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The Pericope Adulteræ (Latin pronunciation ; English pronunciation , Latin "the passage of the adulterous woman") is the name traditionally given to verses 7:53–8:11 of the Gospel of John, that describe the attempted stoning by Pharisees of an accused adulterous woman, and Jesus' defense of her.
Jesus is often quoted for his principled statement of let him who is without sin cast the first stone. In English, the passage is usually referred to as "the woman taken in adultery."
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Text
In the King James Bible the passage reads:
- [7:52 They answered and said unto him, Art thou also of Galilee? Search, and look: for out of Galilee ariseth no prophet.] And every man went unto his own house. 8:1 Jesus went unto the mount of Olives. 2 And early in the morning he came again into the temple, and all the people came unto him; and he sat down, and taught them. 3 And the scribes and Pharisees brought unto him a woman taken in adultery; and when they had set her in the midst, 4 They say unto him, Master, this woman was taken in adultery, in the very act. 5 Now Moses in the law commanded us, that such should be stoned: but what sayest thou? 6 This they said, tempting him, that they might have to accuse him. But Jesus stooped down, and with his finger wrote on the ground, as though he heard them not. 7 So when they continued asking him, he lifted up himself, and said unto them, He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her. 8 And again he stooped down, and wrote on the ground. 9 And they which heard it, being convicted by their own conscience, went out one by one, beginning at the eldest, even unto the last: and Jesus was left alone, and the woman standing in the midst. 10 When Jesus had lifted up himself, and saw none but the woman, he said unto her, Woman, where are those thine accusers? hath no man condemned thee? 11 She said, No man, Lord. And Jesus said unto her, Neither do I condemn thee: go, and sin no more.
- [12 Then spake Jesus again unto them, saying, I am the light of the world: he that followeth me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life.]
Authorship
Arguments against Johannine authorship
The pericope is now recognized by some scholars of the New Testament as an interpolation: it disrupts the story told at the end of chapter 7 and in the remainder of chapter 8; it uses Greek more characteristic of the synoptic Gospels than of John; it appears in only one early Greek manuscript and sometimes appears in different places in later manuscripts, even interpolated in one case into the Gospel of Luke. B. M. Metzger writes that "the evidence for the non-Johannine origin of the pericope of the adulteress is overwhelming".
Many scholars nevertheless accept it as an authentic tradition of Jesus. John Calvin, in his Commentary on John, wrote:
- It seems that this passage was unknown anciently to the Greek Churches; and some conjecture that it has been brought from some other place and inserted here. But as it has always been received by the Latin Churches, and is found in many old Greek manuscripts, and contains nothing unworthy of an Apostolic Spirit, there is no reason why we should refuse to apply it to our advantage
Arguments for Johannine authorship
On the other hand, Zane C. Hodges and Arthur L. Farstad, in their introduction to their edition of the Majority Text (a text of the New Testament based primarily on the number of witnesses to a reading, rather than automatically assuming the oldest texts are the most accurate), argue for Johannine authorship of the pericope. They point to the phrase at 8:6, which follows a similar grammatical structure to 6:6, 7:39, 11:51, 12:6, 12:33, and 21:19, which are regarded as particularly Johannine verses by most critics. Further, the use of the vocative γύναι (woman) is a very typical Johannine usage. The phrase "sin no more" in 8:11 occurs only one other time in the New Testament, at John 5:14.
Hodges and Farstad also argue that the pericope is particularly suited to the point in the Gospel where it occurs in the majority of the 900 copies that contain it. The Feast of Tabernacles is being celebrated (Jn 7:14), so there would be a large number of pilgrims in the city, making it more likely that strangers would be thrown together. The pericope thus occurs naturally at this point. The confrontation would have to have taken place in the Court of the Women, and indeed John 8:20 indicates that that is where Jesus was. Hodges and Farstad conclude, "If it is not an original part of the Fourth Gospel, its writer would have to be viewed as a skilled Johannine imitator, and its placement in this context as the shrewdest piece of interpolation in literary history!"
Adaptations
The passage is typically a favourite for film adaptations of the Gospels considering it is one clear incident of Jesus performing a rescue.
External link
- The Pericope Adulterae (http://www-user.uni-bremen.de/~wie/TCG/TC-John-PA.pdf) Detailed textcritical description of the evidence, the manuscripts, and the variants of the Greek text (PDF, 23 pages)