Why the famous story about Jesus probably never happened.

[Neostarwcc]

The story I'm referring to is located in John 7:53- 8:11. It's the famous story where a woman was caught in adultery and Jesus saves her from death by pointing out everybody's sin while calling himself sinless (which he was don't get me wrong)

But this story likely never really happened. Why? Because it wasn't in the earliest and therefore the most reliable manuscripts but likely was added later in the textus receptus. Some of the manuscripts don't have the story at all and some have it in John 21 and others in John 7 so it likely was never written by the apostle John at all. It also breaks the flow of Johns narrative because John uses different wording in other parts of the book of John. In total there are 13 words that John never used in other parts of the book of John and he never refers to the scribes except for in John 8:3.

It's very likely that this famous story should never be in the Bible because John never wrote it and it isn't a part of scripture. But, Bible publishers will most likely continue putting it in the Bible.

 

[sandman]

The story I'm referring to is located in John 7:53- 8:11. It's the famous story where a woman was caught in adultery and Jesus saves her from death by pointing out everybody's sin while calling himself sinless (which he was don't get me wrong)

But this story likely never really happened. Why? Because it wasn't in the earliest and therefore the most reliable manuscripts but likely was added later in the textus receptus. Some of the manuscripts don't have the story at all and some have it in John 21 and others in John 7 so it likely was never written by the apostle John at all. It also breaks the flow of Johns narrative because John uses different wording in other parts of the book of John. In total there are 13 words that John never used in other parts of the book of John and he never refers to the scribes except for in John 8:3.

It's very likely that this famous story should never be in the Bible because John never wrote it and it isn't a part of scripture. But, Bible publishers will most likely continue putting it in the Bible.

That is my understanding also

Although it doesn’t alter anything ….and it is still a good moral precept.

But it does lead me to believe what Jesus wrote on the ground.

“This didn’t happen”

 

[Always in His Presence]

Photo added as an illustration.

Because the earliest manuscripts are also the oldest and most decomposed. It does NOT mean the verses were not written - it means they were not present.

That is why the verses have been part of Scripture over 2,000 years and well before Bible Publishers existed.

Hope that helps.

 

[Akita Suggagaki]

The story I'm referring to is located in John 7:53- 8:11. It's the famous story where a woman was caught in adultery and Jesus saves her from death by pointing out everybody's sin while calling himself sinless (which he was don't get me wrong)

But this story likely never really happened. Why? Because it wasn't in the earliest and therefore the most reliable manuscripts but likely was added later in the textus receptus. Some of the manuscripts don't have the story at all and some have it in John 21 and others in John 7 so it likely was never written by the apostle John at all. It also breaks the flow of Johns narrative because John uses different wording in other parts of the book of John. In total there are 13 words that John never used in other parts of the book of John and he never refers to the scribes except for in John 8:3.

It's very likely that this famous story should never be in the Bible because John never wrote it and it isn't a part of scripture. But, Bible publishers will most likely continue putting it in the Bible.

So that leads us to ask, What motivated the earliest inclusion? What function does it have?

It is both a story about universal sin and forgiveness. Jesus is portrayed as cagey as always. In his character.

Possibly a lot of accusation going on at the time of the writing. Judging others.

 

[Always in His Presence]

The "inclusion" has been there for over 1,600 years. It was never a major question until the NIV was published with it's footnotes.

 

[Joseph G]

I have no trouble accepting the story as it is consistent with Jesus' character. Jesus demonstrates His authority to forgive sins as demonstrated elsewhere in Scripture:

Matthew 9:4-8 NIV

"Knowing their thoughts, Jesus said, “Why do you entertain evil thoughts in your hearts? Which is easier: to say, ‘Your sins are forgiven,’ or to say, ‘Get up and walk’? But I want you to know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins.” So he said to the paralyzed man, “Get up, take your mat and go home." Then the man got up and went home. When the crowd saw this, they were filled with awe; and they praised God, who had given such authority to man."

 

[BobRyan]

But this story likely never really happened. Why? Because it wasn't in the earliest and therefore the most reliable manuscripts but likely was added later in the textus receptus.

An old corrupt copy of the constitution found in a trash can - is less reliable than a reliable copy used in all calls rooms even if it is a later one.

Simply being "older" is not sufficient to prove "more correct".

"trash can history" of codex Sinaticus

Tischendorf Found Treasure in Trash - 1801-1900 Church History

Tischendorf Found Treasure in Trash from the 1801-1900 Church history timeline. Learn about historical christian events within church history!

www.christianity.com

"
The Incredible Discovery
In 1844, the German scholar Constantine Tischendorf was touring the East in search of old manuscripts, that is, documents written by hand. In the library of the monastery of St. Catherine at Mt. Sinai he noticed a basket filled with pages of an old manuscript. Tischendorf was shocked! This was the oldest Greek writing this seasoned scholar had ever seen, and the pages were from the Greek Old Testament. Taking 43 pages out of the basket, Tischendorf asked the librarian about them. To his horror he learned the pages had been placed in the trash basket for fuel, and two basket loads of such papers had already been burned!"

What’s Missing from Codex Sinaiticus, the Oldest New Testament?

The Codex Sinaiticus text differs in numerous instances from that of the authorized version of the Bible in use during Constantine Tischendorf’s time. See a visual comparison between the King James Version and the Codex Sinaiticus.

www.biblicalarchaeology.org

"The text of Codex Sinaiticus differs in numerous instances from that of the authorized version of the Bible in use during Tischendorf’s time. For example, the resurrection narrative at the end of Mark (16:9–20) is absent from the Codex Sinaiticus. So is the conclusion of the Lord’s Prayer: “For thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen” (Matthew 6:13). The woman caught in adultery from John 8 is omitted in Codex Sinaiticus."

" According to James Bentley, Tischendorf was not troubled by the omission of the resurrection in Mark because he believed that Matthew was written first and that Mark’s gospel was an abridged version of Matthew’s gospel. If this were true, the absence of resurrection in Mark would not be a problem because it appears in the older Matthean gospel. Modern scholarship generally holds that Mark is in fact the oldest of the Synoptic Gospels, which could cause theological concerns over the omitted resurrection."

"One other omission in Codex Sinaiticus with theological implications is the reference to Jesus’ ascension in Luke 24:51. Additionally, Mark 1:1 in the original hand omits reference to Jesus as the Son of God."

==========================

Interesting comment there

"Codex Vaticanus, gathering dust in the Vatican library since the 1500’s and Codex Sinaiticus, rescued from a trash can in St. Catherine’s monastery…used by Westcott and Hort to “rewrite” the KJV. Two men who did not believe the scriptures were inerrant, who conducted seances, who did not believe in the miracles of Christ and who were enamored of Charles Darwin and his theory of evolution"

Moral of the whole thing: -- be very careful about making assumptions.

 

[BobRyan]

Interesting talk on this topic can be found here

 

[Love Fountain]

The story I'm referring to is located in John 7:53- 8:11. It's the famous story where a woman was caught in adultery and Jesus saves her from death by pointing out everybody's sin while calling himself sinless (which he was don't get me wrong)

But this story likely never really happened. Why? Because it wasn't in the earliest and therefore the most reliable manuscripts but likely was added later in the textus receptus. Some of the manuscripts don't have the story at all and some have it in John 21 and others in John 7 so it likely was never written by the apostle John at all. It also breaks the flow of Johns narrative because John uses different wording in other parts of the book of John. In total there are 13 words that John never used in other parts of the book of John and he never refers to the scribes except for in John 8:3.

It's very likely that this famous story should never be in the Bible because John never wrote it and it isn't a part of scripture. But, Bible publishers will most likely continue putting it in the Bible.

Hello,

The popular opinion is all the things you stated in your post quoted above but it's all incorrect and just plain not true!

There's a particular style written throughout the whole Bible according to subjects and written in complete thoughts or complete sense. The following subject structure outlines show forth some of these styles in the biblical text!

For example, John 7:53 and 8:1 complete the subject and complete thought of "The Lord Immune" from John 7:44-8:1 per attached below. If you removed John 7:53-8:1 then it leaves a gap or loose end in the word of God. The subject structure outline connects and shows forth a complete thought.

Not only does the subject structure outlines below show forth the locking in of the text of John 7:53-8:11, they are shown as they should be in their perfect place in the Gospel of John and there's no way a man could ever figure out how to write in this way to the magnitude of the biblical texts throughout.

The following proves the omission of John 7:53-8:11 in the texts wrongly claimed to be "most reliable" are not reliable at all but are rather corrupt and/or incomplete!

Hope this helps!

Bless you,
Love Fountain

 

[JSRG]

An old corrupt copy of the constitution found in a trash can - is less reliable than a reliable copy used in all calls rooms even if it is a later one.

Simply being "older" is not sufficient to prove "more correct".

"trash can history" of codex Sinaticus

Tischendorf Found Treasure in Trash - 1801-1900 Church History

Tischendorf Found Treasure in Trash from the 1801-1900 Church history timeline. Learn about historical christian events within church history!

www.christianity.com

"
The Incredible Discovery
In 1844, the German scholar Constantine Tischendorf was touring the East in search of old manuscripts, that is, documents written by hand. In the library of the monastery of St. Catherine at Mt. Sinai he noticed a basket filled with pages of an old manuscript. Tischendorf was shocked! This was the oldest Greek writing this seasoned scholar had ever seen, and the pages were from the Greek Old Testament. Taking 43 pages out of the basket, Tischendorf asked the librarian about them. To his horror he learned the pages had been placed in the trash basket for fuel, and two basket loads of such papers had already been burned!"

As I understand it, Tischendorf's account has been challenged by the monastery, who assert that the basket was used for carrying manuscripts around, not for holding things for burning. He could have misunderstood the situation. But even if Tischendorf was right, only part of Sinaiticus was found in the basket. Here's what he wrote (taken from 3. Discovering And Classifying New Testament Manuscripts | Bible.org):

It was at the foot of Mount Sinai, in the Convent of St. Catherine, that I discovered the pearl of all my researches. In visiting the library of the monastery, in the month of May, 1844, I perceived in the middle of the great hall a large and wide basket full of old parchments; and the librarian, who was a man of information, told me that two heaps of papers like these, mouldered by time, had been already committed to the flames. What was my surprise to find amid this heap of papers a considerable number of sheets of a copy of the Old Testament in Greek, which seemed to me to be one of the most ancient that I had ever seen. The authorities of the convent allowed me to possess myself of a third of these parchments, or about forty-three sheets, all the more readily as they were destined for the fire. But I could not get them to yield up possession of the remainder. The too lively satisfaction which I had displayed had aroused their suspicions as to the value of this manuscript. I transcribed a page of the text of Isaiah and Jeremiah, and enjoined on the monks to take religious care of all such remains which might fall in their way.

And then, later on:

And so saying, he [the Steward] took down from the corner of the room a bulky kind of volume, wrapped up in a red cloth, and laid it before me. I unrolled the cover, and discovered, to my great surprise, not only those very fragments which, fifteen years before, I had taken out of the basket, but also other parts of the Old Testament, the New Testament complete, and, in addition, the Epistle of Barnabas and a part of the Pastor of Hermas. Full of joy, which this time I had the self-command to conceal from the steward and the rest of the community, I asked, as if in a careless way, for permission to take the manuscript into my sleeping chamber to look over it more at leisure. There by myself I could give way to the transport of joy which I [felt]. I knew that I held in my hand the most precious Biblical treasure in existence—a document whose age and importance exceeded that of all the manuscripts which I had ever examined during twenty years' study of the subject.

So even if Tischendorf's story is correct, the material in the basket that was supposedly to be burned was only a portion of Sinaiticus, not the whole thing--and more importantly, wouldn't have included the Gospel of John.

But there is a larger problem. Let's suppose that Codex Sinaiticus is totally unreliable. That doesn't change that much because of the other early Greek manuscripts that lack this passage.

The earliest copies we have of this portion of John's gospel are Papyrus 66 and Papyrus 75, which each come from the second or third century. Neither have it. Moving forward to the 4th century, we reach Sinaiticus and Vaticanus. Neither have it. Moving forward to the fifth century, we do find one that has it: Codex Bezae. However, the other fifth century ones don't have it, namely Codex Washingtonianus and Codex Borgianus. Codex Alexandrinus and Codex Ephraemi are more speculative; due to missing a number of pages, they are both missing the pages this passage would have been on (Alexandrinus is missing John 6:50-8:52 and Ephraemi is missing 7:3-8:34), but based on how much was being put into each page it is not believed that there was enough room to fit the full Pericope Adultarae into the missing pages, but we can't be sure.

So it's not just Sinaiticus. It's also Vaticanus, Washingtonianus, Borgianus, Papyrus 66, Papyrus 75, and (probably) Alexandrinus and Ephraemi; with the sole exception of Bezae, all the Greek manuscripts up through the fifth century lack it. If we go by the Greek manuscripts we have, the evidence is pretty strong in favor of it being a later addition, even if we don't count Sinaiticus. There are some other arguments in favor of its authenticity (as well as other arguments against--note when I say "authenticity" I mean whether it was originally in John, not whether it happened), but simply writing off Sinaiticus doesn't mean much.

 

[Neostarwcc]

An old corrupt copy of the constitution found in a trash can - is less reliable than a reliable copy used in all calls rooms even if it is a later one.

Simply being "older" is not sufficient to prove "more correct".

"trash can history" of codex Sinaticus

Tischendorf Found Treasure in Trash - 1801-1900 Church History

Tischendorf Found Treasure in Trash from the 1801-1900 Church history timeline. Learn about historical christian events within church history!

www.christianity.com

"
The Incredible Discovery
In 1844, the German scholar Constantine Tischendorf was touring the East in search of old manuscripts, that is, documents written by hand. In the library of the monastery of St. Catherine at Mt. Sinai he noticed a basket filled with pages of an old manuscript. Tischendorf was shocked! This was the oldest Greek writing this seasoned scholar had ever seen, and the pages were from the Greek Old Testament. Taking 43 pages out of the basket, Tischendorf asked the librarian about them. To his horror he learned the pages had been placed in the trash basket for fuel, and two basket loads of such papers had already been burned!"

What’s Missing from Codex Sinaiticus, the Oldest New Testament?

The Codex Sinaiticus text differs in numerous instances from that of the authorized version of the Bible in use during Constantine Tischendorf’s time. See a visual comparison between the King James Version and the Codex Sinaiticus.

www.biblicalarchaeology.org

"The text of Codex Sinaiticus differs in numerous instances from that of the authorized version of the Bible in use during Tischendorf’s time. For example, the resurrection narrative at the end of Mark (16:9–20) is absent from the Codex Sinaiticus. So is the conclusion of the Lord’s Prayer: “For thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen” (Matthew 6:13). The woman caught in adultery from John 8 is omitted in Codex Sinaiticus."

" According to James Bentley, Tischendorf was not troubled by the omission of the resurrection in Mark because he believed that Matthew was written first and that Mark’s gospel was an abridged version of Matthew’s gospel. If this were true, the absence of resurrection in Mark would not be a problem because it appears in the older Matthean gospel. Modern scholarship generally holds that Mark is in fact the oldest of the Synoptic Gospels, which could cause theological concerns over the omitted resurrection."

"One other omission in Codex Sinaiticus with theological implications is the reference to Jesus’ ascension in Luke 24:51. Additionally, Mark 1:1 in the original hand omits reference to Jesus as the Son of God."

==========================

Interesting comment there

"Codex Vaticanus, gathering dust in the Vatican library since the 1500’s and Codex Sinaiticus, rescued from a trash can in St. Catherine’s monastery…used by Westcott and Hort to “rewrite” the KJV. Two men who did not believe the scriptures were inerrant, who conducted seances, who did not believe in the miracles of Christ and who were enamored of Charles Darwin and his theory of evolution"

Moral of the whole thing: -- be very careful about making assumptions.

The oldest manuscripts should be the most reliable because they are the closest to what the Apostles actually wrote about. We don't have the original documents that the apostles made anymore and haven't for quite a long time so isnt it possible that this story was added in the Textus Receptus? If John in fact wrote about the adulterous woman shouldn't it be in the same parts of the book of John in every manuscript of stcripturenhat exists? Instead of in other parts of John 7 or even in John 21?

 

[Love Fountain]

The story I'm referring to is located in John 7:53- 8:11. It's the famous story where a woman was caught in adultery....

But this story likely never really happened. Why? Because...It...breaks the flow of Johns narrative

It's very likely that this famous story should never be in the Bible because John never wrote it and it isn't a part of scripture.

Hello,

John 7:53-8:11 doesn't disrupt or "break" any "narrative" "flow", that would be an incorrect assertion that has become popular opinion and is completely the opposite of the truth!

The truth is that the texts that don't include John 7:53-8:11 are incomplete and/or corrupt. The texts that have the Pericope Adulterae in a different location other than John 7:53-8:11 are in error!

Those who believe the errors put forth by "supposed modern scholarship" are not to be blamed for their error because they make it seem so legit, even appealing to the texts of the "oldest and most reliable" which are clearly only some of the oldest incomplete/corrupted texts. Doesn't matter how old they are when they are incomplete and/or containing omissions!

The following are the subject structure outlines as shown, in "the world's best study Bible", of the complete book of John and the expansion of subject structure outlines of chapters and verse texts surrounding John 7:53-8:11 so anyone can see the flow of text that fits in perfectly like an interlocking puzzle proving the nonsense assertion of "breaks...the flow...narrative" as completely in error!

Not only is the error in the quote above refuted by the subject structure outlines below, so is the assertion that a man wrote the Gospel of John because no man can write the way the structure outlines below reveal in John and throughout the whole Bible in such magnitude!

The biblical texts are written by the spirit of God through the hands of many Hebrew people over a long period of time! There are no writings by any man of such styles to this magnitude!

The structure outlines below show the chapters, verses and subjects of the texts along with their corresponding texts.

Hope this helps!

Bless you,
Love Fountain