John 7:53-8:11

[WJL]

I found this quote on a website called “LiberalsLikeChrists.org” (which promotes a very liberal interpretation of what can barely be called “Christianity”):

People who accept on blind faith that the Bible they have in their hands is ‘the Word of God’ mistakenly believe that what they have in their hands is the same as what the author of the bible wrote 2000 or more years ago. But it isn’t.

Take, for example, the popular story (John 7:53-8:11) in which Jesus saves a woman from being stoned as an adulteress. It is from this passage that Christianity draws the oft-paraphrased advice, “Let him who is without sin among you be the first to throw a stone at her.” (Although I always found this to be a most inspiring Gospel story and message, I must in good conscience face the fact that, according to rotten.com/library/religion/bible/historical-construction/catholic-distortions/ at least)

“this entire story (or periscope) is missing from the earliest version of John. It is also missing from early Latin translations of the text, missing from older versions used in the Holy Land and in fact, according to the 12th century Byzantine scholar Euthymius Zigabenus (the earliest church father to comment on the passage), accurate copies of the Gospel of John do not and should not contain it. Furthermore, if one blocks out the entire little story, John 7:52 flows just fine into John 8:12, lending further credence to the idea that the passage was simply inserted after the fact. Who inserted it, and why, remains a mystery.”

for another similar history, see “The Canonization of Scripture” by a Coptic Orthodox Christian, Thomas Simmons.

Would anyone care to shred some light on this subject? It is being used as an objection against Biblical inerrancy. How can this objection be answered based on a Catholic perspective (i.e. not a theologically liberal perspective)?

 

[LtTony]

I don’t know a lot, but I do know it is “Pericope” not “periscope,” as the website identifies it.

This link may help, although it is more about Bart Ehrmann than the controversial verses.
bible.org/page.php?page_id=4000

I think wiki has a fairly decent entry on it.

Like I said, I’m about the farthest thing from an accomplished student of scripture, but when I looked into it some time ago, it seemed there were good arguments on both sides. I finally came to a personal conclusion that even if it was not originally part of these chapters of John, it certainly appears to be Johnahine in nature, and got placed in its present location because certainly flows into the events John describes in Ch. 7 and 8.
In addition, based on what we know of Our Saviour through scripture, this behavior would not at all be surprising, imo.

Answering Islam dot com might also have something on it. And I would do a search of these forums; it is a fairly common topic.

 

[Nita]

Would anyone care to shred some light on this subject? It is being used as an objection against Biblical inerrancy. How can this objection be answered based on a Catholic perspective (i.e. not a theologically liberal perspective)?

1. As to the inerrancy of Scripture that includes the pericope:
   For Catholics, we believe the Church has been given authority to make such judgements; thus when the **Church **decided to officially include the pericope, it became a part of the inerrant canon of Scripture (which was also determined by the Church).
   I don’t know how a Protestant would respond. I hope one of them will give their thought.
2. As to the inerrancy of Scripture that excludes the pericope:
   The absence of this story in a copy of Scripture doesn’t affect the inerrancy of the words that are in that “shorter” copy of Scripture. Everything in a copy of Scripture that does not include the verse is still just as inerrant as it is in one that includes the pericope.
   It’s similar to the Protestant Bible versus the Catholic Bible. Incompleteness does not affect the inerrancy of what is included.

So, IMO, I don’t see how the inclusion or exclusion of the pericope affects the inerrancy of the Bible.–except for the possibility of someone who claims to have infallible knowledge that the pericope teaches error. If that is the position of this group, what error do they claim the pericope preaches?
If their only answer is that the error lies in the fact that Scripture says something took place which they contend did not, then there’s probably no point in going further. Since liberal interpretation of Scripture doesn’t believe a lot of events recorded in Scripture really took place, you’d be heading down the long road of trying to prove almost every event in Scripture really happened.

 

[ryanoneil]

Some ancient manuscripts omit this episode. Others place it elswhere in John or even in the Gospel of Luke. According to the Council of Trent the official canon of the Scriptures corresponds to everything included in the Latin Vulgate edition (Sess. 4, Dec. 1).

 

[Cristian_B]

Even if it wasn’t written by John, the message this event gives us is very useful and it is according to God’s Gospel. This is what is important.