Since it’s been received by the Church historically, I accept it as authoritative.
Given Church teaching on the Gospels in general, I’d be strongly inclined toward accepting its historicity unless there were very good reasons not to. I suppose one could argue that it’s a special case, even if one accepts its theological authority based on the tradition of reception by the Church.
I don’t see a lot of obstacles to accepting it–in fact, some hold it up as an excellent example of the sort of thing that is very unlikely to have been made up. (C. S. Lewis used it, as well as some other episodes from John–without dealing with the textual problems of this episode’s inclusion in John–to argue that either John is essentially accurate or it’s a remarkable anticipation of modern realistic fiction.) The writing on the ground, for instance, is never explained–it’s a weird act that isn’t given any explicit theological interpretation, although it does have some pretty strong symbolic resonance, as medieval and patristic interpretation shows (arguably it’s a kind of “Jesus as new Moses” moment–Jesus writes with his finger in the dust, showing that he has authority over the law given to Moses by the finger of God).
I certainly don’t agree with those liberal scholars who construct a “historical Jesus” made up only of those aspects of the Gospels that seem shocking or embarrassing by the standards of first-century religious sensibilities. But the problem with that approach is what it excludes, not what it includes. It seems pretty odd to me that early Christians, given their tendencies toward moral rigorism, would have told this kind of a story about Jesus unless they had really good reason to believe that it actually happened!
Edwin
