Dan Wallace's Credo Course: More Problems

Asterisks (within yellow circles)
in the lectionary-apparatus of Codex M.

Today we continue to test the accuracy of some statements in Daniel Wallace’s Credo Course lecture on John 7:53-8:11. 

● About eight minutes into the lecture, Dr. Wallace brought up the subject of asterisks.  He stated, “What an asterisk indicates – this goes back to Alexandrian scribal habits – is, ‘I have doubts about whether this passage is authentic.’”  In some cases, that is true.  However, asterisks in Byzantine manuscripts are also capable of serving as all-purpose symbols to catch the eye of the reader.  They can also be incorporated into the lectionary-apparatus, as Maurice Robinson has described, and as I mentioned in my research-book. (Pictured here are a few examples of asterisks used in the lectionary-apparatus of Codex M.)    

            If Dr. Wallace believes that asterisks are never used in the lectionary-apparatus, then he needs to explain why, in 130 manuscripts (not just “several”), asterisks or special marks of some sort accompany John 8:3-11, and not John 7:53-8:2.  Robinson’s model explains that:  in the Byzantine lectionary, John 8:3-11 constituted a distinct lection (namely, the reading for Saint Pelagia’s Day, October 8), embedded within the lection for Pentecost.  Wallace’s approach, meanwhile, seems to require that the scribes of these manuscripts accepted John 7:53-8:2, but rejected John 8:3-11.   

 

● In the ninth minute of the lecture, Wallace asserts that the pericope adulterae is a “floating text.”  This is somewhat surprising, because elsewhere in the lecture he mentions the work of Dr. Chris Keith which shows that the pericope adulterae’s location (following John 7:52) was secure long before the production of the Greek witnesses which have it elsewhere.  Equally surprising is Wallace’s omission of some important details in his descriptions of the manuscripts that have the story of the adulteress displaced from its usual location.  And even more surprising is how effectively these details smash up the theory that the pericope adulterae was ever a “floating text.”

            Wallace stated, “In some manuscripts, it appears as a separate pericope at the end of all four Gospels, just tacked on at the very end.”  The important detail that Wallace fails to mention here involves a note that accompanies the pericope adulterae in the flagship-manuscripts of the group of manuscripts that have it after the end of John 21 (minuscules 1 and 1582).  The note specifies that the passage was moved from where it had been found in the text, after the words “a prophet does not arise” in 7:52.  To restate:  the note specifically says that the transplantation of the passage was subsequent to its location after 7:52.  Only by avoiding this detail can Wallace use this dislocation to sustain the idea that the pericope adulterae was a “floating text.” 

            Wallace also stated:  “In some manuscripts, it stands as an independent pericope between Luke and John.”  That is just not true.  Only one manuscript comes close to fitting that description:  minuscule 1333, which does not have the entire passage between Luke and John – only John 8:3-11.  Furthermore, 1333 features a rubric that identifies the passage as an excerpt from the Gospel of John.  Only when these details go unmentioned can listeners get the impression that John 7:53-8:11 floated its way into this location as a previously freestanding text.  When the details are known, it is obvious that all that has happened in minuscule 1333 is that after this manuscript was written (without the story of the adulteress), someone wrote the lection for Saint Pelagia’s Day on what had previously been a blank page between Luke and John. 

● In the tenth minute of the lecture, Wallace mentioned manuscript 115, describing it as “the only manuscript I know of” in which the pericope adulterae appears after 8:12, and is also followed by 8:12.  Wallace then proposed that the scribe of 115, after writing John 8:12, noticed that his exemplar was missing the story about the adulteress, found a different exemplar that contained it, and then added it after 8:12.    

            Digital images of 115 are online.  (By the way, 115 is not the only manuscript like this; the text is rearranged the same way in minuscules 1050, 1349, 2620, and 2751.)  A close examination of the manuscript shows that a scribe (probably the scribe of 115’s exemplar) merely simplified the lector’s job on Pentecost, so that he would not have to jump from 7:52 to 8:12 in order to find the final portion of the Pentecost-lection.  Small horizontal lines in 115 at the beginning of John 7:37 and at the end of 7:52 represent the beginning, and the end, of the main part of the lection.  In other words, what we have in 115 is not the movement of the PA, but the repetition of 8:12; the verse appears after 7:52 to complete the Pentecost-lection.    

            Regarding the other evidence that Wallace misinterprets as if it implies that the story of the adulteress was a “floating text,” see my video from last year.    

● In the fourteenth minute of the lecture, Wallace mentions manuscript 1424, which has the PA in the margin.  Wallace states that asterisks which accompany the PA in 1424 were meant by scribes to convey that the PA is “not actually authentic, or that they have doubts about it.”  He restates the same idea:  the asterisks “are the scribe telling us he has doubts about the authenticity.”         

            Viewers of the Credo Course are left uninformed about the note that accompanies the pericope adulterae in the lower margin of 1424.  The note (essentially the same as a note that is also found in Codex Λ and in minuscule 262) says:  “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 was referenced by the apostles, affirming that it is for the edification of the church.”  (The last sentence is referring to the use of material from the pericope in the composition known as Apostolic Constitutions, Book 2, chapter 24, which is sort of echoing an older work, the Didascalia, at this point.)  

            It does not do justice to the evidence when one mentions only the asterisks that accompany the PA in the margin of 1424, and describes them as if they must convey scribal doubt about the passage, while failing to mention the note that states that the passage was found in ancient copies, and which expresses confidence in the legitimacy of the passage.  (Another factor worth noticing is the use of an asterisk-like mark in 1424 alongside John 20:19.) 

Are its materials
reliable?

            Several other features in the second half of Wallace’s lecture on John7:53-8:11 could be analyzed and shown to be problematic in one way or another.  For example, at one point, he refers to Dura-Europos, a site in eastern Syria, when I think he meant Tura, a site in Egypt.  At another point, Wallace commends an article by Kyle Hughes, although Hughes appears to weigh in against Wallace’s assertion that the pericope adulterae was a floating text:  Hughes affirms that the dislocations to the end of the Gospel of John, and to a position after Luke 21:38, “can then be explained by the influence of the lectionary system in combination with the confusion resulting from the many early manuscripts of John’s Gospel that did not have PA.”  And at another point, Wallace says that 20% of our Greek manuscripts of John don’t have the story of the adulteress; the actual percentage is more like 15%.
       
            In conclusion:  the Credo Course lecture about John 7:53-8:11 contains a problematically high amount of inaccuracies, half-truths, and misinformation, and should not be considered a reliable resource.  

John 7:53-8:11: Why It Was Moved – Part 1

          John 7:53-8:11 (a passage known as the pericope adulterae – the section about the adulteress) is in 1,495 Greek manuscripts, in whole or in part.  The inclusion of the passage is also supported by 495 lectionaries (books containing Scripture-selections for annual worship services).  In 1982 when the New King James Version was made, its footnote about these 12 verses stated, “They are present in over 900 manuscripts.”  One would think that the footnote-writers would have written “over 1,400 manuscripts” or “almost 1,500 manuscripts” if they had been fully informed about the evidence.  That suggests that even scholars in the upper echelons of academia do not possess adequate information about the pericope adulterae. 

          As I write this, the Holman Christian Standard Bible is in the final stages of a revision; it is about to be re-issued, with many textual changes, as the Christian Standard Bible.  A new footnote about John 7:53-8:11 in the CSB says, “Other mss include all or some of the passage after Jn 7:36,44,52; 21:25; or Lk 21:38.” 

          When I read that, it provoked a question in my mind:  How did the footnote-writers keep Bruce Metzger’s Textual Commentary opened to page 221 as they wrote?  The reason why I wonder is that Metzger wrote, “Most copyists apparently thought that it would interrupt John’s narrative least if it were inserted after 7:52 (D E (F) G H K M U Γ Π 28 700 892 al).  Others placed it after 7.36 (ms. 225) or after 7.44 (several Georgian mss.) or after 21.25 (1 565 1076 1570 1582 arm^mss) or after Lk 21.38 (f¹³).” 

          But for most readers, such a footnote elicits a different question:  “Why was this passage moved around?”

          A popular answer among commentators goes something like this:  John 7:53-8:11 was originally not part of the Gospel of John.  It was a brief composition – probably recording an authentic historical event, but not one that John included in his Gospel-account – that was a “floating anecdote,” and it was so popular that copyists eventually inserted it into the Gospel of John, or into the Gospel of Luke.  Sometimes – the theory goes – the copyists inserted it at one place, and sometimes the copyists inserted it in a different place.  The appearance of the passage in several locations – it is said – is proof that it is an addition to the text.

            That is precisely the sort of conclusion, for instance, that James White wants his listeners and readers to arrive at:  “Such moving about by a body of text is plain evidence of its later origin and the attempt on the part of scribes to find a place where it “fits.””  D. A. Carson, likewise:  “The diversity of placement confirms the inauthenticity of the verses.”  Daniel Wallace has written, “The pericope adulterae has all the earmarks of a pericope that was looking for a home,” and recently proposed that because it is a “floating” text it is probably inauthentic.  Such claims are descended from Metzger’s confidently worded claim in his obsolete handbook, The Text of the New Testament:  “The pericope is obviously a piece of floating tradition which circulated in certain parts of the Western Church.  It was subsequently inserted into various manuscripts at various places.”  (Metzger never explained why this supposedly freestanding account begins with the words, “And everyone went to his own house.”)    

MS 2404 (The Barnabas Gospels) -
At the beginning of John 7:37,
the red lectionary-notes convey that this
is where the lection for the Sunday
after Pentecost begins.  (The section-number
is also written in the margin.)

            However, that is far from the truth.  Chris Keith’s insightful 2009 essay The Initial Location of the Pericope Adulterae in Fourfold Tradition describes some of the evidence for the following points which other researchers have deduced: 

            ● The pericope adulterae’s position between John 7:52 and 8:12 was well-established when the Old Latin version spread throughout Western Christendom.

            ● The transplantation of the passage to other locations was a secondary development, and

            ● The movement of the passage to other locations was mainly an effect of how it was treated in lection-cycles and in lectionaries.    

            The CSB’s footnote unfortunately does not share the answer to the questions which it seems designed to elicit:  why is the pericope adulterae found in some manuscripts after John 7:36?  Why is it found in some witnesses after John 7:44?  Why is it found in some manuscripts after John 21:25?  And why is it found in some manuscripts after Luke 21:38? 

MS 2404 - After John 7:52 is the red "Skip forward"
symbol.  In the lower margin the chapter-title is written,
"About the Adulteress."  Four dots beside John 8:3
signify the beginning of the chapter.

           Today I will only answer one of those questions:  why was the pericope adulterae moved to a position between John 7:36 and 7:37 in some manuscripts?

            (First, let’s clear up the vagueness which is characteristic of every textual footnote in the CSB New Testament.  The number of known Greek manuscripts in which the pericope adulterae is found between John 7:36 and 7:37 is exactly two.)

            Readers who take the time to familiarize themselves with how the Byzantine lectionary arranged the text that was to be read annually on Pentecost will be well on their way to answering that question.  The Pentecost-lection consisted of John 7:37-52 combined with John 8:12.  Numerous medieval manuscripts of the Gospels were prepared to be read in churches, and in their margins are the names of various lections, and the assigned days on which they were to be read.  Typically, within the text itself, or in the adjacent margins, symbols represent the words αρχη and τελος, that is, “begin” and “stop,” signifying where the lector was to start reading the day’s lection, and where the lection stopped.  Sometimes a lection was not one continuous block of text; in that case, the symbols for υπερβαλε and αρξου were also added – the equivalent of “skip forward” and “resume here.” 

          As a lector read the Pentecost-lection from a manuscript of the Gospels, when he came to the end of John 7:52, he needed to jump ahead to 8:12 in order to finish the lection.  As a practical means of simplifying the lector’s task, two copyists moved John 7:53-8:11 backward in the text, so that it would precede the Pentecost-lection.  That is why, in minuscules 225 and 1128, we find these 12 verses between John 7:36 and 7:37, that is, immediately before the beginning of the Pentecost lection.  The text in these two manuscripts was adjusted to make the lector’s job on Pentecost a little easier, by turning the Pentecost-lection into one uninterrupted block of text.  

MS 2404 - After John 8:11, the red lectionary notes
convey that the lector should resume reading here
on Pentecost.  (The section-number is also
written in the left margin.)

          In minuscule 225, John 13:3-17 – the lection for the Foot-washing in Holy-Week – also receives special treatment:  besides appearing in its usual place in John, it pops up in the text of Matthew 26, and the reason is obvious:  to make things easier for the lector on Maundy Thursday, when Matthew 26:1-20 was followed in the liturgy by John 13:3-17.  We do not therefore question the authenticity of John 13:3-17 or suggest that it was a “floating tradition.”  Nor should we infer, from the presence of John 7:53-8:11 before the beginning of John 7:37 (where the Pentecost-lection begins) in two medieval manuscripts that this remotely suggests that the passage is inauthentic.
          I will continue to explain why copyists moved the pericope adulterae in Part 2.

Manuscript 758 and the Story About the Adulteress

          Recently at the blog of the Center for the Study of New Testament Manuscripts, a writer presented minuscule 758 (from the 1300’s) as if it shows that a copyist expressed doubt about the legitimacy of the story of the adulteress by adding marks alongside the story in the margin of the manuscript.  He wrote:    

          “Some scribe (either the original one or a later scribe), upon seeing that this passage was included in John’s Gospel, put markings in the margins to denote its disputed status. However, the markings only cover John 8.3-11, leaving 7.53-8.2 unmarked.”

          If one turns to the pages in question (starting with image 318959, = page-view GA_758_0265b), one can see that the manuscript has a lectionary apparatus built into the text; i.e., lectionary-related notifications for the lector (the person who read selections from the manuscript aloud in worship-services) have been written in red within the text, in space reserved for them. 

Saint Pelagia, pictured before her conversion
(with Saint Nonnus, to the left) and after.

          Following John 7:52, there is an abbreviated note instructing the lector that when reading the lection for Pentecost, he should skip (up. kt. ts. N) from that point to the beginning of 8:12 (where, in the margin, there is an abbreviated note that means, resume here for Pentecost).  At the beginning of 8:3 there is an Αρχη symbol (written in red and embedded in the text), which means “Start here,” and on the next page – although one cannot see this using the cropped pictures at the CSNTM blog – in the upper margin (see Image 318960, = GA_758_0266a), a rubric identifies the reading For the Penitents (i.e., Saint Pelagia and the other Penitent Women), complete with the incipit-phrase to be used at the beginning of 8:3.  A Τελος (“Stop here”) symbol then appears at the end of 8:11 – to be precise, it appears after the “Again” (Παλιν) at the beginning of verse 12, because that is where a blank space had been left to add the lectionary apparatus) – to designate the end of the lection for Saint Pelagia’s Day, followed immediately by the “Resume here” symbol which told the lector where he was to resume reading on Pentecost. (This is augmented by a note meaning “Resume here for Pentecost” in the side-margin beside the same line.)

          I submit that the horizontal lines that accompany John 8:3-11 in manuscript 758 were most definitely not added by a scribe “to denote its disputed status,” as if the person who added these lines accepted John 7:53-8:2 but questioned 8:3-11.  Instead, the horizontal lines in this manuscript (and in others) alongside 8:3-11 were intended to identify the lection for Saint Pelagia’s annual feast-day (October 8), embedded within the lection for Pentecost.

Lectionary 35: A Neatly Written Treasure

 

The beginning of the lection for the
Feast of the Transfiguration (Mt. 17:1ff.)
in Lectionary 35.  (Facsimile)

        Lectionary 35 is a beautifully written Greek uncial lectionary from the 900’s.  It is part of the Vatican Library’s manuscript collection, and is cataloged there as Vat. gr. 351.  Unlike full Synaxarions or Menologions (the main two kinds of lectionaries – for the movable days, calculated from Easter, and for the celebrations assigned to specific dates– Lectionary 35 contains a total of only 25 lections:  the twelve major feasts (the Δωδεκάορτον), ten of the eleven morning-time Resurrection lections (the Heothina series), and lections for Palm Sunday and Maundy Thursday.  

          Each lection is preceded by its own headpiece – framing the title on three sides, north-east-west.  Most of the headpieces are simple frames, but they vary; some have braids and others are more ornate.  Gold, green, and blue are the main colors.  Within the headpieces, each lection-title is written in golden ink.  The main text is written in a very dark brown (almost black) ink.  Initials at the beginnings of lections are large, multi-colored (mainly gold) and simply decorated; the initial tau sometimes has a face, and sometimes is entwined by a serpent (probably to suggest the typology of John 3:14-15).  Smaller initials are red. 

          Red markings appear throughout the manuscript to assist the lector.  The text is Byzantine with some itacistic variants.  A four-petal blossom-symbol separates sentences.  There are no margin-notes, and, as far as I could tell in my brief examination of the manuscript, no corrections.   

          According to Scrivener, Lectionary 35 measures 13 and ¼ inches tall and 9 and ⅞ inches wide.  Even though the lettering is exceptionally large, with only 10 or 11 lines on each page, the margins are wide on all outer sides. 

          The letter-forms are designed to maximize legibility.  Look at the facsimile for examples of the “hammock mu,” the “cocoon nu,” and the “spaded omega.”

          The extant pages of Lectionary 35 are in remarkably clean condition; damage is minimal.  Possibly the copyist’s failure to include Heothina #6 caused the manuscript to be set aside shortly after its production, and it was never supplemented.          

          Digital images of Lectionary 35 (Vat.gr. 351) are online at the website of the Vatican Library.  The beginnings of each of its lections can be seen via the following index of links:

          

The Major Feasts:

       Jn. 1:1ff. (Easter) (1r)

       Lk. 24:36ff. (Ascension-Day) (5v)

       Jn. 7:37 (Pentecost) (11r)

       Mt. 17:1 (Transfiguration) (16r)

       Lk. 10:38 (Dormition of the Blessed Virgin Mary) (19v)

       Lk. 4:16 (Beginning of a new Indiction (15-year cycle)) (22v)

       Lk. 1:39 (Birth of the Blessed Virgin Mary (25v)

       Lection for the Exaltation of the Holy Cross (mainly excerpts from Jn. 19) (29r)

       Mt. 2:1 (Feast of theNativity – Dec. 25) (37v)

       Mt. 3:13 (Jesus’ Baptism, i.e., Feast of Lights) (43r)

       Lk. 2:22b (Presentation in the Temple) (fol. 45v)

       Lk. 1:24 (52v) (Annunciation)

       Jn. 12:1 (58r) (Palm Sunday)

The Morning-time Series on the Resurrection:

       Mt. 28:16 (#1) (65r)

       Mark 16:1 (#2) (67r)

       Mark 16:9 (#3) (70r)

       Luke 24:1 (#4) (74v)

       Luke 24:12 (#5) (78v)

(Heothinon #6 - Luke 24:36-52 - is missing.  Apparently it was accidentally skipped during production.

       Jn. 20:1 (#7) (87v)

       Jn. 20:11 (#8) (91v)

       Jn. 20:19 (#9) (95v)

       Jn. 21:1 (#10) (101v)

       Jn. 21:14 (#11) (108r)

Lections for Easter-week

       Mt. 21:1 (Palm Sunday) (114v)

       Mt. 26:1 (Maundy Thursday) (120r).  The text continues through 131v (which is the last page with text; the last line ends near the end of Matthew 26:72).

           In Lectionary 35, as in most lectionaries which include lections for Easter-time, the lection for Maundy Thursday combines passages in a way which, in a roundabout way, may be highly relevant to the study of two major textual variants:  John 7:53-8:11 and Luke 22:43-44.  Lectionary 35 is a convenient lectionary to use to show this combination due to its remarkable legibility.  

          After Mt. 26:20, the text jumps smoothly to John 13:3 and continues through John 3:17.  Then the text jumps back to Matthew 26:21 and proceeds from there.

          After the end of Mt. 26:39, the text jumps to Lk. 22:43.  After the text of Luke 22:43-45a, kai anastas apo ths proseuchs (And rising up from prayer), the text jumps back to Mt. 26:40 (at ercetai).           The jump to and from John 13:3-17 (the Foot-washing lection) is interesting because it shows that the transplantation of a passage such as John 7:52-8:11 may be due to the influence of the lection-cycle, rather than to the passage’s status as a “floating anecdote” from a non-Scriptural source (as is frequently claimed).  

          In manuscript 225 (made in 1128), John 13:3-17 appears in the text of the Gospel of Matthew following Mt. 26:20.  This adaptation, in which a passage was transplanted from its usual location to a different location, made the lector’s job a little easier when, instead of using a lectionary, he was reading from a continuous-text copy of the Gospels; the lector would not have to jump around the text so much.  (The copyist of 225 also moved John 7:53-8:11 to follow John 7:36, so that it would precede, rather than interrupt, the Pentecost-lection.)  Likewise the transplant of John 7:53-8:11 (to the end of the Gospel of John, or to the end of Luke 21, or to a location before or after the lection for Pentecost (that is, either after Jn. 7:36, or after Jn. 8:12) does not necessarily imply that it was ever a “floating anecdote” but, instead, that its dislocation was the result of the format of the Pentecost-lection, in which the lector read John 7:37-52 and then skipped the next 12 verses, and resumed by reading Jn. 8:12.

          The dislocation of Luke 22:43-44 into the text of the Gospel of Matthew (after Mt. 26:39) in the family-13 group of manuscripts is similarly explained as a transplant provoked by lection-usage for one of the major feasts.  Taking this a bit further, one may deduce that there are reasonable grounds to suspect that the absence of these two verses in some of the earliest manuscripts of Luke is a side-effect an adaptation in a very early lection-cycle. 

           It is possible that insights into early lection-cycles may explain other textual variants.  Although lectionaries are sometimes considered relatively minor witnesses to the New Testament text, it seems clear that significant insights may be gained by the study of manuscripts such as Lectionary 35. 

The 2014 Pericope Adulterae Symposium: Part 5: Robinson: Removal Elicited by Early Lectionary Usage

Maurice Robinson, the last presenter at the conference, argued that the PA is an original part of the Gospel of John, and that it was excised in the second century as a consequence of lectionary-influence.  Robinson’s presentation seemed to have been carefully composed, like a symphony, starting slowly and building to a crescendo.  At first he described how, following a suggestion from William Pierpont, he began investigating the PA.  Then he introduced an impressive army of data, drawn from his collations of the manuscripts that contain the PA (a printed copy of which he showed at the conference):  267 Greek manuscripts do not contain the PA; 1,476 MSS contain it; 2,285 lectionaries do not contain it (because it’s assigned to saints’ feast-days, not the main calendar-cycle), and 495 lectionaries contain John 8:3-11.  He also insisted that the question about whether or not the PA is Scripture is a technical issue, not a doctrinal one. 

            

The gist of Robinson’s theory goes like this:  in the 100’s, lections were assigned to the major feast-days of the church-calendar, such as Christmas, Easter-time, and Pentecost.  The lection for Pentecost consisted, as it does today, of John 7:37-52 plus 8:12.  The reasons for this unusual combination were (1) the subject-matter of the PA did not fit the general theme of Pentecost, but (2) the uplifting statement in 8:12 was added so as to not end the lection on the negative note that would otherwise conclude the lection at the end of 7:52 – the statement that no prophet arises from Galilee.  An early copyist, either deliberately adjusting the text to make the lector’s job easier, or accidentally misinterpreting lectionary-related marginalia that told the lector to skip from the end of 7:52 to the beginning of 8:12, omitted the PA.  A copy in which the PA was thus dropped from the text – not due to squeamishness, but as a conformation to the form of the text as used in a rudimentary lectionary-system – subsequently influenced the text in Egypt from which most of the early manuscripts (p66, p75, Aleph, B, T) are descended.

            

In the course of arguing his case for the genuineness of the PA, Robinson emphasized various internal features, describing the PA as part of a verbal tapestry which is inextricably linked to the surrounding text.  He listed direct links and indirect links.  Even if half of them are sheer coincidence (and some of them definitely are), this is something worth careful consideration.  His argument against the existence of the PA (in all its extant forms) as a “floating” story was efficient and devastating:  how does the PA start?  “And everyone went to his own house.”  Does anyone begin a story like that?  Imagine it:  “Once upon a time, everyone went home.”

            

Robinson also pointed out that Chris Keith, in his earlier work on the PA, had incorrectly claimed that kategrafein is the majority-reading in John 8:6.  Keith has already commented about this on his blog (at http://historicaljesusresearch.blogspot.com/2014/05/the-pericope-adulterae-conferencechris.html ), acknowledging that the majority-reading, by a score of 1,220 to 207, is egrafen.  (Keith wondered why he ever thought otherwise.  Perhaps as he read the RP-2005 Byzantine Textform, his line of sight drifted to the katē- of katēgorein on the preceding line, above egrafen.)  Aside from this relatively minor point, though, Robinson had high praise for Keith’s research, describing it, ironically, as the best defense of the genuineness of the PA based on internal evidence, if readers ignore the word “interpolation.”

●●●●●●●●●●

Some thoughts: 

           

Robinson showed how his theory works, but he did not show real evidence, aside from the elegance of his theory, that a rudimentary lectionary-system for major feast-days existed in the second century, or that its lection for Pentecost consisted of John 7:37-52 + 8:12.  Inasmuch as the Pentecost-lection goes without a pause from 7:52 to 8:12, why isn’t this evidence that the lectionary was based on a text of John that did the same thing? 

Robinson pre-answered that question (if I recall correctly) by pointing out that had the PA been adopted sometime after John 7:37-8:12 (without the PA) was assigned to Pentecost, nobody would dump the PA into the middle of the Pentecost-lection.  However, this assumes a very simple series of events.  If instead, the PA was inserted between 7:52 and 8:12 in a location where the Pentecost-lection was unknown, and this expanded text proceeded to infiltrate the locale where the Pentecost-lection had originated as a natural unit consisting of John 7:37-8:12 (without the PA), then as the expanded text prevailed, the logical reaction by copyists who wished to denote lection-readings in the margins of continuous-text manuscripts of the Gospels would be to add the symbol that precedes the PA in various manuscripts, instructing the lector to skip from the end of 7:52 to the beginning of 8:12.  Clearly, something happened here, but the lectionary-related evidence presented by Robinson does not say clearly that what happened was an excision, rather than an expansion.   

            

Also, I would like to know, since Robinson pointed out that Jonathan Borland, in his thesis on the Old Latin treatment of the PA, identified the form of the PA preserved in family-1 as being congruent to the earliest form supported by the Old Latin evidence (especially Codex Palatinus), whether or not Robinson regards the family-1 form of the PA as the original form, instead of the text read by the majority of MSS.

And, figuring that Luke 22:43-44 is another passage which is omitted from a lection (and which is placed in Matthew in family-13 in a way comparable to the way that the PA is similar to the way the PA is placed at the end of Luke 21 in family-13), and figuring that Burgon proposed that Luke 9:54-56 could be lost via lectionary-influence, it occurs to me that it might be worthwhile to investigate the possibility that early lectionary-influence elicited the early loss of several passages besides the PA.  An early copyist’s misinterpretation of marginalia in a lector’s copy could account for several short (or shortened) variants.