Mark 7:2 - Polishing in the Byzantine (and Western) Text

A variant in Mark 7:22 illustrates the weight of intrinsic evidence – when textual critics ask, “What did the scribe probably have in  front of him in his exemplar?” and “Which reading accounts for the rise of its rivals?”  It may also illlustrate how reasonable people can interpret the intrinsic evidence in opposite ways. 

This contest consists mainly of the presence or absence of ἐμέμψαντο, represented in the NKJV by the words “they found fault.”   The word is not in the NA28, the UBS GNT, or in Mitchell’s GNT.   Although Swanson listed the majority text as support for non-inclusion, the Robinson-Pierpont Byzantine Textform and Hodges-Farstad both include ἐμέμψαντο, as does the Solid Rock GNT. 

The base-texts of the ESV, NIV, NLT, NASB 1995 and EHV do not include ἐμέμψαντο.

To most proponents of the Alexandrian text, supported in non-inclusion by 01, 02, 03, 011, 019, 037, 0211, 0274, and 19 minuscules (including 713 892 1424 and 2200), it is obvious that a scribe added ἐμέμψαντο to ensure that the meaning of the sentence would be understood.  The alteration had to have been early to affect witnesses which include 032, the Greek Byzantine stream and family 1, the Peshitta, and the Vulgate (vituperaverunt).

But it may seem equally obvious to some advocates of Byzantine Priority that an early scribe excised ἐμέμψαντο on the grounds that the Pharisees only thought that they found fault with the activity that Jesus permitted, and did not want to risk having readers misunderstand as actual what merely an impression.

The Western text of Codex D (05) may help.  If the Byzantine text originated as a blend of the Alexandrian and Western texts, as Hort proposed, we would expect to find, instead of ἐμέμψαντο, D’s unique reading κατέγνωσαν.   This indicates that the Byzantine text’s earliest layer of expansion did not depend upon the existence of the Western text, and (assuming that the shorter reading is original) that in both streams a scribal tendency to polish sentences that could seem difficult was at work. 

Interestingly, the primary scribe of minuscule 2 did not include ἐμέμψαντο, ending the sentence with ἄρτον (agreeing with À!); a corrector has added ἐμέμψαντο αὐτοῖς.

Revelation 20:9 - Concluding the Final Battle

 

          Revelation 20 related the culmination of rebellion against God – and a concise description of the consequences of such rebellion:  the final defeat of Satan and his demonic allies and the commencing of Judgment Day.  Today we shall consider a small variant in verse 9:  does the fire that destroys the forces of Satan fall explicitly come from God (ἀπὸ τοῦ Θεοῦ) or not?  The Byzantine text includes ἀπὸ τοῦ Θεοῦ.  Codex Alexandrinus and about 25 minuscules, as Metzger stated in his Textual Commentary on the GNT, do not; nor did a text read by Tyconius, Augustine, and Primasius.  The Vulgate as represented by Novum Testamentum Latine (1906 Stuttgart) includes “a Deo,” supporting ἀπὸ τοῦ Θεοῦ. Metzger granted that about 120 minuscules support ἀπὸ τοῦ Θεοῦ, as do Jerome, Aspringius and Beatus.  Codex Gigas also supports the inclusion of ἀπὸ τοῦ Θεοῦ although there is inconsistency about whether it should appear before or after ἐκ τοῦ ὸὐρανοῦ.  Augustine’s testimony is inconsistent; he apparently read “a Deo” on one occasion. 

          Versional evidence favoring the inclusion of ἀπὸ τοῦ Θεοῦ includes the Old Latin represented by Codex Gigas, the Sahidic version, Harklean Syriac, the Armenian version, and some Ethiopic copies.  

          The testimony of Codex Sinaiticus is somewhat diminished by the scribe’s initial omission of much of Revelation 20:9-10; in the margin a corrector has added the missing passage including ἀπὸ τοῦ Θῦ.

          Our modern English versions are not consistent.  The KJV, Living Oracles (1826), Living Bible, MEV, NKJV, WEB, and EHV include “from God.”  The 1881 Revised Version, ESV, CEV, CSB, NASB, NET, NIV, NLT, and NRSV do not include “from God.”

          Metzger argued for the non-inclusion of ἀπὸ τοῦ Θεοῦ on the grounds that it originated as an “imitation of 21.2 and 21.10.”  On the other hand, a scribe could consider it superfluous, or simply omit it accidentally when his line of sight drifted from the end of the contracted ουνου to the end of Θῦ.

           My view is that ἀπὸ τοῦ Θῦ should be retained after εκ τοῦ ουνου.  Readers who can provide additional thoughts are welcome to share them in the comments.

Challenging the "Expansion of Piety" Theory

            Today, let’s take a look at readings in manuscripts of the Gospels which are said to be the effects of the piety of scribes.  Where the original text refers to Jesus via a pronoun, scribes sometimes inserted Jesus’ proper name; where the original text says “Jesus,” a slight expansion was made – “the Lord Jesus,” or “Jesus Christ” – as an expression of scribal piety.  Or so it has been claimed.  Here are some examples of this phenomenon, taken from the Synoptic Gospels:

Matthew

● 8:6 – In the original text, the centurion makes his request to Jesus without any introductory word.  The later manuscripts add “Lord” so as to convey a higher level of respect for Jesus.

● 8:22 – The original text does not have Jesus’ name in this verse.  Scribes inserted Jesus’ name to emphasis the focus of His call to “Follow Me.”

● 9:22 – The original text does not have Jesus’ name in this verse.  Scribes added Jesus’ name to increase the narrative’s clarity. 
● 14:16 – The original text did not have Jesus’ name in this verse.  Scribes added Jesus’ name to increase the narrative’s clarity.

● 14:27 – The original text did not have Jesus’ name in this verse.  Scribes added Jesus’ name to increase the narrative’s clarity.

● 15:1 – The original text did not have Jesus’ name in this verse.  Scribes added Jesus’ name as a way of introducing a new episode or scene.

● 15:28 – The original text did not have Jesus’ name at the beginning of the verse.  Scribes added Jesus’ name to increase the narrative’s clarity.

● 16:21 – Whereas Vaticanus and Sinaiticus simply refer to “Jesus” here, later manuscripts read “Jesus Christ.”

● 17:15 – The later manuscripts add “Lord” to introduce the man’s request, so as to convey a higher level of respect for Jesus.

● 19:8 – Some later manuscripts add Jesus’ name, increasing the clarity of the passage.

● 19:18 – Some of the oldest manuscripts do not have Jesus’ name in this verse, indicating that His name was added by scribes to increase the clarity of the passage.

● 20:23 – Byzantine scribes added Jesus’ name to the passage, perhaps to augment its usefulness as an isolated saying when memorized.

● 20:30 – Later scribes added “Lord” to introduce the man’s request, so as to convey a higher level of respect for Jesus.

● 26:50a – Later scribes added Jesus’ name at the beginning of this verse to increase the clarity of the passage. 

Mark

● 1:40 – The later manuscripts add “Lord” to introduce the man’s request, so as to convey a higher level of respect for Jesus.

● 2:4 – Some later minuscules add Jesus’ name to increase the clarity of the passage.

● 2:19 – The original text did not include Jesus’ name; it was added to increase the clarity of the passage.

● 5:13 – One very late manuscript piously expands the text so as to refer to “the Lord Jesus.” 

● 9:39 – The oldest manuscripts do not have Jesus’ name in this verse.

● 10 21 – A small group of uncials adds Jesus’ name to this verse, increasing its clarity.

● 10:42 – A small group of minuscules which appear to have been strongly influenced by lectionaries adds Jesus’ name in this verse, introducing a new episode or scene.
● 10:51 – Two ancient manuscripts do not have Jesus’ name in this verse, indicating that it was added by scribes to increase the clarity of the passage. 

● 12:29 – A small group of minuscules which appear to have been strongly influenced by lectionaries adds Jesus’ name in this verse, introducing a new episode or scene.
● 14:62 – A small group of manuscripts influenced by lectionaries adds Jesus’ name to this verse to increase clarity.

Luke

● 2:39 – A small group of minuscules (and a few other manuscripts) which appear to have been strongly influenced by lectionaries adds Jesus’ name in this verse.

● 5:8 – The original text does not have Jesus’ name; it (or “the Lord”) is added in later manuscripts.

● 5:8 – The original text does not have “O Lord” at the end of this verse; it is added in later manuscripts (probably as a harmonization). 

● 5:19 – Minuscule 1424 substitutes Jesus’ name in place of “Him” at the end of the verse.
● 5:26 – A small group of manuscripts (including Codices D and W, and f¹³) inserts “and glorified God,” a formulaic augmentation.

● 7:6 – The scribe of 579 added “Lord” to preface the request, so as to convey a higher level of respect for Jesus.

● 8:46 – Codex Bezae (D) inserts Jesus’ name near the beginning of the verse.

● 9:59 – Although Vaticanus and D have the word “Lord,” P45 and P75 display the earlier form of the verse, without it.

● 10:1 – Minuscule 1424 adds “the Lord” to introduce a new episode or scene.

● 14:2 – A small group of minuscules which appear to have been strongly influenced by lectionaries adds Jesus’ name in this verse.

● 14:22 – D adds “Lord” to preface the servant’s statement.

● 16:15 – One relatively recent manuscript has “in the sight of the Lord,” a slightly more formal wording than “in the sight of God.”

● 18:19 – D adds Jesus’ name to increase the clarity of the passage.

● 18:38 – A small group of uncials adds Jesus’ name to this verse.

● 18:42 – D adds Jesus’ name near the beginning of this verse, increasing the clarity of the passage.
● 20:34 – D adds Jesus’ name near the beginning of this verse, increasing the clarity of the passage.

● 22:52 – D and a small group of minuscules which appear to have been strongly influenced by lectionaries insert Jesus’ name in this verse.

● 23:20 –A small group of minuscules which appear to have been strongly influenced by lectionaries adds Jesus’ name in this verse.

● 23:26 – A small group of manuscripts influenced by lectionaries adds Jesus’ name to these two verses to increase clarity.

            You can see how, over the years, copyists consistently added to the text . . . .

            Wait a second . . . something’s wrong here.  O silly me! Somehow I stated the opposite of what I should have written down in that list!  My bad.  Let’s look at the data again – this time, correctly, and in a little more detail:

Matthew

8:6 – À* doesn’t have “Lord” but Vaticanus (B) and the Byzantine Text (“Byz”) (and NA27) do.

8:22 – Although À and 33 do not include “Jesus,” B and Byz (and NA27) do.

9:22 – Although À and D do not include “Jesus,” B and Byz (and NA27) do.

14:16 – À and D do not include “Jesus,” but B and Byz (and NA27) do.

14:27 – À and D do not include “Jesus,” but B and Byz (and NA27) do. 

15:1 – D and f¹ say “to Him” instead of “to Jesus,” but B and Byz (and NA27) support “to Jesus.”

15:28 – D does not include “Jesus” but B and Byz (and NA27) do.

16:21 – B and À have “Jesus Christ.”  Byz (and NA27) only has “Jesus.”

17:15 – À does not include “Lord,” but B and Byz (and NA27) do.

19:8 – À has “Jesus” but B and Byz (and NA27) do not.  

19:18 – B and Byz (and NA27) include “Jesus” but some much younger manuscripts (such as 1424, 788, and f¹³) do not. 

20:23 – D, Δ and f¹³ have “Jesus” but B and Byz (and NA27) do not.

20:30 – D, 118, and 157, and 565 do not have “Lord,” but B and Byz (and NA27) do.

26:50a – P37 and À do not support “”Jesus,” but B and Byz (and NA27) do.

Mark

● 1:40 – B says “Lord,” but Byz and À A D K Δ Π 33 f¹ (and NA27) do not.

● 2:4 – D inserts “Jesus,” but B and Byz  (and NA27) do not.

● 2:19 – D and W do not include “Jesus” but B and Byz (and NA27) do.

● 5:13 – D has “Lord Jesus,” but Byz and A Κ Π only have “Jesus.”  B À W (and NA27) have neither.

● 9:39 – D W f¹ f¹³ 28 565 do not include “Jesus” but B À and Byz (and NA27) do.

● 10:21 –A Y K Π do not include “Jesus” but B À and Byz (and NA27) do.

● 10:42 – W and f¹ do not include “Jesus” but B À and Byz (and NA27) do.

● 10:51 – Θ and 565 do not include “Jesus” but B À and Byz (and NA27) do.

● 12:29 – W and f¹ do not include “Jesus” but B À and Byz (and NA27) do.

● 14:62 – f¹³ and 579 do not include “Jesus” but B À and Byz (and NA27) do.

Luke

2:39 – Γ 700 f¹ 788 do not have “of the Lord” (Κυ) but B À and Byz (and NA27) do.

5:8 – D does not include “Jesus” but B À and Byz (and NA27) do.

5:8 – À does not have “Lord” at the end of the verse, but B and Byz (and NA27) do..

5:19 – B has “before them all” and 1424 has “to Him,” but À and Byz (and NA27) support “before Jesus.”

5:26 – D* M Ψ W S 124 579 118 157 f¹³ omit “and they glorified God.” (h.a. error)  The phrase is included by B À and Byz (and NA27).

7:6 – 579 does not have “Lord,” but B À A D L W and Byz (and NA27) do.

8:46 – D does not have “Jesus” but B À and Byz (and NA27) do.

9:59 – B* and D do not have “Lord,” but P45 P75 À and Byz do.  NA27 has it in the text within brackets.

10:1 – D and 1424 do not have “the Lord,” but P45 P75 A B À and Byz (and NA27) do.

14:2 – f¹ does not have “Jesus,” but P45 P75 A B À and Byz (and NA27) do.

14:22 – D 1071 do not have “Lord,” but P75 A B À and Byz (and NA27) do.

16:15 – B has “the Lord,” but P75 A À D K W and Byz (and NA27) support “God.”

18:19 – D and G do not have “Jesus,” but B À and Byz (and NA27) do.

18:38 – A E K Π 579 do not have “Jesus,” but B À and Byz (and NA27) do.

18:42 – D does not include “Jesus,” but B À and Byz (and NA27) do.

20:34 – D does not include “Jesus,” but B À and Byz (and NA27) do.

22:52 – D and f¹ do not include “Jesus,” but B À and Byz (and NA27) do.

23:20 – f¹ has “Him” at the end of the verse, but P75 A B À and Byz (and NA27) support “Jesus.”

23:26 – f¹ has “Him” at the end of the verse, but P75 A B À and Byz (and NA27) support “Jesus.”

            Here we have more than 40 example of passages in which the river of scribal piety appears to run backwards:  the Byzantine reading is shorter than a rival reading, or a later manuscript’s reference to deity is shorter than the reference in much older manuscripts.  (Many more examples could be added.)  This evidence starkly defies the theory – advanced by Dan Wallace and others – that scribes operated on the principle of “When in doubt, don’t throw it out,” as if when copyists encountered readings that seemed possibly original, they kept them in the text, causing the text to grow with each generation of recopying.  If scribes had really operated that way, the medieval Greek text would have many more conflations, and many more Western readings, than it does. 

            Instead, in the real world, we see over and over that although the scribes who transmitted the Byzantine Text were not impervious to the temptation to augment or clarify the sense of a passage, especially at the beginnings of lections (via the introduction of a proper name where a pronoun had stood in the exemplar), we do not see in the Gospels a distinct tendency to expand divine names or titles.  In addition, there was something going on – especially in manuscripts such as À and 28 and 1424 – that caused some scribes to omit some proper names.

            It is simply inadequate to list (as James White does on page 75 of The King James Only Controversy) five readings from the Gospels (or a dozen), and proceed as if the case is thus proven that Byzantine copyists typically expanded divine names and titles out of a sense of piety.  As far as the text of the Gospels is concerned, it is extremely difficult to verify such a thing; to the extent that the Byzantine Text substitutes Jesus’ name where the original text has a pronoun, this was done for clarity’s sake, rather than for piety’s sake.

            Consider the New International Version:  in Matthew chapters 1-14, the NIV reads “Jesus” 31 times where the word Ιησους is not in the NIV’s Greek base-text.  Using the yardstick that has been used to judge the Byzantine Text, shall we say that all those occurrences of Jesus’ name are “expansions of piety”?  No; the NIV’s translators simply wanted to increase the clarity of the translation.  Look at Matthew 4:18, Matthew 12:25, Mark 2:15, Mark 10:52, and Luke 24:36) in the NIV (based on the Nestle-Aland text), and you will see that the NIV has “Jesus” in English in all five verses. 


(Readers are invited to double-check the data in this post.)

                                      

My Favorite Passage About an Adulteress in the Bible

            Dan Wallace’s research on John 7:53-8:11 is unreliable.  Let’s take a few minutes today to see where this professor at Dallas Theological Seminary has gotten things wrong about John 7:53-8:11 in his Credo Course on New Testament textual criticism, and at the wrong conclusion that his mistreatment of the evidence has led him.

Actually, we have a lot more than that:
half the majuscules of John 7-8,
and about 1,500 minuscules.

(1)  Wallace:  “We have three majuscule manuscripts, out of the 322 that we have, that actually have this passage.  That’s it.”

This statement is wrong in two ways.  First, the metric is unfair, since most of the 322 uncial manuscripts that he cited (a number which has risen slightly since then) do not have any text from the Gospel of John whatsoever.  It would be unfair to say, “The Dallas Cowboys have failed to win 308 out of 316 football games this season” if the team only played 16 football games, won seven times, and had one tie.  To include 300 games that the team could not participate in serves only one purpose:  to convey a false impression. 

            Second, more than three majuscule manuscripts have the story of the adulteress!  The uncials E, G, H, K, M, U, S, G, Ω, 047, and 0233 support the passage, and Codex F included it when the manuscript was in pristine condition.  Wallace’s statement of the number of uncials (i.e., majuscules) that contain the pericope adulterae is off by a factor of four.

            In addition, it is no secret that Codices Δ and L, while they do not contain John 7:53-8:11, contain blank space between John 7:52 and John 8:12, which is obvious testimony to their copyist’s awareness of the absent passage, and there is no good reason to neglect to mention this feature of these two manuscripts when presenting them as evidence for the non-inclusion of the passage.

The Latin chapter-titles (capitula)
and chapter-summaries (breves)
tell a different story.

(2)  Wallace:  “When the Syriac, and the Coptic, and the Latin versions, along those lines, don’t have it, when they were begun in the second and third century, their manuscripts that they used didn’t have it.”

Wallace’s statement is unobjectionable regarding the Syriac and Coptic copies – setting aside the Syriac Didascalia’s statement about Jesus’ statement, “Neither do I condemn you” in the interest of brevity, since it is not a manuscript – but the Latin evidence is quite a different story.  In an early form of the Latin chapter-divisions of John, considered to have originated in the mid-200’s or slightly thereafter (and for this reason called “Type Cy,” the “Cy” representing Cyprian and his era), the thirtieth chapter-title, or summary, begins with the phrase, “Ubi adulteram dimisit et se dixit lumen saeculi,” that is, “Wherein he dismissed the adulteress, and said that he was the light of the world.” 

            Another form of the Latin chapter-divisions in John, Type I, from the 300’s, divides the text differently; its sixteenth chapter-title, or summary, says, “Adducunt ad eum mulierem ‘in adulterio deprehensam,’” and in one form of this chapter-summary, the text continues, “in moechatione ut eam iudicaret,” and this phrase – with the loanword moechatione – is also found in another form of the Latin chapter-divisions, Type D.  All in all, twelve different forms of Latin chapter-divisions include the story of the adulteress, all in the usual location after John 7:52. 

            Among Old Latin manuscripts of John, while the early Latin support for John 7:53-8:11 is not unanimous, Jonathan Clark Borland has shown that the story of the adulteress circulated in not just one, but three localized forms within the Old Latin tradition.  Clearly, there is Dr. Wallace’s claim, and then on the other hand there is the real world.

Except 20 or so.  Obscure writers
such as Ambrose and Augustine.

(3) Wallace:  “We have a lack of patristic comments on this passage until the twelfth century.   Not until the 1100’s do you get somebody who takes any time to really comment on this text.” 

           For those who are familiar with the comments on this passage made by Pacian of Barcelona (mid-300’s – same era as Codex Sinaiticus’ copyists), Ambrose of Milan, Ambrosiaster, Jerome (whose testimony is strangely absent from the NET’s note on the passage), Augustine, Prosper of Aquitaine, and others, the gracious reaction will be to assume that the speaker was rephrasing Bruce Metzger’s outdated Textual Commentary, and forgot to include the word “Greek” to describe the patristic comments to which he referred.  But this cannot be the entire explanation, because Wallace proceeded to assert that “You don’t see it in any fathers of the first millennium.” [bold print added]

(4) Wallace:  “There are several [manuscripts] that have an asterisk in the margin.” 

            The number of manuscripts with an asterisk or asterisks (or similar marks, such as a column of squiggly lines) is something more like 270, not just “several.”  But in 130 of these manuscripts, the asterisks do not accompany all of John 7:53-8:11; they only accompany John 8:3-11.  Maurice Robinson has helpfully demonstrated that in these cases, the asterisks constitute part of the lectionary-apparatus, conveying to the lector where to find the lection for Saint Pelagia’s Day (October 8) embedded within the lection for Pentecost.  Wallace, however, instead of accepting what should be obvious – for why would copyists put asterisks only by 8:3-11, and not 7:53-8:2 as well, if their intent was to mark the passage as spurious? – has insisted that these asterisks were inserted to convey scribal doubt.  

            Part of the reason why he has insisted that these asterisks convey scribal doubt, he claimed, has something to do with the presence of an asterisk in Codex Claromontanus.  If anyone can make sense of the line of reasoning Dr. Wallace has employed about this, please let me know, for it seems to me that showing that one copyist used an asterisk for one purpose does not mean that other copyists cannot use it for an entirely different purpose.

(5) Wallace:  “Codex D’s text is not at all like the Byzantine MSS’ version of the story.  Lots of corruption in this passage.  Some manuscripts tell us what He wrote.  This indicates that this was “may well be a floating oral story that got spread about in different forms for quite some time.”

            Another explanation is that, as Eusebius of Caesarea reported, there was another form of the story in the once-popular writings of Papias, and details from one form of the story were occasionally blended into the other.  Of course for students to perceive this alternative explanation, they would first have to be informed about the existence of Eusebius’ report of Papias’ form of the incident.

Diagnosis:  Metzgerius Regurgitatis.
Study the lectionary cycle, professor.

(6) Wallace:  “It is a floating text as far as the New Testament is concerned.  Let me show you some of the places this passage has shown up, and let’s wrestle with what the implications of that are.  It appears in three different places in John 7 – not just John 7:53 but a couple of places earlier.”

            Ah, the Fable of the Floating Anecdote.  Since I have already refuted, in an earlier series of posts beginning at http://www.thetextofthegospels.com/2017/01/john-753-811-why-it-was-moved-part-1.html , the theory that the dislocations of the story of the adulteress indicate that it was a freestanding narrative that floated around like a restless butterfly, I will not replow plowed ground here, except to expose how selective Dr. Wallace’s descriptions of the evidence are.

(7) Wallace:  “In some manuscripts, it appears as a separate pericope at the end of all four Gospels, just tacked on at the very end.”

Tell us, please, about the note that
accompanies it in minuscule 1582. 
The note that says it was taken from
the location after John 7:52.

As if someone took a separate composition and added it on to the Gospels.  Except when one learns – as Dr. Wallace’s students, sadly, do not learn in his classroom – that these manuscripts belong to a tightly-related group, family-1, and that the core members of this group (minuscules 1 and 1582) preface the story of the adulteress with a note which specifically says “The chapter about the adulteress:  in the Gospel according to John, this does not appear in the majority of copies; nor is it commented upon by the divine fathers whose interpretations have been preserved – specifically, by John Chrysostom and Cyril of Alexandria; nor is it taken up by Theodore of Mopsuestia and the others.  For this reason, it was not kept in the place where it is found in a few copies, at the beginning of the 86^th chapter [that is, the 86^th Eusebian section], following, ‘Search and see that a prophet does not arise out of Galilee.’”

            If Dr. Wallace’s students were told about the contents of this prefatory note, they would not leave him classroom ready to confidently tell their future flocks that the story about the adulteress was “tacked on at the very end” from someplace other than from within the Gospel of John.  They would know about the note which specifically says that the story of the adulteress was transplanted to the end of John from its usual location after John 7:52.

Some?  I think you mean one.
And it's not independent. 
It's the lection for Saint Pelagia's
Day, with a heading, "From John."

(8) Wallace:  “In some manuscripts, it stands as an independent pericope between Luke and John.”

This is not the case.  The manuscript that comes the closest to fitting Dr. Wallace’s description is minuscule 1333, in which the lection for Saint Pelagia’s day (John 8:3-11) is added between the end of Luke and the beginning of John, on what had been a filler-page.  But John 8:3-11 is accompanied on this page in 1333 by headings which identify it as the lection for Saint Pelagia’s day, and as a lection from the Gospel of John.  Once again when the details of the evidence are not locked away, the same thing that was treated as evidence that the story of the adulteress was a floating text is seen to be just the opposite. 

(9) Wallace:  “What does all this tell us?  Is it stable in its place?  No; it’s not stable.  That suggests that here’s a passage that’s trying to get into the Bible, and it’s tried several different places to get in, if you can personify this.  And finally it landed on John 7:52, right after that seemed to be the most logical, the most coherent place, it seems; fits into the text pretty well, and yet there are still some real serious issues there.”

            That is the conclusion that Dr. Wallace wants his students to reach.  Throughout his lectures on this subject – not only in the Credo Course but also in other online presentations – he demonstrates an utter lack of consideration of the impact of the lection-cycle upon the text.  One is tempted to even call it a lack of awareness of the lection-cycle altogether, for as far as I can tell, he never brings up the point that the lection for Saint Pelagia was embedded within the lection for Pentecost.  Nor, as far as I can tell, does he ever indicate that he understands that copyists sometimes simplified the lector’s task on Pentecost (where the lection jumped from the end of John 7:52, leapfrogged John 7:53-8:11, and landed on 8:12) by removing the elided verses to another location.

            Rather, here is how he described the format of the passage in minuscule 115; I give an extensive quote in order to show the extent of his misunderstanding: 

(10) Wallace:  “And it also occurs, in one manuscript, after John 8:12; this is fascinating:  it’s codex 115, and it’s one that Griesbach actually was one of the very first guys to collate; I collated it several years ago, and what I noticed was – here’s a manuscript, it shears off at John 11, right in the middle of John 11 – but, the scribe copying out this manuscript gets to this pericope, and – he’s copying from another manuscript – he writes out John 7:52; then he continues copying from this other manuscript, and writes out John 8:12. 

            “The manuscript that he’s copying from . . . all of a sudden, it skips the story of the woman caught in adultery.  This scribe doesn’t catch it until he writes the verse after this pericope.  And so, he catches it:  he goes, “Oh!  Wait a minute; that’s not right.  This story is supposed to go here.”  So he goes and puts that manuscript down, picks up another one that has the story of the woman caught in adultery, and writes it out.  This is the only manuscript I know of where you have the story of the woman caught in adultery after John 8:12, and then John 8:12 is again repeated after it.  And you can see how it came about.”

            Except that’s not how it came about.  The copyist of 115 was merely trying to make the lector’s job a little easier by putting 8:12 alongside the rest of the lection for Pentecost.  Minuscule 115 is not the only manuscript like this; the same thing is found in minuscules 1050, 1349, and 2620, and in minuscule 476, John 8:12 is written in the margin alongside 7:52 for the same purpose.  Dr. Wallace guides his students to conclude that the passage is a floating text, but what the evidence that he is presenting really shows – if its details would be allowed to speak in Dr. Wallace’s classrooms – is that the copyists of these manuscripts expected John 7:37-52+8:12 to be read at Pentecost, and they also expected John 8:3-11 to be read on October 8 in honor of Saint Pelagia (or in some cases, Mary of Egypt).  In no way does these transplantations of the passage support the idea that it was moved from anywhere except from its usual location after John 7:52. 

            Regarding the other case of transplantation that Wallace mentioned (to the end of Luke 21), and others that he did not mention, I have elsewhere already explained how they originated because of adjustments to the lection-cycle, and do not support the idea of a “floating text,” unless one means that some copyists, in attempts to simplify the task of the lector, floated the passage from its usual location after John 7:52 to other locations that they considered more convenient.

(11) Wallace:  “I told you that some of these manuscripts have an asterisk there, and the asterisk is indicating that the text is not authentic.  Here in Codex 1424 we see asterisks in the margin down here, of this text.  So you’ve got the text actually written out, but then you’ve got the asterisks saying it’s not actually authentic, or that they have doubts about it.  This is a manuscript at the Lutheran School of Theology that we photographed a few years ago, a very important manuscript.  But, significantly, those asterisks say, the scribe is telling us he has doubts about the authenticity.”

What about the note in 1424 that
says that the entire passage is in
the ancient manuscripts and that
the church should use it?

            Let’s take a closer look at minuscule 1424’s treatment of the story of the adulteress.  Its main text does not include the passage; the account is crammed into the outer and lower margin of the page.  The readings within the passage as written in the margin of 1424 are similar to the text of the passage in Codex Λ.  In addition to the asterisks, it is accompanied by a note.  Nearly identical notes also appear in Codex Λ (as a scholium), and in minuscule 262, and in minuscule 20 (in which the passage is transplanted to the end of the Gospel of John).  Here is the note:  “This is not in certain copies, and it was not in those used by Apollinaris.  In the old ones, it is all there.  And this pericope is referenced by the apostles, affirming that it is for the edification of the church.”  (The last sentence is referring to the use of the story about the adulteress in the composition known as Apostolic Constitutions, Book 2, chapter 24, which is modeled upon an older work, the Didascalia, at this point.)

The format of the text in 1349:
Red line with green arrow (twice) = 8:12
Yellow line = 7:53-8:11
Blue rectangle = heading, "The Adulteress"
Green square:  movable date for the next lection

            Thus, when closer scrutiny is applied to the margin of 1424, we do not have to resort to guesswork to see the purpose of the asterisks:  they draw attention to the passage that the note is about – a note which affirms that the passage, though not in some copies, was found in ancient manuscripts, and which appeals to Apostolic Constitutions as confirmation that it is for the edification of the church.  Not quite the same impression now, is it?

(12) Wallace:  “I really think the passage needs to be relegated to the footnotes.”

            So would I, if my grasp of the evidence were as poor as his, or if I were a student at Dallas Theological Seminary (or at the Credo Course) without the means to test the accuracy of what I was being taught on this subject.  But having taken an unfiltered look into the evidence (and there is much more I could critique, but have not, in the interest of brevity), my view is that the story about the adulteress was originally in the text of the Gospel of John, and that it was lost in an early and influential transmission-line when a copyist misunderstood marginal instructions intended for a lector as if they were meant for the copyist.  It should be revered by everyone as inspired Scripture.  

            Some might claim that my position is the effect of an attachment to tradition, or “emotional baggage.”  What could I do against such suspicions except insist that this is not the case, and that it is those who reject the pericope adulterae who are promoting an obsolete tradition – namely, the “floating anecdote” myth that is no longer sustainable.  Against all attempts at dismissal, I bask in my confidence that even those who have traveled down that dead-end road will soon learn the facts of the case, and stop spreading their inaccurate claims about the story of the adulteress.

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            I take this opportunity to remind readers that my Kindle e-book A Fresh Analysis of John 7:53-8:11 is available to purchase at Amazon for 99 cents – and readers (especially seminary professors and Bible teachers) are welcome to contact me at james.snapp@gmail.com and request a free copy.