The Problem of John 7:53-8:11

I mentioned a couple of weeks ago that I will not be preaching on John 7:53-8:11, the story about the adulterous woman. The reason I will not preach these verses is that I do not believe that they were written by the Apostle John and therefore are not part of his Gospel. This means that this passage is not inspired, infallible, inerrant and authoritative Scripture and should not be preached or taught as God’s Word. I do not take this decision lightly. For to make a mistake either way -- preach it or not preach it -- is to make a decision about what God’s intentions are in allowing John to write his Gospel under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit.

So please allow me to explain why I do not believe John 7:53-8:11 should be a part of Christian Scripture. [We won't be reaching this section of John for a couple of weeks but thought I would publish these remarks early to give you some time to mull them over.]

To do this I must delve into what is called textual criticism. In short, as it applies to the New Testament, textual critics engage in the study of the legion of ancient texts so as to determine the singular definitive text of Holy Scripture which the Christian can call inspired and from which they should gain their divine direction for faith and practice.

I will try to keep my explanation as simple and understandable as possible.

If you look in your Bible you will notice a heading of some kind prior to 7:53 that reads something like this, “The earliest manuscripts do not include 7:53-8:11.” Let me provide some background to this statement so that we can all understand what this means for these verses (You will also notice this heading before the long ending of the Gospel of Mark). This will be a VERY simplified explanation so stay with me. We must begin with what may be for some a disconcerting fact – we do not possess any original manuscripts of any book of the Bible. This means that we do not have any manuscript of any book of the Bible as it was penned by the original author be it Moses, Isaiah, Paul or Peter. When we direct our attention to the New Testament, what we have is hundreds of manuscripts (most of which are fragments - small, incomplete pieces usually made from papyrus or vellum that contain only portions of text) as well as later versions and translations that need to be authenticated and put together to form the whole books that are in our Bibles. Some of these manuscripts are quite small (such as P64) while others contain large portions of text (such as P46). Some are very early manuscripts, from the early 3rd century while others are quite late, from the 7th or 8th centuries or beyond. All of these are meticulously studied, critiqued and put together to make up each book of the New Testament which becomes the majority text of the Greek New Testament from which our English translations arise. If you want to know more about this process read the ‘Introduction’ or ‘Preface’ in your Bibles or ask me. The goal of this process, formally known as textual criticism, is to sort through all of these pieces in an attempt to build the text of Scripture into the text that most accurately reflects the original text as it would have been written by the various authors of Scripture. This process puts a premium on early texts (texts that would be closer in time to the original author) and involves examining each of the variant readings (readings that are different from each other in some way) in an attempt to meticulously and methodically reconstruct the text – to build a whole from many, many small parts.

Let’s talk specifically about the Gospel of John and the text in question, 7:53-8:11 and explain the reasons why this text should not be part of Holy Writ. First, as we examine these verses in the way outlined above we are immediately confronted with a problem – these verses are present in most of the medieval Greek manuscripts, but are absent from virtually all early Greek manuscripts (Carson, Gospel of John, 333). Second, when this story does make its appearance it is sometimes found in other places, either after v. 36 or v. 44, or at the end of the Gospel or after Luke 21:38 (Morris, Gospel of John, 778-779). Third, the textual variants in these verses are extensive, more so than any other part of John. There are also stylistic differences in the Greek between what we know to be Johannine and these verses. Fourth, in the writings of the early church Fathers on the Gospel of John, none of them include this passage for commentary; they all skip from 7:52 to 8:12 omitting this text completely (Carson, Gospel of John, 333). All of this indicates strongly that this story was not part of John’s Gospel as it was originally penned by the apostle.

So what does this all mean for us? Most commentators agree that the story in this passage probably did happen, even if it was not included in John’s Gospel. This, however, does not mean that it should be considered to be Scripture. Despite there being good probability that this story happened, there is strong evidence to suggest that John did not include it in his Gospel and thus it is not God’s Word. In other words, whether the story happened or not is irrelevant simply because John did not include it in his Gospel. And because of John’s omission of this story in his written Gospel, we should not consider these verses to be binding upon us as Christians in any way. (NB: for an interesting pastoral take on this passage which agrees with the issues above, but comes to a different conclusion than I have see Edward Klink III, Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament, "IN-DEPTH: The Text-Critical Problem of 7:53-8:11")

In summary, because this story was not penned by John and not included in his original Gospel, it does not possess the characteristics of true Scripture – inspiration, infallibility, authority, inerrancy, sufficiency, necessity, etc.. As a result this means that we should not preach or teach this passage as God’s Word, nor should we base any doctrine or practice upon these verses. It should be considered no more a Word of God than the Gospel of Thomas, the Didache or the Epistle of Barnabas.

I hope this helps you to understand the amazing work textual critics and translators do so you can have utmost confidence that the Bible you hold in your hand is the Word of God.

Soli Deo Gloria