 |
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.”
(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 86th chapter
[that is, the 86th 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.
 |
Also available
as a download
at the
NT Textual Criticism
group on Facebook. |
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.
