Is John 8:1-11 Authentic

So for some context many people are starting to argue that this scripture below in John chapter should not be in the Bible. First I want to look at what it says.

The NIV

¹ but Jesus went to the Mount of Olives.

² At dawn he appeared again in the temple courts, where all the people gathered around him, and he sat down to teach them. ³ The teachers of the law and the Pharisees brought in a woman caught in adultery. They made her stand before the group ⁴ and said to Jesus, “Teacher, this woman was caught in the act of adultery. ⁵ In the Law Moses commanded us to stone such women. Now what do you say?” ⁶ They were using this question as a trap, in order to have a basis for accusing him.

But Jesus bent down and started to write on the ground with his finger. ⁷ When they kept on questioning him, he straightened up and said to them, “Let any one of you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her.” ⁸ Again he stooped down and wrote on the ground.

⁹ At this, those who heard began to go away one at a time, the older ones first, until only Jesus was left, with the woman still standing there. ¹⁰ Jesus straightened up and asked her, “Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?”

¹¹ “No one, sir,” she said.

“Then neither do I condemn you,” Jesus declared. “Go now and leave your life of sin.”

So John 8.1-11, the story of the woman caught in adultery and Jesus famously said: He who has no sin shall cast the first stone.

Some people believe this account was not really in the Bible and a fraud added later by the Catholic church. We will explore this topic and it validity!

So the controversy is about whether this parable, account or story was not in the original Greek manuscripts of the New Testament or not, that is the quagmire here and why people argue on this.

So if this is a fraud what is the motive, why contrive a story? The theoretical motive is that the Roman Catholic Church wanted to mock the Jews and make the Pharisees look unforgiving and blood thirsty and Christianity look more friendly and forgiving perhaps to gain converts or what not. That would be the motive to add this proverb if you will to the book of John.

This from a website called studyandobey.bibleodessey dot com

“Interestingly enough, the earliest manuscripts of the Gospel of John do not contain this beloved passage. Indeed, the first manuscript to contain the story is from around 400 C.E. Around 4% of Greek manuscripts that include the passage place it in locations other than John 8:1-8:11
; the earliest of these is from around the ninth and tenth centuries C.E. This perplexing manuscript history fuels debates about whether the story was originally in John’s Gospel and, if so, where. The majority of scholars believe a later Christian scribe inserted the passage into John’s Gospel at John 8:1-8:11
 and that the alternate locations are due to the effects of later liturgical reading in what is known as the lectionary system. This popular method of reading the Bible broke the text into individual units that were designated for specific days and often rearranged the order of the holy text in order to reflect these reading preferences. The story of the woman caught in adultery was one of several such relocated passages.”

I have read and heard from people this story may have been found in Luke in very ancient redactions of the Greek scriptures. The recount of this event is in the Textus Receptus the most common Greek manuscript used in Greek translation which is why the “adulterous woman story” is in all English translations of the New Testament (we will say NT for short from now on)

The Textus Receptus is used in almost all European protestant Bibles and although the Catholic Bible does not use the Textus Receptus the Catholic Bible has the account of the Adulterous woman. I also checked the https://www.dukhrana.com/peshitta/ The Peshitta which is a Syriac Aramaic version of the Bible and it does not contain the Adulterous woman event. Some say this was an older version of the NT other people say the Peshitta was redacted from the Septuagint or other known Greek texts around but for our discussion that does not matter. The event in question is not in either the  Codex Sinaiticus and Codex Vaticanus, two of the oldest known versions of the NT as well.

This here is interesting on the Codex Alexandrinus (from wikipedia)
The Codex Alexandrinus is missing several passages, including the story of the woman caught in adultery from John 8:

Missing passages in the Codex Alexandrinus a early 5th century text: 1 Sam 12:17–14:9, Ps 49:20–79:11, Matt 1:1-25:6, John 6:50-8:52, 2 Cor 4:13-12:6, 1 Clement 57:7-63, and 2 Clement 12:5a- Also lets looks at Codex Vaticanus:

Codex Vaticanus an early 4th century text completely lacks:

• Old Testament: Genesis 1–46:28, 2 Samuel 2:5–7, parts of Psalms, and several books like 1–4 Maccabees.
• New Testament: Hebrews 9:14–13:25, 1 and 2 Timothy, Titus, Philemon, and the entire Book of Revelation.

So ancient manuscripts appear to lack a verse here or there from scribal error over time from tireless hand copying. This put doubt upon the fact on face value that the Adulterous woman story is lacking in older text is proof it is in authentic.

It is missing other passages besides the adulterous woman story which makes you wonder. So could the event in question been real but left out of other redactions of the NT also? In the times before the printing press all of these documents were copied by hand and it is human for scribes to error and if the adulterous woman story was left out by a scribe then other scribes who would in the future copy, hence would leave it out by default. So is it possible the Textus Receptus picked up a true story other copied versions had left out by mistake?

What is the “Textus Receptus”?

The Textus Receptus (Latin for ‘received text’) is the succession of printed Greek New Testament texts starting with Erasmus‘ Novum Instrumentum omne (1516) and including the editions of Stephanus, Beza, the Elzevir house, Colinaeus and Scrivener.

Erasmus’ Latin/Greek New Testament editions and annotations were a major influence for the original German Luther Bible and the translations of the New Testament into English by William Tyndale. Subsequent Textus Receptus editions constituted the main Greek translation-base for the King James Version, the Spanish Reina-Valera translation, the Czech Bible of Kralice, the Portuguese Almeida Recebida, the Dutch Statenvertaling, the Russian Synodal Bible and many other Reformation-era New Testament translations throughout Western, Northern and Central Europe”

So why then were earlier Greek texts not used for earlier Christian Bibles like Martin Luther’s German text or the English King James Version? The answer is two fold. One, The protestant reformation made things with western Europe and Rome difficult and so Rome did not want to be involved in whatever texts their vaults had in protestant Bibles. Second, the great schism between the Roman Catholic Church and the Greek speaking Eastern Orthodox Church in 1054 ce made getting old Greek manuscripts difficult also. There was lack of communication with varying parts of Europe due to the religious climate of the times. This is not fully known but is believed that Erasmus gathered these sources primarily from monastic and university libraries while traveling and working in Basel, Switzerland, where his printer, Johann Froben, was located. He relied on about half a dozen specific Greek manuscripts dating from the 12th to the 15th centuries.

There is no doubt that the adulterous woman even story is only known to be in the Textus receptus or some rare and unverified copies of Luke. So does this fact prove that the recount of the event is contrived. No I do not think so, for instance the Septuagint the Greek Old Testament has an extra Psalm that the standard Hebrew Bible does not contain. We must remember that for 1000’s of years the Bible was copied by hand and scribes make errors and in other articles of mine I have suggested scribal error as part of inspiration. God knew man would make mistakes copying the scriptures and so he made the best of it.

Also just because tests earlier then the Textus Receptus do not have this account does not mean it is not valid and remember older Greek texts if you read above left out some other stuff too.

Should John 8.1-11 be removed from Catholic and western European protestant Bibles? In my opinion no, because other traditions have Bibles that vary as in all above examples in this article. Many Churches have whole books other Churches do not recognize. I from my research I cannot fully conclude it’s authenticity or not but maybe it ended up in some Bibles because the Holy Spirit wanted as such. Another reason not to remove in my opinion is that it is not doing harm or does not conflict with other NT teachings. Some say it diminishes the Torah however Jesus went against technical Torah law by healing on Shabat because the Messiah is Lord of the law hence he can make exceptions if he wishes for he is God.

If it was not a true event in the life of Jesus where then did it come from. Some said it came from a Deuterocanonical book called the Gospel of the Hebrews (not to be confused with Pauls letter) which had some proverbs about a sinful woman. Other people said (source being wikipedia) suggested it was a oral story passed down by early Church Fathers and then canonized in the Textus Receptus.

As a true believer what is most compelling is that if God wanted it out it would have been as such. The Holy Spirit always has done well or really perfectly in guiding the Bibles evolution.

Thank you all and I hope this was helpful and please leave your feelings on this in comments. God Bless!