Where did the Woman Caught in Adultery go?
No, I’m not asking where she went after Jesus said “Neither do I condemn you. Go and sin no more” (John 8:11) This morning as I was reading John’s gospel on page 1376 of The Oxford Study Bible, REB version,1 I noticed that chapter 8 began with verse 12. I quickly checked a few other translations (ESV, NIV, NAS, NRS, NET, KJV) and they all had 8:1-11. Where there are textual questions, you might expect to see square brackets around the text in question and/or a footnote (see Mark 16:9-20), but here it was just gone. A little digging revealed this:
Conspiracy of Silence –
In most every scholarly commentary John 8:1-11 is a source of genuine controversy. Conservative scholars agree that this incident is part of the original manuscript; but they can’t agree on where it belongs in the Gospel record. It seems that at the end of the first century or in the early part of the 2nd, some overly zealous Christians thought that this account made Jesus look soft on sin. As a result, there was a widespread conspiracy to expunge it from the record. “The reason probably is that in a day when the punishment for sexual sin was very severe among Christians this story was thought to be too easily misinterpreted as countenancing un-chastity.”2 Inspiration preserved the text, but some feel that it originally belonged to Luke’s Gospel.3
The idea that the verse numbers, or horror of horrors even which gospel, might be in question as to the proper placement of this passage could be a cause of great anxiety among us moderns. We forget that chapter and verse is a pretty late addition, as in the 1500′s for our English bibles. The controversy, to my mind, is more revealing of our problem over a “soft on sin” Jesus than which page, if any, this story belongs on.
The REB does include this story. It places it at the end of John’s gospel with this footnote:
This passage, which in most editions of the New Testament is printed in the text of John 7:53-8:11, has no place in our witnesses. Some of them do not contain it at all. Some place it after Luke 21:38. others after John 7:36, or 7:52, or 21:24.
I’m glad the story wasn’t missing after all. It’s an important story. Too bad that it was so embarrassing that it got shoved to the end of John’s book. It is kind of clumsy to place it there, but then again, to close John’s gospel with “Neither do I condemn you. Go and sin no more” is more poignant than reminding us that there’s more to Jesus than fits in a bunch of books.
- Suggs, M. Jack, Katharine Doob Sakenfeld, and James R. Mueller. The Oxford Study Bible: Revised English Bible with Apocrypha. Oxford University Press, USA, 1992. ↩
- Leon Morris, The Gospel According to John revised, NICNT (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1995), 779. ↩
- Resolving Moral Conflict by Marcus Merritt. ↩
The Gift of Accountability
“Poverty and disgrace come to him who ignores instruction, but whoever heeds reproof is honored.” (Prov 13:18) To have good people call you to account is a great gift. Living well in isolation is impossible. Navigating decisions and interactions with others in life is like driving at night through the fog with bad wipers and one headlight out. “Iron sharpens iron, and one man sharpens another.” (Prov 27:17) Accountability is opportunity for reflection, correction, clarity, commitment, repentance, forgiveness and healing. “My son, do not despise the LORD’s discipline or be weary of his reproof, for the LORD reproves him whom he loves, as a father the son in whom he delights. Blessed is the one who finds wisdom, and the one who gets understanding, for the gain from her is better than gain from silver and her profit better than gold. She is more precious than jewels, and nothing you desire can compare with her. Long life is in her right hand; in her left hand are riches and honor. Her ways are ways of pleasantness, and all her paths are peace. She is a tree of life to those who lay hold of her; those who hold her fast are called blessed.” (Prov 3:11-18)
