Was and still is one of my favorite passages in the NT but these events may well have never occurred at all.
The earliest textual appearance of this account only found in John Chapter 8 and no other gospel did not occur until the late 4th/early 5th century when it first arrives on the scene as found in the Codex Bezae which is a greek/latin text. The latin would obviously suggest these are latter written copies and translated/copied from earlier sources(?), however no sources are noted nor suggested to my present knowledge. Nor do they match to earlier known accounts found from the Gospel of John. The actual original Codex Bezae is found and solely possessed at the Cambridge University Library. This codex contains most of the 4 gospel accounts and the Book of Acts. No Pauline texts or anything else to my knowledge. The Codex Bezae account of John 8:1-12 dates to nearly 500 years after they occur and as beautiful a story as it is, it does raise doubt about their accuracy.
The earliest complete manuscripts of the whole bible, or what we think of as the bible, we actually have dates to the 4th century and are Codex Sinaiticus and Codex Vaticanus and neither contain this account. Codex Sinaiticus thanks to the British Museum along with other parties is online for research purposes and the Gospel of John in Sinaiticus begins at verse 12 and concludes with verse 59. 1 thru 11 are missing entirely which is the adultress woman story.
Codex Sinaiticus can be found
here and they briefly explain its place in history, what the codex consists of and then to your upper right where you see "Go To" is a drop down list under the word (Book) which displays the texts for each book in the bible as found in the codex. There is a photo copy of the actual text and to your right is an actual text reproduction and below that if there is a translation, an english translation of the text.
Now for some argument in support of the Adultress Woman story found in John 8.
Papias of Hierapolis, 70-163 AD/CE (pick your poison) was an apostolic father, Bishop of Hierapolis in what is now Pamukkale Turkey. It is suggested that in 125 CE that Papias recorded in the Gospel of the Hebrews (not the NT Book of Hebrews) an account of a woman accused of many sins and forgiven by Jesus. Gospel of the Hebrews is a syncretic Jewish-Christian text that of what exists is a collection of quotations of early christian fathers and we only have fragments of the early texts, Papias quotes being among them. Gospel of Hebrews like so many texts were rejected as canonical by the Constantine era and post Constantine orthodoxy but are still of value for understanding the greater historical context.
The next text to suggest the Adultress story is found in Didascalia Apostolorum, a christian treatise asserted to be Church Orders. It is claimed these were written by the Twelve Apostles and presented to the Jerusalem Council circa 50 CE however scholars generally agree the texts as we have them today were written around 230 CE likely by an unknown bishop and geographically source from Syria around Antioch. This text does include a quotation of an adultress type story but it does not quote John's Gospel or for that matter, any source at all.
And the last evidence in support of the adultress story, A late 4th century treatise of Church Orders, "Constitutions of the Holy Apostles" contains the following quote in relation to the adultress story.
This text is found in Book II.24 and I have to say when I first read it, what jumped out at me was when I read the first 13 words, my first thought was, "wait, how many time did the elders play this game with Jesus" as the suggestion of "another woman" suggests there were many. To my knowledge there is only the story of the one but I can just see Jesus face palming and saying, "oh come on, not again!"
The Constitution of the Holy Apostles dates to 375-380 CE and is believed to source back to Northern Syria around Antioch. Author is unknown but there are suggestions the author was the 4th century Eunomian Bishop Julian of Cillicia.
Until the mid 20th century, it was thought that no early church father had ever made note of the famous adultress passage but then in 1941' a discovery in Egypt included the writings of Didymus the Blind (313-398 CE) which suggested the story being in writings known to exist in Alexandria. Codex Vaticanus (4th century CE) which sources from Alexandria contain an umlaut (a special mark) at the end of John chapter 7 which suggests an alternative reading is known to exist. What that reading is or what it sez we don't know nor do we know if this suggests the missing text of John 8:1-11, the adultress story not found in Vaticanus does indeed exist in other texts dating to much older sources.
There is much more to this story historically speaking on both sides of the debates but this gives a general outline of the problem and I think IMO a good lesson as to not being so quick to be dogmatic about a biblical text and the weight of being authentic to its suggested or alleged claim. The truth is, we have no original text hand written by any apostle, prophet, partriarch or other messenger of god. At best we have a claim of written from a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy............ That's the best we have folks and you can sit back, take it all on faith (as so many well meaning folk do) or you can try and noodle out for yourself and see what comes up. Even if you conclude John 8:1-11 is not authentic to the claim, it's still a beautiful story about forgiveness and still has value to make humanity better. But to me it raises a deeper fundamental question, if the text wasn't original, why would 4th century christian thinkers and later dare abandon the harsh OT dictums in the first place for a story they likely knew as untrue? Apologistic literalists would right there use that as evidence for the story being real because why would an early christian dare to tempt god by messing with his law? I know because I tired to rationalize it that way at one time but studying historical christianity much much deeper, specifically the neo-platonist gnostic christian fathers and writers and the weight of evidence to support my earlier thinking just didn't hold up.
When you learn about the early gnostic traditions and the OT god as the neo-platonic demiurge, you start seeing those influences although almost literally crushed by latter orthodoxy, their finger prints still emerge from the past even from orthodox texts. Modern christians who often argue the OT doesn't apply, has been done away with often don't realize these are gnostic arguments likely echoes from early chrisitan fathers like
Marcion of Sinope who argued the OT and the OT god no longer mattered as Jesus was now our god. And since we looked at the adultress account in the Gospel of John, it is worth noting that John's gospel is often considered far more than the other 3 or the Book of Acts as a very gnostic influenced gospel and the more I read it and learn of the gnostics, the more its gnostic influences leap from its pages. Thus I can clearly see the adultress story as gnostic and likely the origins of its source.
So for those of you who attended the BC church on Sunday Morning instead of getting your sorry butt up and down to your own local church, there is the historical sermon of the day. Take it, leave it, ignore it, condemn it because at the end of the day it will not judge you nor condemn you to an eternity of damnation.
