No CrossRef data available.
Article contents
The So-Called Pericope De Adultera*
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 February 2009
Extract
No one who is at all familiar with New Testament studies can fail to be fascinated by the extraordinary range of problems surrounding the so-called pericope de adultera, which appears in some translations as John 7.53–8.11 but which ‘has no fixed place in our witnesses’. ‘By a happy chance’, as the late Barnabas Lindars put it, ‘this fragment from an unknown work has been preserved in the MS tradition of John.’ Its absence from most reliable MSS, and the diversity of readings within the minority of MSS which include it at some point, are sufficiently problematic to prod the creative imagination of critical scholarship into remarkable productivity from time to time, and any new MS discovery is sure to reinvig-orate debate on this particular cause célèbre.
Information
- Type
- Articles
- Information
- Copyright
- Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1995
References
1 The Revised English Bible: The New Testament (London: Oxford University and Cambridge University, 1989) 102Google Scholar, footnote.
2 The Gospel of John (London: Oliphants, 1972) 305.Google Scholar
3 Cf. Nestle-Aland, , Novum Testamentum Graece (Stuttgart: Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft, 1979) 273–4Google Scholar; Metzger, B. M., A Textual Commentary on the Greek New Testament (New York: United Bible Societies, 1971) 219–22Google Scholar. See also Barrett, C. K., The Gospel according to St John (London; SPCK, 2nd ed. 1978) 589–92Google Scholar; Brown, R. E., The Gospel according to John (New York: Doubleday, 1966) 1.332–8Google Scholar; Schnackenburg, R., The Gospel according to St John (New York: Crossroad, 1982) 2.162–71Google Scholar; B. Lindars, John, 305–12.
4 For the cause of the inhibition cf. n.* above.
5 Cf. Ehrman, B. D., The Orthodox Corruption of Scripture: The Effect of the Early Christological Controversies on the Text of the New Testament (Oxford: OUP, 1994).Google Scholar
6 Berlin: Töpelmann. Becker reviewed its textual history, extra-canonical sources and, above all, its place in Jewish-Christian debate, arguing that in its context in the Judaism of the first two centuries of the Common Era this pericope was a Streitgespräch with an original core comprising three elements: the debate about the validity of Lev 20.10 and Deut 22.22, which prescribed death for adultery; Jesus' sympathy in this case for the Ehebrecherin rather than for those who championed the Law; and finally, his unconditional forgiveness of her on his own authority. Most of the other elements are judged to be ‘secondary’: a rather convenient solution to some of the most problematic verses in the pericope! As J. D. M. Derrett has pointed out, Becker has not proved that they are secondary – only that they might be.
7 Ehrman, B. D., ‘Jesus and the Adulteress’, NTS 34 (1988) 24CrossRefGoogle Scholar. On Didymus, see for example Quasten, J., Patrology (Utrecht: Spectrum, 1966) 3.85–100.Google Scholar
8 Ehrman, ‘Adulteress’, 29–30.
9 Contra Lindars, John, 306. Luke 7.36–9 is a possibility, but Papias’ language relates more directly to the so-called pericope de adultera.
10 Ehrman, ‘Adulteress’, 33–4; U. Becker, Jesus und die Ehebrecherin, 126–7. A connection with the Gospel of Peter has been suggested but this is by no means certain: cf. Barrett, C. K., The Gospel according to St John (London: SPCK, 1956) 491.Google Scholar
11 In his concern to argue for a plurality of traditions, Ehrman plays down this possibility in relation to both the Didascalia and Didymus.
12 Lindars (John, 307) takes up the suggestion that about this time the story began to occur in liturgical lections, some of which were extra-canonical, and in this way entered the text of John.
13 On Didymus, see for example Quasten, Patrology 3, as in n. 7 above; for fragments of his Fourth Gospel commentaries, cf. Migne, Patrologia Graeca 39, 1645–54; more generally on Didymus, Ibid., 131–1818; Ehrman, ‘Adulteress’, 27, 31–4, incl. n. 9. Ehrman's approach takes too little account of hermeneutical perspectives, even to the point of suggesting that the narrative Didymus paraphrases does not teach the lesson he wants to bring out of it.
14 Ehrman, ‘Adulteress’, 33.
15 Cf. Schnackenburg, John, 168–9.
16 Ehrman, ‘Adulteress’, 37.
17 Cf. Güttgemanns, E., Candid Questions Concerning Gospel Form Criticism (Theological Monographs 26; Pittsburgh, 1979)Google Scholar; a brief review of the issue is found in Muddiman, J., ‘Form Criticism’, A Dictionary of Biblical Interpretation (London: SCM/Philadelphia: Trinity International, 1990) 240–3Google Scholar; cf. Schnackenburg, John, 169: ‘Possibly our schematic form-critical categories are too rigid for this type of material in the gospel tradition’. For a traditional view, cf. Taylor, V., The Formation of the Gospel Tradition (London: Macmillan, 1933) 83–4Google Scholar; cf. note 15 above.
18 Derrett, J. D. M., ‘Law in the New Testament: The Story of the Woman Taken in Adultery’, NTS 101 (1963–1964) 10–11Google Scholar, who convincingly highlights the issue of lynch-justice. Stoning was the traditional penalty; cf. Blinzler, J., ‘Die Strafe für Ehebruch in Bibel und Halacha zur Auslegung von John viii.5’, NTS 4 (1957–1958) 32–47.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
19 Cf. Brown, John, 333.
20 Ehrman, ‘Adulteress’, 36. Many commentators give too much credence to this unconvincing explanation: cf. Lindars, John, 310. For a range of views, cf. Brown, John, 333–4.
21 For a teacher, it was not unusual to write in the sand: rabbis discussed whether it was permissible for them to do so on the sabbath. There has been speculation – to some purpose -about what Jesus wrote. Derrett argued that the first inscription was Exod 23.1a and the second Exod 23.7a: ‘Law’, 16–25. The strongest case for these texts lies in their evocation of the Susanna story. Brown observed of Jesus' writing on the ground that ‘if the matter were of major importance, the content of the writing would have been reported’. Derrett's answer would be that a judge does not reveal his authorities: ‘Law’, 17–18. More convincingly, he commented that ‘the writing was symbolic of divine “legislation”’: ‘Law’, 18. We may add that any additional statement from Jesus at this point would have detracted from the impact of his judgement. It is not the content of the writing but his dramatic action in writing that is evocative and telling.
22 Is Jesus' refusal to condemn tantamount to a declaration of forgiveness? Jesus clearly avoids conventional religious language and addresses the woman's situation. Her censorious contemporaries may condemn her, but in God's name Jesus does not. She is free to be a disciple. In terms of the familiar ‘criterion of dissimilarity’, this may be seen as a mark of authenticity.
23 Funk, R. W., The Poetics of Biblical Narrative (Sonoma: Polebridge, 1988) 23.Google Scholar
24 Funk, Poetics, 12.
25 The art of the story-teller is probably also a feature in the narrative: the conclusion is delayed for effect. But there are also deeper structural reasons for the two inscriptions on the ground.
26 Cf. Funk, Poetics, 23.
27 For ancient rhetoric and the New Testament, cf. Kennedy, G. A., New Testament Interpretation through Rhetorical Criticism (Chapel Hill, 1984)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; cf. Wuellner, W., ‘Where Is Rhetorical Criticism Taking Us?’, CBQ 49 (1987) 448–63Google Scholar; for a modern approach, cf. Perelman, C. and Olbrechts-Tyteca, L., The New Rhetoric: A Treatise on Argumentation (Notre Dame, 1969).Google Scholar
28 Nor is it the only point the feminist critic might make. Why is the woman singled out? What of the male offender? Why are the male witnesses, the male offender and, indeed, the husband invisible in the story? Legal implications are discussed in Derrett, ‘Law’, 4–8.
29 It is much less cogent to suggest that this difficult two-fold element was added later.
30 R. W. Funk, Poetics, 296.
31 Cf. the Western text.
32 This is the obvious conclusion to draw from the manuscript evidence: it was not incorporated in most manuscripts of the Gospels, nor was there unanimity about where it should appear if it were to be incorporated. But it existed from an early date as a distinctive narrative, possibly as part of a ‘temple’ cycle of tradition; hence its occasional links with John 7.36, 52; Luke 21.38. On the question of canonicity, cf. Wallace, D. B., ‘Reconsidering “The Story of Jesus and the Adulteress Reconsidered”’, NTS 39 (1993) 290–6.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
- 4
- Cited by