V
Vouthon
Guest
From the blog of New Testament scholar Larry Hurtado, reviewing this new mammoth study:
Last edited:
You are using an out of date browser. It may not display this or other websites correctly.
You should upgrade or use an alternative browser.
You should upgrade or use an alternative browser.
- Status
- Not open for further replies.
V
Vouthon
Guest
The apostolic father Papias (70 - 163) referred to a variant of this story as part of the oral tradition derived from Jesus. It also, apparently, featured in the Gospel of the Hebrews. So it’s very ancient and I do regard it as an authentic dominical story of Christ, part of our sacred tradition. Hurtado himself notes this in the comments underneath the blog post:
“the earliest Christians perceived the traditions about Jesus as oral…it is well known that many of the Fathers cite sayings not recorded in any existing Gospel, the so-called agrapha. Certainly it is still true for Irenaeus that words of Jesus have an authority which has little to do with whether or not they stand in a written gospel…These traditions are cited as ‘what all Christians know’, not as facts attested by specific documents…Christians who saw things this way agreed in principle with Papias that, ‘I do not think that what was taken from books would profit me so much as what came from the living and abiding voice’’” (John Barton, Holy Writings, Sacred Text p.99).
I have always, however, regarded the story of the adulterous woman as an interpolation (or rather ancient agraphon inserted into scripture to save it for the lectionary cycle), simply on the basis that it breaks the flow of the Johannine discourse; has a more polished Greek style than the rest of the gospel and has clearly – according to the patristic writers – been a “floating tradition” variously inserted into GJohn, GLuke or attributed to oral tradition or another gospel.
I think Professor David Bentley Hart, the Eastern Orthodox scholar, was quite right to note in his translation of the NT that: “there is good reason to think the episode may in fact be drawn from an older narrative source than the Gospel itself…the story was something of a freely floating tradition, perhaps with very deep roots in Christian memory, one that was not originally firmly associated with any particular Gospel text, but that was inserted in various versions of Luke or John because” no one wanted it to be “left out of the church’s lectionary cycle” (The New Testament: A New Translation, p.196).
This seems to be much the same argument made by the authors of the cited study.
Indeed, St. Didymus the Blind (c. 313 – 398) noted that “it is related in some gospels” (plural) that a woman “was condemned by the Jews because of a sin and was taken to the customary place of stoning, in order that she might be stoned” (Commentary on Ecclesiastes 4.223.6–13).
As the eminent Anglican scholar, Professor John Barton of Oxford University, explained:It’s historically fair to judge that the passage was inserted into GJohn (usually as what we know as 7:53–8:11, but in some manuscripts at other locations, and in a few inserted instead in GLuke), and so not an original part of GJohn.
Most scholars have judged by references to some such story very early that its warrants are good, and that it is an example of a larger body of Jesus-tradition circulating in early Christianity. As GJohn itself says (21:25), there was a larger pool of such tradition wider than what is contained in our four Gospels
“the earliest Christians perceived the traditions about Jesus as oral…it is well known that many of the Fathers cite sayings not recorded in any existing Gospel, the so-called agrapha. Certainly it is still true for Irenaeus that words of Jesus have an authority which has little to do with whether or not they stand in a written gospel…These traditions are cited as ‘what all Christians know’, not as facts attested by specific documents…Christians who saw things this way agreed in principle with Papias that, ‘I do not think that what was taken from books would profit me so much as what came from the living and abiding voice’’” (John Barton, Holy Writings, Sacred Text p.99).
I have always, however, regarded the story of the adulterous woman as an interpolation (or rather ancient agraphon inserted into scripture to save it for the lectionary cycle), simply on the basis that it breaks the flow of the Johannine discourse; has a more polished Greek style than the rest of the gospel and has clearly – according to the patristic writers – been a “floating tradition” variously inserted into GJohn, GLuke or attributed to oral tradition or another gospel.
I think Professor David Bentley Hart, the Eastern Orthodox scholar, was quite right to note in his translation of the NT that: “there is good reason to think the episode may in fact be drawn from an older narrative source than the Gospel itself…the story was something of a freely floating tradition, perhaps with very deep roots in Christian memory, one that was not originally firmly associated with any particular Gospel text, but that was inserted in various versions of Luke or John because” no one wanted it to be “left out of the church’s lectionary cycle” (The New Testament: A New Translation, p.196).
This seems to be much the same argument made by the authors of the cited study.
Indeed, St. Didymus the Blind (c. 313 – 398) noted that “it is related in some gospels” (plural) that a woman “was condemned by the Jews because of a sin and was taken to the customary place of stoning, in order that she might be stoned” (Commentary on Ecclesiastes 4.223.6–13).
Last edited:
W
Wesrock
Guest
The issues with the authenticity of the verse to John’s gospel have been known for some time. The Church recognizes it may not have originally been in John, but still accepts the verses as scripture.
V
Vouthon
Guest
Indeed, the church regards the pericope adulterae as part of the deposit of faith and has always used it in the lectionary cycle, the liturgy, which is the living embodiment of our faith.
The church fathers defended its apostolic origin but not all of them upheld its identity as part of written scripture prior to its insertion. Hilary of Poitiers (ca. 315–67/8), Pacian of Barcelona (ca. 310–91), Ambrose of Milan (ca. 339–97), Gelasius (d. 395), Rufinus of Aquileia (ca. 345–411), Jerome (ca. 345–420), Augustine of Hippo (345–430), Peter Chrysologus (ca. 400–450), Leo the Great (d. 461), Sedulius (active ca. 450), and Cassiodorus (ca. 485–580) - among other authorities - all embraced it as an authentic story about Christ.
There is a strong scholarly case to be made that the story originated in the oral tradition, as a free-floating dominical narrative not derived from any specific gospel text, that was incorporated incorporated variously into John and Luke (the language is more polished and Lukan-like).
As Catholics, this should be less of a problem for us than it is for sola scripturists.
From the new study:
The church fathers defended its apostolic origin but not all of them upheld its identity as part of written scripture prior to its insertion. Hilary of Poitiers (ca. 315–67/8), Pacian of Barcelona (ca. 310–91), Ambrose of Milan (ca. 339–97), Gelasius (d. 395), Rufinus of Aquileia (ca. 345–411), Jerome (ca. 345–420), Augustine of Hippo (345–430), Peter Chrysologus (ca. 400–450), Leo the Great (d. 461), Sedulius (active ca. 450), and Cassiodorus (ca. 485–580) - among other authorities - all embraced it as an authentic story about Christ.
There is a strong scholarly case to be made that the story originated in the oral tradition, as a free-floating dominical narrative not derived from any specific gospel text, that was incorporated incorporated variously into John and Luke (the language is more polished and Lukan-like).
As Catholics, this should be less of a problem for us than it is for sola scripturists.
From the new study:
The story of the woman taken in adultery features a dramatic confrontation between Jesus and the Pharisees over whether the adulteress should be stoned as the law commands. In response, Jesus famously states, “Let him who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her.” To Cast the First Stone traces the history of this provocative story from its first appearance to its enduring presence today.
Likely added to the Gospel of John in the third century, the passage is often held up by modern critics as an example of textual corruption by early Christian scribes and editors, yet a judgment of corruption obscures the warm embrace the story actually received. Jennifer Knust and Tommy Wasserman trace the story’s incorporation into Gospel books, liturgical practices, storytelling, and art, overturning the mistaken perception that it was either peripheral or suppressed, even in the Greek East. The authors also explore the story’s many different meanings. Taken as an illustration of the expansiveness of Christ’s mercy, the purported superiority of Christians over Jews, the necessity of penance, and more, this vivid episode has invited any number of creative receptions. This history reveals as much about the changing priorities of audiences, scribes, editors, and scholars as it does about an “original” text of John.
To Cast the First Stone calls attention to significant shifts in Christian book cultures and the enduring impact of oral tradition on the preservation—and destabilization—of scripture.
Last edited:
V
Vouthon
Guest
I must quote from this excellent study, namely chapter II.
The researchers speak (like Barton did back in the 1990s) about the “open attitude ancient Christians displayed when discussing Gospel books and traditions” (p.54), such that “at this early stage, written Gospels did not limit the content of the gospel message, which was presumed to be much greater than what was contained in books” (p.55), “they remained open to [orthodox] traditions about Jesus that never made it into the fourfold Gospels” (ibid.) because “to these second-century Christian writers, our earliest witnesses to the New Testament Gospels, “gospel” remained an expansive term that exceeded what was found in books” (p.57) and in such a climate “it would have been possible to refer to the pericope adulterae as an authoritative tradition - as “gospel” - whether or not it was found in John. Indeed, this is precisely how the story was cited: no second or third-century allusion identifies a source text. Yet lack of attribution does not imply an absence of esteem…[because of] the sense among ancient Christians that apostolic traditions” (ibid.) were true and binding in their own right, regardless of whether they were committed to writing in the canon.
One of the most fascinating exemplars of this patristic dedication to the oral tradition, cited in the book, is that of St. Irenaeus of Lyons (ca. 130 - ca. 200), the early church’s greatest heresy-hunter-in-chief whom the authors note: “did specify and describe each of the four Gospels, defending their authority against what he regarded as an onslaught of heretical interpretation, but even he weaved together written gospel traditions with other extra-canonical sayings of Jesus that he treats with equivalent weight” (p.57).
For instance, St. Irenaeus quotes a saying of Jesus involving vines with ten thousand branches that he explicitly states he knew not from any Gospel book but from St. Papias of Hierapolis (ca. 60 - 130), who, he states, learned it from associates of the apostle John (Haer. 5.33-3).
The Gospel of John actually refers to this principle explicitly: “Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not written in this book” (20:30); “But there are also many other things that Jesus did; if every one of them were written down, I suppose that the world itself could not contain the books that would be written” (21:25).
The academics thus conclude: “The cumulative weight of the literary evidence therefore confirms that a story involving a woman taken in adultery or sin was familiar to some Christians early on, but not necessarily that it was known from John. When known, this episode was perceived as a worthy gospel anecdote, external to the fourfold Gospel tradition perhaps, but authoritative nonetheless” an argument that is “even more certain once the manuscript evidence is consulted” (p.64).
The researchers speak (like Barton did back in the 1990s) about the “open attitude ancient Christians displayed when discussing Gospel books and traditions” (p.54), such that “at this early stage, written Gospels did not limit the content of the gospel message, which was presumed to be much greater than what was contained in books” (p.55), “they remained open to [orthodox] traditions about Jesus that never made it into the fourfold Gospels” (ibid.) because “to these second-century Christian writers, our earliest witnesses to the New Testament Gospels, “gospel” remained an expansive term that exceeded what was found in books” (p.57) and in such a climate “it would have been possible to refer to the pericope adulterae as an authoritative tradition - as “gospel” - whether or not it was found in John. Indeed, this is precisely how the story was cited: no second or third-century allusion identifies a source text. Yet lack of attribution does not imply an absence of esteem…[because of] the sense among ancient Christians that apostolic traditions” (ibid.) were true and binding in their own right, regardless of whether they were committed to writing in the canon.
One of the most fascinating exemplars of this patristic dedication to the oral tradition, cited in the book, is that of St. Irenaeus of Lyons (ca. 130 - ca. 200), the early church’s greatest heresy-hunter-in-chief whom the authors note: “did specify and describe each of the four Gospels, defending their authority against what he regarded as an onslaught of heretical interpretation, but even he weaved together written gospel traditions with other extra-canonical sayings of Jesus that he treats with equivalent weight” (p.57).
For instance, St. Irenaeus quotes a saying of Jesus involving vines with ten thousand branches that he explicitly states he knew not from any Gospel book but from St. Papias of Hierapolis (ca. 60 - 130), who, he states, learned it from associates of the apostle John (Haer. 5.33-3).
The Gospel of John actually refers to this principle explicitly: “Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not written in this book” (20:30); “But there are also many other things that Jesus did; if every one of them were written down, I suppose that the world itself could not contain the books that would be written” (21:25).
The academics thus conclude: “The cumulative weight of the literary evidence therefore confirms that a story involving a woman taken in adultery or sin was familiar to some Christians early on, but not necessarily that it was known from John. When known, this episode was perceived as a worthy gospel anecdote, external to the fourfold Gospel tradition perhaps, but authoritative nonetheless” an argument that is “even more certain once the manuscript evidence is consulted” (p.64).
Last edited:
- Status
- Not open for further replies.