λαος (excluding ch. 8, of course) is used only twice, and only in one way: the Jewish people. And it is ONLY used of the Pharisee's viewpoint (11:50) of Caiaphas and then reiterated ironically by the narrator (18:14) -- one of the best parts of John is the beautiful ironies. On the other hand, οχλος is used in 19 verses, and most of these have to do with people following Jesus because of his signs and his teaching: 6:2 (+ vv.5,22,24); 7:31 (+ v.32); 7:40 (+ vv.43,49); 11:42 (as a witness); 12:9; 12:17 (as a witness); 12:18. Thus the crowd is a kind of chorus in John. They act as one, asking similar questions: the masses which are fickle, which are contemporary with the Community of the written gospel. But this is techincal. What is important is that the context lines up perfectly with the usage of οχλος in the rest of John in ch. 8, but a different phrase is used. I leave it to you to explain the reason for the different phrase.

We are also informed that escatwn is an unsuitable antithesis for presbuterwn.

The real question is why Davidson thought this was part of the text. I would read αρξαμενοι αποι των πρεσβυτερων και κατελειφθη μονος...so I'll neglect answering your straw man unless you want to argue that this was part of the original text of the pericope. Unfortunately, I haven't read Von Soden (I have had a busy life) but I don't see a good reason for thinking εως των εσχατων was originally there.

Davidson offers a further list of words and phrases alleged to be unlike the expression of the gospel writer, this time without offering any alternative conjectures that would presumably be more in John's style...The only thing to do with this group is just translate them into English,
to give the ordinary reader an inkling of what Davidson is unhappy about here:

If you really think your "ordinary readers" are that stupid, then you probably have very few friends.

"the scribes and Pharisees" (John would never use this handy phrase to identify the parties..)

First of all, the usage of φαρισαιοι has been known for nearly a hundred years if not longer to be a hallmark of John's gospel. There are no Sadducees, there are no scribes. The only party, as we all know, left intact long after AD 70, were the Pharisees. Also as most know, John's gospel is heaviliy focused upon his own time -- there was no need to think about anyone else. Thus the opposition to Jesus is reduced to "the Jews" even though such a designation would seem anti-Semitic to us in its generality. "Scribes" is used nowhere else in John, despite ample opportunity. It is not Johannine in vocabulary.

"and standing He (Jesus) taught them" (can't have John display any awareness of the Sermon on the Mount!)

This has nothing to do with anything.

"caught in the act" (John must not permit the spokesman for the Pharisees any 'legalese')

I'm curious about what Davidson's actual objection is to this word. It is really technical, which is unusual for John. But I'm not convinced. What is Sam's argument?

"wrote" (Jesus' act is notably unusual - as unusual as His behaviour elsewhere in John!)

You are ignoring (more likely, you are missing: again) the point -- εγραφεν doesn't strike you as at all unusual? It should. And you wonder why it is a variant unit...

The first time I read the following, I was very confused because of several errors you made...

"(Jesus) rising up" (too suggestive of a common Johannine theme - ressurrection!)

So wait...you are translating επεμενον ερωτωντες as "rising up"?? ερωταω means "to ask." In v.7 the verb ανακυπτω means "arise, get up" (here in the aorist). The words you translated actually mean "continue asking." And your objection is ridiculous anyways.

"the sinless one" (too orthodox a doctrine? too contrived a statement?)

You quote the word as being αναραρτητος and being from dialogue. I am unfamiliar with the word in the first place and especially not in this pericope. However, this may simply be because the text I am reading from is not detailed enough. However, I am inclined to think of ο αναμαρτητος in verse 7, "without sin." In this case (another error of yours?) then I would suggest to you that it is simply that John would never have Jesus speak that way.

(and the final example seems only to appear in Davidson's copy of the pericope, so we'll just leave that...)

That's hardly a good reason to leave it. Plus it occurs in verse 9 in a few manuscripts.

I'm not going to deal with Hills now, because frankly, he's crazy. Don't tell him I said that. And Raymond Brown, btw, is the BEST Johannine Scholar we've seen.

I will be commenting on the question of 'Ei Mh' versus 'plen' shortly.

Ok...finally. I'm really kind of annoyed at this 5th grade grammar lesson. Is this just to fill up space? Anyway, the whole question is mute if you believe that και μηδενα θεασαμενος πλην της γυναικος isn't an authentic part of the pericope. Bezae, Gamma, the Latin, a couple miniscules plus a couple boharic traditions lack it. That's an incredible geographic and chronological spread, especially when all you're really dealing with against it is K and 579 (nearly dependent on K?). However, because you spent so much time on it, it seems only right to give the time to refute you...

You are right that in John ει μη occurs only in dialogue. It is quite obvious that this is a significant part of Johannine style (the use of "except," that is). It does not prove that πλην is Johannine, though, and therefore does not prove that Davidson is wrong. If you take into account the use of ει μη in other instances in the New Testament, it is clear that your "rule" doesn't hold up for all of NT Greek (e.g. Mark 7.3-4; Romans 10.15; 11.23; all over I Corinthians; II Timothy 2:3,5; James 2:17; I John 3:21). If you notice, in the KJV πλην is translated 31 times;nearly half are as "but" and another 12 as similar adversatives "notwithstanding" and "nevertheless." It is more like αλλα in usage than εαν μη. Additionally, it occurs in both dialogue with the "except" meaning (Mark 12.32) and outside dialogue (Acts 8:1). Yet in John it ONLY occurs in 8.10 while there is a more appropriate and accomodating idiom, ει μη available to John. Hmm...

For now, i'm going to let Scrivener be. He was...special. As will I ignore your dynamic equivalence rants as they have little bearing on the authenticity of the passage. Burgeon falls into the same category as the more modern Hill, and I hate reading him because, like you, he didn't know how to place nice. And that about sums it up for the arguments you have made concerning the validity of the pericope in John.

 

[Nazaroo]

Well, what have we got:

Dodd 1:He divides the Book of Signs into 7 episodes and an epilogue; the book of the passion into the discourses and the narrative. You don't mention any of these.

No point. His subdivision of the text is not a 'structure' in the same sense as the O.T. structure I showed. Its a simple list, As both Burgon (the first to observe), and the Modern analysis on "New Directions in Textual Criticism" above showed, there is a wealth of internal evidence for the authenticity of the Pericope. Dodd's outline has little effect on or even meaning in relation to this verdict.

Dodd 2: Dodd writes on page 346: "The Pericope Adulterae, vii. 53- viii.11 in the Textus Receptus, is omitted as being no part of the original text of this Gospel." And this is the only consideration in Interpreation that he gives the story that I know of. With these two points, one can hardly claim that Dodd's breakthrough work can be compared with your confused diagram.

This is disengenious, since Dodd engages in no textual criticism at all, (it being outside his interest) and simply uncritically adopts Westcott and Hort's text. And what is the result? At the one place where Hort wrenches out the Pericope and tries to sew the ends back together, Dodd is at a loss. To be fair to Dodd, lets quote him at more length, for his opinion is not without weight:

"(recent critics[!]) contend that the text of the work a it has ome down to us does not represent its order as designed by the author. The original order is supposed to have suffered some primitive dissarrangement, whether fortuitous or deliberate, which has resulted in inconcinnities and disjunctures...

Many attempts have been made to improve the work by re-arrangement of its material. Som or these have been (as it were) 'canonized' by being adopted in large and important editions of the Fourth Gospel, and in modern translations. [Here he is referring to several independant publications now long forgotten.] I have examined severarl of these re-arrangements, and cannot sufficiently admire the patience and endless ingenuity which have gone to their making. It is of course (scientifically) impossible to deny that the work may have suffered dislocation, [or an omission!] and plausible grounds may be alleged for lifting certain passages out of their setting, where there seems to be some 'prima facie' breach of continuity...

Meanwhile the work lies before us in an order which (apart from insignificant details [and one pericope]) does not vary in the textual tradition, tracable to an early period. I conceive it to be the duty of an interpreter [how he views himself] at least to see what can be done with the document as it has come down to us before attempting to improve upon it...[if only he had taken his own suggestion here to its logical conclusion and used the TR...]

If the attempt to discover any intelligible thread of argument should fail, then we may be compelled to confess that we do not know how the work was originally intended to run. If on the other hand it should appear that the structure of the gospel as we have it has been shaped in most of its details by the ideas which seem to dominate the author's thought, then it would appear not improbable that we have his work before us substantially in the form which he designed."

(The Interpretation of the Fourth Gospel C.H. Dodd pg 289-90 Cambridge Press)

It is interesting to note that Dodd SUCCEEDS in tracing the line of argument throughout the gospel except in ONE place; he is following the 'critical text' omitting our passage, and at this point says:

"Chapters seven and eight bear the appearance of a collection of miscellaneousl material.[!!!] It consists of a series of controversial dialogues [a theme common to John8:1-11!], often without clearly apparent connection..." (Op Cit.pg 345)

Although we can only speculate what would have happened had Dodd been using the traditional text including the passage at this point, it is apparent at least that the gospel minus the passage has a serious flaw.

Dodd is essentially right in his division of the gospel into three parts, a prologue, the 'Book of Signs', and the 'Book of the Passion'. This could have been achieved by any high school student. So you are correct in saying that one can hardly claim that Dodd's "breakthrough work" can be compared with my (confused) diagram....

First of all, you are not being very honest with Dodd's work. That chart isn't his, it is yours.

"doh!..."
I never claimed it was his; of course its mine, and it clearly acknowledges his contribution with a footnote.
This is a true red herring, since no one would normally be confused on this point.

I'd like to comment on this idea. Specifically for John, but also for the rest of the Gospel genre, "dialogue" is not all that well preserved. In John it is quite obvious that he has not attempted to copy anyone else's style. Jesus' style in John is nothing like the Synoptics, and every single one of his speeches follows the same style. The pharisees talk the same way in every instance despite them being different people. So also the disciples. I don't think one needs to worry about the preservation of style in such a unique gospel (as you put it).

I have to agree with you here. If there is any case to be made for a narrator influencing the dialogue (We'll skip Luke's 'speeches' in Acts as a special rhetorical case) it is probably in the Gospel of John. Nonetheless, the subject matter and content ultimately rules, for both vocabulary and style, all things considered.

Grammatical absurdity? The whole point is the unjohannine vocabulary. I think you should think about John 2:17, 6:31,45; 8:17; 10:34; 12:14,16; 15:25; 19:19,20; 20:30,31. These are all perfect participial and indicative forms of the verb, all having to do with the Law. On the other hand, entellomai in John is used only for commands between God and Jesus (14:31) and Jesus and Men (15:14,17). The usage in the pericope adultere is entirely out of line with John's diction.

Again, John's diction may strongly influence in many places, but it can never rule. And again, we are looking at items that are serious variants in the textual tradition of the Pericope. A clear methodological no-no.

It is no more fanciful than "in the law Moses commanded us" -- I don't see what is strange? You're just grasping for straws.

Again, the problem is in failing to make an important distinction: Even if John is the first 'fiction novel' based on a historical character 50 years previous, he is not going to write deliberately implausible statements. But if he IS going to stylize, as you say he has for the crowd, the Pharisees, and just about every other character, why not here? We don't need to expect that the dialogues in the pericope be 'realistic' in the modern acting sense, only 'believable' in the essence of their meaning. No one thinks Josephus' character speechs are verbatum either, but they adequately portray the attitudes and issues of the day.

Your attacks on Davidson are basically wrong so far -- probably because you didn't understand the complexity of what he has written. For example, you put Davidson's "conjectures" together, and say that the grammar is absurd. But in fact you've entirely missed the point -- the point is that HAD John written the story, it would have used entirely different diction and grammar.

No, it seems you are the one that has entirely missed the point. In order for Davidson's bag of random conjectures to have any cumulative weight as a single unified case, the case has to be self-consistent. The examples can't be mutually exclusive. He should have dropped the inessential and self-contradictory alternatives, and stuck with a simpler coherent case. Don't blame me because Davidson didn't edit his own work properly, or tried to swell the case up with extra 'examples' that don't stand up to the light.

This could have been a good point if it were true. But you are oversimplifying. Again, you say that because there is a variant for επορευθησαν (απηλθε..) in 7:53 via Von Soden's μ6 (looks like a single text... and not the μ6 family) then Davidson's point is incorrect? Hardly! First of all, the rest of the phrase is not accounted for: John would use ιδια, rather than the more Semitic εχαστος-construction. According to Von Soden's collation that you posted, there is no support from μ6 for απηλθεν as a variant in 8:1. In short, I am finding your evidence severely lacking as I examine your "examples."

Again, you are falling back into the same old fallacy. The external evidence has little to do with the authenticity of the passage, or even the authenticity of any variant in it. These accidents all took place in the hundred years after the existance of the passage in the textual stream, or even far beyond that.

These variants reflect the opinions of scribes and editors far more than they reflect anything about John, and those are the opinions you have already rejected. Even the combined testimony and critical assessment of Jerome, Ambrose and Augustine, you are choosing to ignore in rejecting the passage. Why be concerned now, with the opinion of an anonymous 'scribe' of the 5th or 6th century?

John would use ιδια, No, I'm afraid he wouldn't. He would not use a term reserved exclusively for a group of people, when he needs a phrase that describes a place.

Possibly. But what Davidson is getting at is a little more than this. It happens to be John's special use of the Dative and Accusative. For example, προς τον θεον in John 1:1. Semantically, there is absolutely no difference between using the Dative and Accusative here -- you say that the point is "special vocabulary" for a "special" situation -- but this in fact does not make sense because we are dealing with synonymous vocabulary. So, your only option that I can see is to chalk it up to purely "stylistic variation." Excluding John 8, there are only 4 examples of the use of μεσον in John in the critical texts (8:59 has δια μεσου in the Majority, I believe). In 1:26, μεσος is used substantivally so it cannot be evaluated as pertaining to John 8. Similarly is 19:18, which places much stress on the fact that Jesus is in the middle: μεσον δε τον Ιησουν. 20:19 and 20:26, however, both have the phrase εις το μεσον and is used without a posessive pronoun, and only with εστη before it. Considering that what is meant in both sections is the exact same thing, since the phrases are synonymous and the contexts are nearly the same, there is little reason to reject Davidson's observation.

Again, your view of how to go about the analysis is incredible for being so myopic. The essential point is to identify the type of section you are dealing with first. For instance the Prologue of John is hardly original, although heavily edited. Almost all hands agree it is either an earlier poem, probably translational Greek of semitic origin, and taken from a central document of worship in the Johannine community (see Raymond Brown, whom you admire). Good luck sorting out exactly what is John's 'normal' style from his (or someone else's) translational semitic Greek style in chapter 1.

This eclectic 'variant by variant' approach is so blind and ultimately doomed to failure, it is hard to even express the depth of the folly of it.