John 8:2-11

§ 82. THE WOMAN TAKEN IN ADULTERY, John 8:2-11 .

A majority of the best biblical scholars agree that this narrative of the adulteress, (including John 7:53,) though of apostolic antiquity, could scarce have been written by John. The external proofs are: 1. Its absence from a large share of the best manuscripts. 2. The absence of quotations of the passage in the earliest Christian writers. And, 3. The great variety of readings in the different copies of the passage. The internal proofs are: 1. Its unlikeness to the style of John, both in its general tenor and its particular terms. 2. The possibility of removing it from the text without producing any break. 3. Its discordance with the current of thought, so as to form an actual interruption. To the force of these arguments we are obliged to yield. In the entire context there is an open hostility between the Jews and Jesus; but in this passage there is on the contrary a state of pretended friendship and deference. They come with submissive air to receive from him, as authoritative judge, a legal decision, tempting him. This mode of tempting him is precisely of the same cast, and implies the same state of things, as we find in § 115. In some manuscripts, indeed, the passage is found at the end of Luke 21:0. The most suitable place for it is, perhaps, among the similar attempts at tempting in Mark 12:13-35. There can be no reasonable doubt of its forming a true part of Gospel history. The only questions are as to its authorship and place.