Previously Unconsidered Evidence for John 8:1-11

[Nazaroo]

Now that we know *what* might have been added to John, and *why*, we can next examine the question of "how*. For herein is the key to TWO puzzles:

(1) Why the addition of chapter 21 was accepted.

(2) Why there is no external evidence of the 1st version without chapter 21.

How the 'Redaction/Re-editon' was carried out.

The first thing to note in this is that as far as we can tell, the first 20 chapters of John were not edited at all. The only interest the editors had that we know of, was updating the gospel to reflect the new (well earned) status and reputation of Peter, and unify the churches under one central authority by including the Johannine community and all the Christians who accepted the Gospel of John already.

Obviously the only (and in hindsight clearly successful) way of integrating the followers of John's Gospel was to accept the gospel they were using itself, virtually UNEDITED, and keep all the new supplimental material to the appendix. In this way, those who held the Gospel in high authority could accept the new edition, and the editors could integrate the new material.

And when we examine the 21st chapter, this respect for the Word of God is plainly reflected in the following account of the rumour that the 'beloved disciple' would not die. As is clearly typical of John (the pattern of 1. statement, 2. misunderstanding, 3. clarification), we see the familiar method of handling Jesus' words in 21:23.

The 'misunderstanding' takes the typical form of inept or hostile listeners misquoting and/or interpreting Jesus' words too literally (e.g. Nicodemus and the Samaritan woman).

The 'clarification' also takes the typical form (and this is the most important point) by simply quoting an EXACT REPETITION of Jesus' remarks (compare 8:51vs 8:52). This method clearly reflects a very high concern for ACCURACY and exactness in quoting the words of Jesus.

This point cannot be overemphasized, for it gives us direct insight into the viewpoint and controls operating on the 'editors'. Their high view of Jesus' teachings as Holy Scripture demanded careful and accurate handling of His words.

While their task might have appeared simpler had they just gone in and edited John to 'improve' Peter's standing in the Gospel, this was carefully avoided. This can only be because they were constrained not to tamper with Holy Scripture.

And in any case, had they chosen to try to do so, history would no doubt have unfolded differently. Their 'tampered' gospel would have been rejected by those already in possession of John, and schism rather than unity would have resulted.

In fact, had that happened, we would probably have plenty of copies extant of both versions of the Gospel: Those with 'improvements' to Peter's image, and those without them. And both versions would have no chapter 21.

By doing the 'right thing', keeping their new material to an appendix, all parties were able to embrace the new edition and quickly replace the old one lacking the last chapter.



The New Kicker:

This removes any credibility from the suggestion of an 'insertion' (or omission) of the Pericope de Adultera during this editing process. The people responsible for the '2nd edition' of John with the new chapter would not have dared to add anything to the first 20 chapters, since that would jeopardize their whole project!


The material in the Pericope de Adultera simply could not have been thought more important than the material in John 21, or worth risking schism for. If it actually had been, then there would likely have been some material incorporated into the 21st chapter reinforcing and supporting the addition!

As it stands, the Pericope de Adultera has no known connection to John 21, (in either direction), and its insertion or omission cannot be associated with the addition of the 21st chapter.

Three Conclusions:

(1) Although there is plenty of internal evidence for an addition of an appendix, there is no internal evidence for the addition (or omission) of the Pericope de Adultera at this time.

(2) The lack of any other internal evidence connecting the Pericope de Adultera to chapter 21 speaks strongly against any relationship between the two cases.

(3) There is no evidence that the 're-issuers' of John + 21 would have dared to tamper with the text, and plenty of reason to believe they would not have dared.

 

[Nazaroo]

The 21st chapter of John tells us volumes about how early copyists and Christian leaders revered and cared for Holy Scripture, including John's Gospel. By their own inadvertant handling of Jesus' words in chapter 21, we know they were deeply concerned to reproduce the word of God, and especially the words of Jesus accurately.

The deep insight that the plain example of their work gives into their care of the first 20 chapters makes us conclude that the early editors did not dare 'add to or take away from' the Holy scriptures already entrusted to them. Instead they repeated the Gospel of John verbatum as it was delivered to them, and appended their new material at the end.

Even when critical crises arose that demanded supplimenting and updating the gospels, and even when more heavy-handed editing methods could have served their needs better, they held back the urge to tamper.


When we combine this knowledge with the O.T. Quotation structure we previously described, a new importance to its extension arises. The O.T. Quotation Structure does *NOT* involve the 21st chapter, and is most likely original to the edition of John without that final chapter. Its features end in chapter 20.

The only version we know about that has had chapter 21 added is the one that already contains the internal evidence for inclusion of the passage (John 8:1-11). And there is no other version of John in existance that does *not* have chapter 21 added. The Pericope and the internal structure must have been in existance before chapter 21 was added.


This means that chapter 21 becomes strong evidence for the inclusion of the Pericope de Adultera in the very first edition of John, since the addition of chapter 21 is the earliest layer of 'editing' that we have physical access to and plain evidence of.

And this addition of the 21st chapter obviously must have taken place long before the earliest copies of John in our possession were made.

This sets back the inclusion (or omission) of the Pericope to the 1st or early 2nd century.

 

[Nazaroo]

We are now in a tentative position to sketch the early (pre)textual history of John's Gospel.

The original version of John was composed very early, probably before the 60's (60 A.D.), out of eyewitness accounts while many hundreds of the first followers of Jesus (Acts 1:21) were still alive and huddled in small communities.

This was also a time when the conflicts between Jesus and the Judaeans were fresh and still active, and a time when there were still many followers of John the Baptist who had not been absorbed into the new Christian movement.

Later, once James had been killed, the temple burned down (70 A.D.) and Peter had risen to a position of central leadership of the early church from Rome (50s -70s), and John had actually finally died (John 21), the last chapter was added by the Johannine community in cooperation with the Roman Christians.

This brought the Gospel to a final close, around 70 to 90 A.D. The final edition quickly replaced all the prior copies without the 21st chapter, since this was an easy thing to append to any copy.

The Pericope De Adultera however was a part of the very first version of John, and was embedded into it along with all the structure that the first 20 chapters exhibit today, and which were already present before the 21st chapter was finally added.

Later, when the political situation was so volatile that many passages in the Gospels were either withheld from public reading or actually removed from some texts, the Pericope de Adultera was removed from some manuscripts, notably in Alexandria.

The large population and volatile mix of Jews, Romans, Greeks, and native Egyptians was often the scene of riots and gang-style vendettas. Here all the Gospels were carefully edited and read in forms less likely to cause accusations, offence, riots and arrests, and possibly even executions.

This basic scenario is more than enough to account for the textual evidence and tradition as we have actually found it, as well as the internal evidence of the Gospel itself.

 

[Nazaroo]

The following is from Pickering's Online book, the Identity of the New Testament Text II:

[ QUOTE: ]---------------------------
The Stream of Transmission
Now then, what sort of a picture may we expect to find in the surviving witnesses on the assumption that the history of the transmission of the New Testament Text was normal? We may expect a broad spectrum of copies, showing minor differences due to copying mistakes but all reflecting one common tradition. The simultaneous existence of abnormal transmission in the earliest centuries would result in a sprinkling of copies, helter-skelter, outside of that main stream. The picture would look something like Figure C.

The MSS within the cone represent the "normal" transmission. To the left I have plotted some possible representatives of what we might style the "irresponsible" transmission of the text—the copyists produced poor copies through incompetence or carelessness but did not make deliberate changes. To the right I have plotted some possible representatives of what we might style the "fabricated" transmission of the text—the scribes made deliberate changes in the text (for whatever reasons), producing fabricated copies, not true copies. I am well aware that the MSS plotted on the figure above contain both careless and deliberate errors, in different proportions (7Q5,4,8 and P52 are too fragmentary to permit the classification of their errors as deliberate rather than careless), so that any classification such as I attempt here must be relative and gives a distorted picture. Still, I venture to insist that ignorance, carelessness, officiousness and malice all left their mark upon the transmission of the New Testament text, and we must take account of them in any attempt to reconstruct the history of that transmission.



IRRESPONSIBLE NORMAL FABRICATED

O

7Q5,4,8

AD 100 __________P52__P64_____________________

AD 200 ________P66,46,75________________________

AD 300 _______________________________P45____ Diocletian’s campaign

AD 400 __________________________W___B___À__

AD 500 _________________________A__C_______D_

AD 600 ______________________________________

AD 700 ______________________________________

AD 800 ______________________________________

AD 900 _____________________________________ Transliteration process

AD 1000 ______________________________________



Figure C

As the figure suggests, I argue that Diocletian's campaign had a purifying effect upon the stream of transmission. In order to withstand torture rather than give up your MS(S), you would have to be a truly committed believer, the sort of person who would want good copies of the Scriptures. Thus it was probably the more contaminated MSS that were destroyed, in the main, leaving the purer MSS to replenish the earth (please see the section, "Imperial repression of the N.T." in Chapter six).

Another consideration suggests itself—if, as reported, the Diocletian campaign was most fierce and effective in the Byzantine area, the numerical advantage of the "Byzantine" text-type over the "Western" and "Alexandrian" would have been reduced, giving the latter a chance to forge ahead. But it did not happen. The Church, in the main, refused to propagate those forms of the Greek text.

What we find upon consulting the witnesses is just such a picture. We have the Majority Text (Aland), or the Traditional Text (Burgon), dominating the stream of transmission with a few individual witnesses going their idiosyncratic ways. We have already seen that the notion of "text-types" and recensions, as defined and used by Hort and his followers, is gratuitous. Epp's notion of "streams" fares no better. There is just one stream, with a number of small eddies along the edges.[39] When I say the Majority Text dominates the stream, I mean it is represented in about 95% of the MSS.[40]


Actually, such a statement is not altogether satisfactory because it does not allow for the mixture or shifting affinities encountered within individual MSS. A better, though more cumbersome, way to describe the situation would be something like this: 100% of the MSS agree as to, say, 50% of the Text; 99% agree as to another 40%; over 95% agree as to another 4%; over 90% agree as to another 2%; over 80% agree as to another 2%; only for 2% or so of the Text do less than 80% of the MSS agree, and most of those cases occur in Revelation.[41] And the membership of the dissenting group varies from reading to reading. (I will of course be reminded that witnesses are to be weighed, not counted; I will come to that presently, so please bear with me.) Still, with the above reservation, one may reasonably speak of up to 95% of the extant MSS belonging to the Majority text-type.

I see no way of accounting for a 95% (or 90%) domination unless that text goes back to the Autographs. Hort saw the problem and invented a revision. Sturz seems not to have seen the problem. He demonstrates that the "Byzantine text-type" is early and independent of the "Western" and "Alexandrian text-types," and like von Soden, wishes to treat them as three equal witnesses.[42] But if the three "text-types" were equal, how ever could the so-called "Byzantine" gain a 90-95% preponderance?

The argument from statistical probability enters here with a vengeance. Not only do the extant MSS present us with one text form enjoying a 95% majority, but the remaining 5% do not represent a single competing text form. The minority MSS disagree as much (or more) among themselves as they do with the majority. For any two of them to agree so closely as do P75 and B is an oddity. We are not judging, therefore, between two text forms, one representing 95% of the MSS and the other 5%. Rather, we have to judge between 95% and a fraction of 1% (comparing the Majority Text with the P75,B text form for example). Or to take a specific case, in 1 Tim. 3:16 some 600 Greek MSS (besides the Lectionaries) read "God" while only seven read something else. Of those seven, three have private readings and four agree in reading "who."[43] So we have to judge between 99% and 0.6%, "God" versus "who." It is hard to imagine any possible set of circumstances in the transmissional history sufficient to produce the cataclysmic overthrow in statistical probability required by the claim that "who" is the original reading.

It really does seem that those scholars who reject the Majority Text are faced with a serious problem. How is it to be explained if it does not reflect the Original? Hort's notion of a Lucianic revision has been abandoned by most scholars because of the total lack of historical evidence. The eclecticists are not even trying. The "process" view has not been articulated in sufficient detail to permit refutation, but on the face of it that view is flatly contradicted by the argument from statistical probability.[44] How could any amount of "process" bridge the gap between B or Aleph and the TR?

But there is a more basic problem with the process view. Hort saw clearly, and correctly, that the Majority Text must have a common archetype. Recall that Hort's genealogical method was based on community of error. On the hypothesis that the Majority Text is a late and inferior text form, the large mass of common readings which distinguish it from the so-called "Western" or "Alexandrian text-types" must be errors (which was precisely Hort's contention) and such an agreement in error would have to have a common source. The process view fails completely to account for such an agreement in error (on that hypothesis).

Hort saw the need for a common source and posited a Lucianic revision. Scholars now generally recognize that the "Byzantine text-type" must date back at least into the second century. But what chance would the original "Byzantine" document, the archetype, have of gaining currency when appeal to the Autographs was still possible?

Candidly, there is only one reasonable explanation for the Majority Text that has so far been advanced—it is the result of an essentially normal process of transmission and the common source for its consensus is the Autographs. Down through the centuries of copying, the original text has always been reflected with a high degree of accuracy in the manuscript tradition as a whole. The history of the text presented in this chapter not only accounts nicely for the Majority Text, it also accounts for the inconsistent minority of MSS. They are remnants of the abnormal transmission of the text, reflecting ancient aberrant forms. It is a dependence upon such aberrant forms that distinguishes contemporary critical/eclectic editions of the Greek New Testament, and the modern translations based upon them.

[ / QUOTE ]-----------------------------------

There are two basic points pertinent to our question regarding the Pericope de Adultera:

(1) There was a very significant attack on the copies of the New Testament during the Diocletian Campaign, in which thousands of Christians were rounded up, and many manuscripts were destroyed.

(2) It may have had an impact upon the quality of the text afterward, since it may have had an uneven impact upon the actual textual transmission process.

 

[Nazaroo]

I've taken the time to improve Pickering's chart somewhat, to try to illustrate better what he is getting at:

Essentially, if certain lesser quality and more easily obtainable copies were destroyed, this would have a purifying effect upon the transmssion, going a long way toward explaining the predominance of the Byzantine (traditional) text without the requirement of an artificial 'edition/recension' or a 'conspiracy' of early fathers to insert a rather unimportant text (from their viewpoint) into John.

 

[Nazaroo]

Pickering may be criticized on a number of levels:

(1) His classification of the manuscripts into categories of 'irresponsible', 'fabricated', and 'normal' is of course extreme and simplistic to say the least, and Pickering acknowledges the weakness of these three artificial 'groups'.



(2) The argument that there can't be a natural 'process' which first diverges, and then converges to a stable text is at best a weak argument from silence. Both Pickering and his opponents must account for the same set of actual facts, and the facts currently indicate:

a) that the bulk of wild variations in the text occured before the 2nd century, and

b) that the text 'solidified' and stabilized by the 3rd century and remained stable until the advent of printing.




​

(3) Pickering's statistical argument alone does not account for this phenomenon.

a) At best, the statistical argument can only present a case for the 'majority text' as being the most accurate that can be reconstructed from the extant manuscripts. It cannot offer an empirical measure of its purity.

b) The pure statistical argument cannot support a doctrine of 'divine preservation', except in a very limited sense. The copying process is still a 'corrupting' process, that must result in a net loss of information.

c) It is a process which in the natural world must increase in entropy and disorder. This loss eventually must result in the loss of critical information which must degrade the text. The NT (a fixed canon and text) cannot be endlessly copied with losses and remain pure.

d) The reconstruction from 'statistical' data alone can only offer a probability (admittedly good) of reconstructing the best possible text from the data. A statistical argument can never speak absolutely about any single variant, but only derives its authority and certainty when all the variants are taken together.

e) No statistical argument can be produced which will first increase the errors, then decrease them, unless it is a REVERSABLE process. And this is clearly not the case. We are describing a historical process in which information is certainly lost or made inaccessible.




​

(4) The statistical argument cannot adequately handle processes which involve human volition, artificial alterations and limitations upon the natural process. The minute humans inferfere with the 'unconscious', natural, uncontrolled process, it becomes a 'controlled' or 'influenced' one.
The actual mathematical model that might have *some* hope of modeling such an artificial process with multiple competing interests is a GAME THEORY model. And even here, the complexity puts only the most basic aspects of the process within reach of analysis.

This having been said, Pickering's opponents have no case either.

While the facts have forced textual critics to admit that the traditional text (Byzantine/Vulgate) is the result of a long, largely uncontrolled (by humans) process, they have no adequate model to explain the take-over and predominance of an 'inferior' text-type. And here Pickering's argument from statistical probability returns with a fatal vengeance.

There has been (and one probably can't be constructed) no plausible model of how an inferior minority text-type could 'leap the que' and proceed to dominate the transmission stream, without one or more violent catastrophic events taking place.

Catastrophe Theory...

This is why both Pickering and his opponents are forced to hypothesize some kind of catastrophic event in the history of the textual transmission.

Textual Critics need such an 'event' to explain the existance and preponderance of the Byzantine text, if they want to maintain that other competing text-types are more accurate. So they invent the 'Lucian Recension' or some other such artificial catastrophe to 'wipe out' the earlier more accurate texts.

This is necessary because the so-called 'later' Byzantine text-type cannot possibly be explained by or derived from the 'Alexandrian' text-type by any natural process. Thus for textual critics, a 'conspiracy' must have taken place, purging the 'good' manuscripts, although they will never openly admit to these terms, since there is no historical evidence for any 'conspiracy'.

The Textual Critic case has the *APPEARANCE* of reasonableness, because of subtle deception resulting from avoiding Pickering's statistical argument entirely. Of course it will be true that in any process marching through time, the final and most distant copies will be the ones with the most cumulative errors. They are right to insist that this specific argument cannot be overthrown, even by a secondary 'correcting' or mixing process.

But this is not Pickering's argument at all. His argument is that *ALL* the manuscripts taken together can be used to construct a *MAJORITY* text, and that this text has the highest statistical likelihood of being correct, especially if the errors are numerous and significant. And almost no erroneous reading in the last generation of manuscripts will be the MAJORITY reading, even when the process is constantly producing more actual manuscripts in each generation.

A true *Majority* text should collate (or estimate by sampling) all the readings from the manuscripts throughout the history of the transmission process: but the actual sampling for the majority text can be quite incomplete and inaccurate before any realistic counter-argument becomes plausible. Just as in polls, the sample size and quality can be quantified and the error factor can be statistically expressed.

But the statistical argument shows further that even if the sampling process is woefully inadequate, the Majority argument can only be overthrown if the final rounds of manuscripts outstrip all previous production, AND through a large number of unlikely misfortunes (or one BIG misfortune), a MAJORITY of INCORRECT readings are also MAJORITY READINGS.

The fact is, this phenomenon had not occurred by the time movable-type printing and modern paper methods were invented in 15th century, and no known mechanical 'process' could cause this.



Pickering needs a Catastrophe Theory because he needs some process that can actually overcome the statistical accumulation of error, to uphold divine preservation. Pickering has not admitted this either, but has merely pointed out the failure of any 'critical' model to overthrow the statistical argument against it.

It must be understood that Pickering is not really proposing that the Diocletian Persecutions can actually explain the Byzantine text adequately either. He merely shows that such catastrophic events ALSO favour the case for the 'majority text' being the most accurate text.

This leaves BOTH Pickering and the liberal critics without ANY model to explain the phenomenon of the Byzantine text-type. Pickering explains it only on the basis that it simply (statistically) reflects the original text most accurately. This is hardly a historical accounting for the process and all its stages, nor does it explain the true causality (motivating factors) behind why it evolved just as it did.

Both Pickering and liberal critics are without any model of Causality either. While this makes liberal critics look foolish, it is a double-strike against those looking for any kind of 'divine preservation' argument in the field of statistics!

At first, all seems well. Statistics say the majority text will be the most accurate, and God's Providence upholds the 'Statistical Laws' of process. But this simply doesn't do what those arguing for 'divine preservation' want. Lets look at the problem more closely:

(1) Statistics *DOESN'T* say that the text will be endlessly preserved, but that it will decay in a certain direction, in a certain way. In combination with information theory and the Law of Entropy, we have the sad result that the copying process must actually dissipate and convert the fixed information in the New Testament eventually into unusable and unrecoverable 'information', that is loss. According to scientific mathematical and statistical theory then, the New Testament is under the same Law of Decay and Corruption as everything else. This is good news for anti-evolutionists, but bad news for divine-preservationists.

(2) Only a 'RENEWAL' Process, by some kind of re-injection of useable information from outside the copying process, can maintain the purity and amount of information. This is not impossible, any more than it would be impossible for 'entropy' to be defeated locally in an 'open' system. And its good news for divine-preservationists, for it points to a real possible means for the preservation of the text: namely constant renewal from Above!

(3) The 'Statistical' Sciences base their theory upon philosophical presumptions that are wholly unacceptable to Christians. For example, Probability Theory historically began from the seemingly harmless premise that 'random' events follow hidden causal laws which are deterministic, but of which we (as investigators) may simply be ignorant. Thus accumulated 'statistical laws' reflect deeper scientific Laws or causes which are 'hidden'. Objects usually fall downward because of a 'hidden law of gravity'. The statistical probability of an object falling reflects invisible powers and forces.

But modern 'Statistical Physics' etc. goes far beyond this, and attempts to assert that 'statistical' random events are actually FUNDAMENTAL to the universe. Modern Quantum Mechanics is the quintessential example of 'Statistical Laws' taken to such an extreme that causality itself and even objective reality is deeply questioned. Instead of a Creator, a sentient rational God in charge and aware of things, science now offers 'statistics' and 'random' uncontrolled processes, a mindless, unconscious "God of Chance"!

Clearly the Christian must be careful what he is embracing and what he is giving away, when various 'scientific' theories and premises are offered for consideration.

Pickering's statistical arguments cannot be overstated either, nor accepted without a proper exposition of hidden assumptions and axioms.

It should be understood that we are not rejecting Pickering's arguments, nor are we at the moment offering any alternatives beyond the active conscious overseeing and control of the Lord Jesus and God the Father. Yet it is important to spell out the successes and failures of various attempts at textual reconstruction.

 

[Nazaroo]

Well, what does Pickering's debate do for us?

Let's look at what remains:

(1) Both sides (most modern critics and defenders) have conceded a 'process' view of the transmission and copying of the NT manuscripts.

For modern critics, a historical 'process' over time is the only real way to rationally account for the evidence and variants in a scientific manner via a 'natural' (non-supernatural) mechanism.

For Pickering and friends, this is a necessary admission, because it is an essential keypoint in refuting the critic's rejection of the Traditional text as an artificial 'revision' in the 3rd or 4th century (the so-called 'Lucian Recension').

This leaves everyone with the stubborn fact of the probable origin of the Traditional (Byzantine) text prior to 200 A.D., earlier than the earliest existing manuscripts.

If one still believes in 'text-types' the Byzantine must be given at least equal weight alongside other text-types.

If one believes in statistical probabilities, the traditional text again has its credibility restored.

(2) But the 'process' view only has weight in considering those parts of the process that can be truly called 'uncontrolled' or unguided, that is, accidental errors.

This 'uncontrolled process' view only then applies to about one third of the significant variants! That's about the number that can be plausibly and convincingly classed as 'accidents'.

What about the deliberate changes? Taken together, and obviously since they were not all perpetrated at the same time and place, they too can be called a 'process'.

However this 'process' is not one that can always be guaranteed to follow statistical principles, because 'deliberate' changes can be artificially imposed on a majority of manuscripts, and so individual readings can be given artificial 'majorities' in a sweeping revision of a short duration.

Let's talk about potential 'special cases' like these for a moment:

(3) Individual deliberate variants however, cannot be explained by the 'process' model, except as a shorter 'mini-process' within the main transmission process, that is, a 'catastrophe'.

For instance, the omission or insertion of the Pericope de Adultera cannot be explained as part of an 'uncontrolled', unguided process. It is certainly no accident. It is a deliberate act materializing out of a deliberate decision or council.

Only in its subsequent spread or completion, or 'revival' could such an act be viewed as a natural, uncontrolled, accidental 'process'.



When considering individual deliberate variants, we have to ask,

a) Is this variant important enough to have been imposed on its own?, or

b) Can it be taken with a large group of variants that collectively could hold some unified doctrinal or political importance?

​

Only in these two cases, could a plausible argument be made that a 'majority' reading was actually an artificial alteration. That is, only if the reading was highly important, or if it incidentally was part of a larger agenda that had the equivalent importance, could we expect a powerful and motivated alteration to have overcome the normal reading.

 

[Nazaroo]

Surprisingly, the debate between Pickering and his opponents reveals two ironies:

(1) The statistical process model has nothing to say for the critic's claim that the pericope was inserted. It simply could not have been inserted accidentally by any stretch of the imagination, nor could it have been accepted unchallenged. It is simply too large and controversial passage to have just 'popped in' or been accidentally 'dropped'.

Only two basic alternatives are available for those who insist it is an insertion are these:

a) It was an 'official' insertion imposed from above by the ecclesiastical authorities, carried out largely unopposed, or

b) It was a successful 'grassroots' rebellion of scribes, imposing the change directly upon the manuscript base.
​

Both of these options have huge problems regarding credibility, not the least being just "when" this is supposed to have taken place!

(2) Pickering's statistical arguments for the Majority Text have little to say regarding the insertion/deletion, since here again forces are at work which would drastically alter the probabilities based upon 'accidents'.

The application of such arguments in the large should also be applicable in the small:

a) Why isn't the Pericope found in the Majority of Alexandrian manuscripts?

b) Why isn't the Pericope found in the Majority of important versions?

c) Why isn't the Pericope found in the Majority of Lections?
​

Obviously Pickering's statistical argument is asking the wrong questions here.

Only an investigation of the actual historical circumstances and political/ideological controversies of the day can hope to explain the mess we have in the manuscript tradition.

This is not really a 'textual' problem at all, but a political one!

 

[Nazaroo]

The Statistical Argument alone cannot 'explain' the manuscript evidence concerning the Pericope de Adultera.

But intelligently applied and combined with suitable historical factors it can be a valid part of the big picture. Let's see how that could materialize:

(1) It should be observed that the statistical argument has nothing to say about *WHEN* an attempt to insert or omit a passage has taken place. It can only speak about the consequences of that timing.


(2) There are really only two basic models available in our case. Either,

a) The Pericope was INSERTED into the stream, or

b) The Pericope was DELETED from mss in the stream.

​

(3) Logic says that in either case, for the evidence to be present in early manuscripts the action has to be early.

(4) The Statistical Argument says that for the reading to gain dominance, near equality, or even a significant minority, it must take place at the very beginning of the copying process. The earlier the entrance, the higher the possibility for a significant minority of mss support.


(5) From all of the above, we know that regardless of whether the case was one of insertion or deletion, it must have taken place VERY EARLY.

a) If the variant is an INSERTION, then barring a catastrophe bordering on a complete hijacking of the transmission stream, then it must have occurred virtually at the source, in the first few copies of John's Gospel. How else could it become the dominant majority reading?

b) If the variant is a DELETION, then it also must have occurred incredibly early, since the omission is found in the earliest mss, and affected a significant number (majority?) of 4th and 5th century mss also.

​

Thus in either case, the evidence is extremely strong for a very EARLY edit, earlier than the earliest manuscripts!

(6) Yet the Statistical argument, barring some unusual event, favours one possibility over the other, namely it makes an OMISSION more likely, based upon the majority outcome.

(7) That this omission was deliberate is based upon the nature of the variant, not any statistical question.

(8) Further corroborative evidence is furnished in the fact that the documents from the first 'outbreak' (P66, P75) are plainly already deliberately 'edited' elsewhere in their texts.

(9) The second group of evidence, namely Codex Vaticanus and Sinaiticus, also corroborate the likelihood of an OMISSION, since at least Vaticanus shows knowledge of the alternate readings, and was plainly edited and annotated, and...

(10) The only evidence of an official 'revision/recension' falls under Constantine and Eusebius (who is already conceded to have ressurrected the 'edited' LXX text of Origen of Alexandria), and these characters are the very sources suspected of creating Vaticanus and Sinaiticus.

(11) Thus it appears on good evidence that there were 'two' early outbreaks of omission, one in the 2nd century in Egypt, and one in the 4th century in Rome, largely drawing upon the first!

(12) This was followed by a recovery period, again establishing the dominance of the 'majority' reading (inclusion of the pericope), which happened inevitably from the statistical point of view as a largely uncontrolled (although probably conscious) grassroots process.

(13) Finally, a much later an more uncontrolled 3rd outbreak of omission in the 10th century spread across Byzantium, probably seeded by the 2nd outbreak and characterized mostly by confusion and re-correction, as documented by Von Soden.

(14) This last outbreak produced the 'quirky' manuscripts, influenced by corruption of the stream of transmission via the Lectionary texts. Here we find the passage inserted in Luke in Family 13, and also omitted and reinserted in various forms repeatedly, causing errors in extent and placement of the passage.

In summary, we have three basic outbreaks of omission, beginning with the Egyptian Lectionary editing process, continuing with the attempt to revive the Alexandrian text, and ending with a 'grassroots' attempt by scribes (largely on their own and clearly confused,) to correct the text from older manuscripts.

Q.E.D.

 

[Nazaroo]

We can now sketch a rough picture of what likely happened:

We can see that the omission must have occurred very early in the history of transmission, but not so early that it was able to win the dominance over the entire stream, even with powerful backing from official 'authorities'.

 

[Nazaroo]

We have accounted for what generally must have happened. Now we have to account for WHY. Because we still have not provided an explanation for the original omission of the Pericope.

And the answer has been before us all along: The Lectionary Tradition. First the Gospels, and then the whole New Testament, was divided up into 'pericopes', small independant sections, that could be read publicly at short Christian services, much after the model of the original synagogue.

But this process was not instant or complete, and it was not a completely 'natural' or unconsicuous process either. It was however brought in by the Christian leadership, and therefore can be viewed as being 'imposed' from above by religious authority. That is, the scriptures were slightly modifed in their form for liturgical purposes.

This may have begun simply as marginal markings, indicating the beginning and ending of each reading or 'Lesson'. Gradually, such notes caused changes in the way some manuscripts were actually copied or manufactured, namely, broken into pieces, and with small changes in the text at the junction points, to make the units more independant and smooth to read as stand-alone sections.

In doing this the church was guided by its liturgical needs for organized worship services. It was not an 'attack' upon the scriptures, but an application of them to the requirements of the day.

Obviously, the early forms and practices would be more modest and less easy to distinguish from an 'ordinary' copy of the Gospels made for private reading, or for accurate reproduction.

And it is likely that these early 'Lectionary' texts were actually copied more frequently than normal copies, because they would see heavy use and be worn out more quickly. This also accounts for the fact that there actually are relatively 'plenty' primitive Lectionary-type texts, but few (none?) extant early copies of normal gospels.

Only one or two master copies would be needed to be used as exemplars for continued reproduction, and one master copy might last 400 years or more, before it needed replacing with a carefully executed newer copy.

In the early days, there would naturally be some confusion between 'Lectionary texts' prepared and edited for public reading, and 'real' copies of the Gospels. This would also cause some 'back-mixture' into the main manuscript transmission stream.

What we are looking at in the extant papyrii and early uncials is actually the 'Fracture Line' between the two independant streams of transmission, the Lectionary stream, and the actual Gospel stream, as they grew distinct and became more fully separated.

The Lectionary stream itself, being used in organized public services would be the 'preferred' text of the religious hierarchy, and would naturally have an tendency to intrude even into the normal transmission stream. This is why nearly all the 'Great Bibles', the uncials of the 4th and 5th centuries actually copy early Lectionary texts. They were intended for public worship and readings, and would be used by the religious hierarchy in large church services. No doubt bishops would even prefer these texts to the more accurate copies of the Gospels, because they were suited to their purpose and more familiar as well as useful.

 

[Nazaroo]

As it happens, the Lectionary tradition is the part of the process of transmission which underwent (and still undergoes) the most alteration and corruption.

And this is of necessity by the nature of the case. The Lectionary tradition was the invention of the church heirarchy, modeled after the early synagogue worship and meant to replace it immediately after the Christians were permanently banned from the Jewish synagogues and religious community.

The early fathers and leaders broke up the New Testament into pieces, tidied up the beginnings and endings, and set in place systems of readings based upon yearly (and longer) cycles.

In this innovation there was both good and bad side-effects. On the one hand, they helped to entrench the New Testament Canon and even large portions of the text, by forcing all participating Christians to hear the entire corpus of Holy Scripture.

On the other hand, the early and hap-hazard editing process, while making the texts more suitable to public reading, necessarily mutilated the text and moved the 'official' Lectionary texts further and further away from the original autographs. And worse, they also created the raw material and the mechanism for a 'backwash' or reverse influence of corruption back into the normal stream of copying for ordinary Gospel manuscripts.

The problems this process caused were only properly noted and corrected *after the fact*, once it became clear what was going on and how the real copies were being polluted. This is the main reason why all the significant (deliberate) variants are 'early', originating before the 2nd or 3rd centuries.

The solution of the early fathers was to preserve and stabilize the Lectionary text, tradition, and stream of transmission as completely separate tasks and process, and put in place restraints to prevent it from leaking back into normal manuscripts.

The omission of the Pericope de Adultera and other useful 'innovations' were finally contained to the Lectionary side of the chart, the part of the Genealogical tree which was wholly artificial and created by the church authorities.

The grassroots copies of the Gospels continued to multiply and thrive in relative purity and outside of official religious control, with the result now well-known:

The grassroots (Byzantine) text, maintained a strongly homogenous 'text-type', but with variants mostly of an accidental type and rarely duplicated beyond a generation or two for any given variant. The manuscripts themselves, due to wear and destruction, remain a multitude of independant witnesses, which cannot be 'reconstructed' into a genealogical tree, unless we simply draw a wide, furry bush.

...

Today, if we seriously want to reconstruct the original autographs, we have to recognize the artificial nature of the Lectionary stream and process, and also that it is the main culprit in the creation and infusion of variant readings.

Once this is acknowledged, we can see that it is rather simple to restore virtually 99% of the original text. It has been with us all along in the readings of the majority of grassroots (non-Lectionary influenced) manuscripts.

 

[Nazaroo]

We have now filled out the picture about as much as we can with the current state of the evidence and the known historical factors.​

In hindsight it is obvious that protestant scholars were right in insisting that certain manuscripts were 'corrupted' by the religious hierarchy, and hence unreliable as witnesses to the original text of the New Testament. ​

Nonetheless these manuscripts were not 'heretical' documents per se, or even deliberate 'attacks' upon the Gospel or 'true Christianity'. Instead they are more reasonably and appropriately explained as the actions of those trying to standardize and legitamize the form of Christian worship and perhaps also some doctrine. ​

Although the motivations of the early church fathers and the religious heirarchy were 'honest' and 'true' as far as it goes, the process by which they created the Lectionary and Public Service tradition inevitably 'altered' at least the form and sometimes the content of the Gospels and perhaps also the Epistles.​

Yet the result of these minor 'corruptions' of the text are far less serious in extent than extreme protestant scholarship would imply.​

As both Catholic and Protestant scholars have noted, the text formed by using the 'worst' manuscripts hardly falls far from the tree. Even extreme combinations of 'Lectionary text' and scribal error, such as the UBS or Nestle-Aland 'critical Greek texts' results in a text that is still 'usable' by Christians for evangelism and most doctrinal instruction. ​

Just as important is how the texts are actually translated, and ultimately may be more significant than actual Greek text or readings chosen as a base. ​

However, questions of translation are beyond the scope of this thread.​

We have arrived a reasonable picture of the true history of these verses (John 7:53-8:11) by the accumulation of facts from many aspects of the problem. ​

We are strongly assured that the verses were an original part of John's Gospel as we essentially have it. Because of this, it clearly belongs in any edition of John's Gospel purporting to represent the text of the 1st or 2nd century, and meant for use by Christian students and scholars. Leaving out the verses or allocating them to 'footnotes' with terse dismissive remarks is simply bad scholarship, and hurtful to the cause of evangelism.​

If scholars want to reconstruct the 'archtype of the Alexandrian recension', or the 'Lectionary text of the 2nd century', then by all means let them omit John 8:1-11 from their critical 'text'. But let us not pretend that this has any real bearing upon the reading of the original final edition of John as it left the hands of the Johannine community. That version clearly had the verses.​

Nor have our findings denied that John's Gospel may have used previous eye-witness accounts, or even 'proto-John' sermons written by the Evangelist or his followers. ​

The point is, all we can do at the moment is reconstruct the best possible version of the final edition that the Evangelist and his community entrusted to the church's hands, for the blessing of Christians everywhere. And that version, according to all the evidence we can access, should include the Pericope de Adultera.​

Yet the Lectionary tradition and text is by no means useless in the process of reconstructing the original text. In fact, by carefully characterizing the nature and specific details of the Lectionary text and process, we can identify alterations that were made, and 'reverse engineer' the text to an incredibly fine degree of accuracy. ​

We will in fact do this, in the next thread, "Reconstructing the Text of John 8:1-11"
http://www.christianforums.com/t3154125-reconstructing-the-text-of-john-81-11.html​

 

[Nazaroo]

I have placed the discussion on Bultmann's reconstruction of John's Gospel into an html file.

You can download it here:
Bultmann's erroneous nonsense

 

[Nazaroo]

Lets take one more look at this genealogical outline:

The Blue side (on left) represents the official 'church' Lectionary tradition. It is this side in which most of the 'editing' has taken place, and it is here that most of the edits done by 'church authorities' and ecclesiastical leaders took place.

Thus we know where the editing was done and we know who did the editing. We also know why (for the most part) they edited the Gospels: To prepare them for use in public worship services.

The other side, (on the right) represents the grassroots direct copying of the original Gospel texts. This side largely escaped any editing process at all, and the variants found here are much less severe and for the most part are accidental omissions, caused by fatigue, not malice. Only occasionally do we find the odd scribal 'gloss' has crept into a manuscript from the margin, or a minor correction or edit being made from some other exemplar or tradition.

Dissappointingly, it is the early church fathers themselves who are mostly to blame for the bulk of the variants. This largely came about as a result of sermonizing and public reading, but in some cases also a rather free handling of the text in the form of paraphrase for emphasis.

But no real 'conspiracy' has been found. Or rather, mostly the conspiracy of stupidity. Error and misplaced zeal explains the bulk of the problems with the NT text, and the Pericope de Adultera is no real exception to this process.

The text is 99% safe, although at various times and in various small circles, there have been errors and misunderstandings regarding the true original readings.

 

[Nazaroo]

To see in more detail the interaction between the Lectionary text and the grassroots Gospel text, look through our thread on Reconstructing the text of John 8:1-11 here:

http://www.christianforums.com/t3154125-reconstructing-the-text-of-john-81-11.html

 

[Nazaroo]

"The Lord is with us: Who can stand against us?

 

[Nazaroo]

I have rewritten the first post in this thread, so that anyone can quickly see what can be found here, and get to the portions of interest quickly!

Just go to the first message of the thread and see what we have managed to cover here!

Nazaroo

 

[Nazaroo]

In 1880, Hort found it 'implausible' that the reasons given by Augustine and Ambrose could have explained the omission of the Pericope de Adultera.

Metzger simply followed in the footsteps of his idol, questioning the reality of the explanation given by the early fathers.

Now, almost out of nowhere, from subsequent study of the Dead Sea Scrolls, comes a resounding trumpet actually confirming Augustine's 'conjectural' complaint:

I will quote the following article from the Biblical Archaeological Review:

Beware the Wiles of the Wanton Woman
Dead Sea Scroll Fragment Reflects Essene fear of,
and contempt for, Women
by Magen Broshi​

"...one of the fragments from Cave 4 is known as the 'Wiles of the Wanton Woman' and reflects the Essene fear of, as well as contempt for, women. The text is ...remarkably similar to Proverbs; indeed the fragment was apparently modelled after chs 5 -7 of Proverbs.

"the Cave 4 fragment is a warning against falling into the traps of the seductive woman. It reads in part as follows:

'...She lies in wait in secret places
At every corner she will sit.
In the city's squares she displays herself,
and there is none to stop her from [whoring].
Her eyes glance hither and thither,
and she wantonly raises her eyelids
to seek out a righteous man and lead him astray
and a perfect man to make him stumble...'
​

Some scholars regard the poem as an allegory, but they do not agree upon what or whom this woman personifies. Is she Rome? Or the adversaries of the Essene sect? or Perhaps Folly herself?

It seems far more plausible to conclude that what have here is simply a strongly worded exhortation to beware of the seductive wanton woman.

The DSS sect's attitude is described by some as misogynic - characterized by hatred of women. But it is also accurate to describe it as gynephobic - that is, characterized by fear of women. Gynephobia was, I believe, the source of the sect's extreme purity, its harsh matrimonial laws and the monastic, celibate nature of the Qumran community where the most extreme adherents of the sect spent their lives.

The author of Proverbs indeed regards the danger as a grave one (Prov.7:9-13), but the danger that confronts the seduced young man is mainly practical.

If he succumbs,"strangers will be filled with your wealth" (Prov.5:10); "he will meet with disease and disgrace" (6:33). And then of course ther is the jealous husband who "will not show pity on his day of vengeance" (6:34). In short, the foolish young man may be harmed financially, socially, and corporeally.

...Somewhat before the Qumran poem was composed, in about 170 B.C., Ben Sirach wrote: he was a typical scion of the Jerusalem bourgeoisie, and plainly a male chauvinist:

'From the garment issues the moth;
and from a woman, a woman's wickedness.
Better the wickedness of a man than the goodness of a woman!' (42:13-14)
​

Sirach also has a number of other things to say about the wanton woman (26:11-12). ...
Yet even his views about good women would hardly find favour with modern women, and rightly so: For example he tells us that,

'A SILENT woman is a gift from the Lord.' (26:14)
​

[yet?] Sirach also appreciates the beauty of women (7:19, 26:16-18).

By contrast, the Dead Sea sect had nothing good to say in praise of women. They only had a rather poor opinion of the opposite sex. Josephus gives this view of the Essenes' attitude toward marriage. (And...the celibate DSS community was the extreme faction...).

'Not that they wish to do away with marriage as a means of continuing the 'race', but they are afraid of the promiscuity of women and convinced that none of the sex remains faithful to one man.' (War II 120f)
​

This is a typical misogynic attitude, but equally important was their gynephobia. To the Essene, "flesh" denoted human nature at its basest, whatever was contemptable in man. And female flesh was more so.

Certain metaphors recur frequently in the Dead Sea Scrolls, indicating Essene abhorrence of sexuality. Sometimes the full impact is lost in the translation. For example, in one xlation...man is described as "a creature of clay, kneaded in water, a fundament of shame and a source of pollution" (1,21-22). Actually, the word ervah, translated as "shame", is really "pudenda", and nidah, translated as "pollution", is really "menstruation". These terms occur dozens of times in the scrolls.

Some scholars believe that certain verses in Paul's letter to the Romans reflect a distinction between spirit and flesh in which Paul scorns the flesh. Others find in his first letter to the Corinthians an uncomplimentary attitude toward women and marriage. The source of these attitudes my perhaps be found in a stream of thought of which our Essene fragment is a tributary. ..."

(BAR July/Aug 1983)

The significance of this fragment and its support of both Josephus regarding Qumran & the Essenes, and later Augustine discussing prudish attitudes among Jews and Christians should be obvious to those trying to understand what the early fathers were dealing with in terms of the cultural baggage that converts, both Jew and Gentile brought with them into Christian circles.

The same misogynist attitudes are well documented in Egyptian (Alexandrian) societies with large Jewish populations and where many of the papyrii that exclude the passage (John 7:53-8:11) were produced.

 

[Nazaroo]

Refering back to the original title of this thread, I would like to place another whole line of evidence before the reader, in the form of a teaser.

The reason I do this, is because this line of evidence will require new researchers, and is a broad new area of inquiry which has hardly been tapped at all.

But one lead for investigators is the following, culled from a biblical studies magazine which I have since lost the reference for:

.

The text accompanying this lovely but enigmatic tidbit is as follows:

"Singing by Symbols:

Byzantine hymns were composed according to a system of signs,(!) as illustrated in a famous 12th century manuscript (above). These signs,drawn above the Greek words, give the intervals, rhythms and accents to follow from a starting note - in this case the modern note "a" - determined by a "signature" preceding the hymn (light-ray figures at upper right of manuscript). The symbols, or neumes, are shown with modern transcription; som are translated at bottom."

The startling thing about the example shown here is that it obviously refers to the "woman taken in many sins", an expression which is itself famous because it represents possibly the earliest explicit reference to the Pericope de Adultera known, in the writings of the early church fathers!

Thus we see a remarkable piece of VERY early NT 'lore' found oddly placed in the middle of a hymn of unknown age, (but obviously very old!).

The significance is deep: The study of early church music is an obscure and little known area of music research. Yet obviously, it could have a great impact upon the dating and classification of TEXTUAL VARIANTS!

One of the problems with Textual Criticism as it has been practiced in the past, is that very little evidence has been even allowed into the arena. Virtually all other kinds of evidence has been ignored or dismissed as 'subjective' by textual critics in favour of 'hard evidence' in the form of actual manuscript readings.

This however is a very unscientific procedure in itself. If modern court proceedings were to eliminate the bulk of available circumstantial and other evidence in favour of a single 'type' or category of evidence, there would be virtually no convictions, and courts would be simply an exercise in 'hypotheticals'. While all kinds of evidence may be suspect, or require independant substantiation, and investigative methods and judicial procedures are hardly error-free, it would be a step backward to attempt to artificially limit beforehand what evidence is to be allowed.

Such extreme attempts in court systems have proven to be more often attempts at influencing the outcome of trials than attempts at increasing the scientific rigour of the investigation. All evidence, like all accused persons, must be given the benefit of the doubt, and a day in court for consideration.

The case is no different here: If textual criticism is going to escape the embarrassing errors of the past, new methods and new avenues of investigation into the history of the text must be opened.

QED