 Christ with the Woman Taken in Adultery, by Guercino, 1621 (Dulwich Art Gallery). The Pericope Adulterae (Latin pronunciation [peˈri.ko.pe aˈdul.te.raɪ]; English pronunciation [pəˈɹɪ.kə.pi əˈdʌl.tə.ɹi] - or Pericope de Adultera; Latin for "the passage of the adulterous woman") is the name traditionally given to verses 7:53–8:11 of the Gospel of John, which describe a confrontation between Jesus and the Scribes and Pharisees; over whether a woman accused of adultery ought to be stoned. In English, the passage is usually referred to as "the woman taken in adultery". The woman has sometimes been identified as Mary Magdalene, though the connexion is not made in the text itself. Image File history File links GuercinoAdultress1621Dulwich. ...
Image File history File links GuercinoAdultress1621Dulwich. ...
The Italian painter Giovanni Francesco Barbieri (1591—1666) known as Guercino (squinter), was born at Cento, a village between Bologna and Ferrara. ...
Not to be confused with the NATO phonetic alphabet, which has also informally been called the “International Phonetic Alphabetâ€. For information on how to read IPA transcriptions of English words, see IPA chart for English. ...
Symbols of the International Phonetic Alphabet. ...
Latin is an ancient Indo-European language originally spoken in Latium, the region immediately surrounding Rome. ...
A pericope (pur-IC-op-ee) (Greek περικοπη, a cutting-out) in rhetoric is a set of verses which form one coherent unit or thought. ...
Verse is a writing that uses meter as its primary organisational mode, as opposed to prose, which uses grammatical and discoursal units like sentences and paragraphs. ...
The Gospel of John is the fourth gospel in the canon of the New Testament, traditionally ascribed to John the Evangelist. ...
This article is about Jesus of Nazareth. ...
Illustration of a 15th century scribe This is about scribe, the profession. ...
The word Pharisees comes from the Hebrew ×¤×¨×•×©×™× prushim from פרוש parush, meaning a detached one, that is, one who is separated for a life of purity. ...
Adultery is voluntary sexual intercourse between a married person and a partner other than the lawful spouse. ...
Stoning, or lapidation, refers to a judicial or quasi-judicial execution method carried out by an organized group throwing stones or rocks. ...
The penitent Mary Magdalen, a much reproduced composition by Titian. ...
The event
In the episode, the Scribes and Pharisees bring to Jesus a woman who has been discovered in the act of adultery, asserting that the law of Moses requires that she be stoned. They ask for Jesus' opinion in order to test him; and also to establish grounds for an accusation to be brought against him. The event is therefore presented as a trap by Jesus's adversaries; although the passage does not spell out the supposed strategem in detail. Torah, (תורה) is a Hebrew word meaning teaching, instruction, or especially law. It primarily refers to the first section of the Tanakh–the first five books of the Hebrew Bible, or the Five Books of Moses, but can also be used in the general sense to also include both the Written...
Bible commentator Ken Collins suggests:
The trap is this: under the Roman occupation, the power of capital punishment was reserved by the Romans for themselves. All capital cases had to be referred to the Roman authorities and the sentence had to be approved before it could be carried out. So Jesus' enemies figured they could trap Him in a dilemma by presenting Him with a clear-cut case where the Jewish Law demanded the death penalty by public stoning. If Jesus deferred to the Romans, He discredited Himself as a Teacher of the Law. If He condoned the stoning, the Romans would consider Him an insurrectionist and put Him to death. Either way, they thought, He couldn't win. He would either lose His credibility or His life; either way, He would be silenced. [1] Jesus writes something (unspecified) on the ground, and says, "He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her". The Scribes and Pharisees slip away, one by one, until only the woman remains. Jesus asks her if anyone has condemned her. When she responds in the negative, Jesus dismisses her, saying that he does not condemn her either. He instructs her to "go, and sin no more".
Stoning was not unusual as a form of execution at this date. It was not a formal capital punishment imposed by a court - but rather in the nature of sanctioned lynching. Certain crimes were held in Mosaic Law to be so offensive to God, that those who witnessed them could not allow the perpetrator to live. Condemnation to death was therefore imposed by the witnesses, not a court of law; but it was necessary that the witnesses should be independent (a husband could not testify against his wife), that they should all separately agree concerning every detail of the matter, and that they should all have witnessed the act itself in sufficient clarity to be able to rule out any other explanation - e.g rape. Some sort of legal hearing was essential therefore for the witnessess (there must be at least two) to be separately questioned in detail. Duncan Derrett argues that Jesus's challenge to the witnesses rested on his imputing complicity to them - if they had been close enough to the event for the adultery to be unambiguous, then why had they not warned the couple of the consequences of their action? And if they could have warned, and did not, then legally they would be complicit, and subject to the same penalties as the perpetrators themselves. Of course Jesus himself was not a witness, and so could not condemn the woman, if none of the witnesses were willing to do so. ("Law in the New Testament" pp 156-188; J Duncan Derrett, Oxford 1970). Stoning, or lapidation, refers to a judicial or quasi-judicial execution method carried out by an organized group throwing stones or rocks. ...
Lynching is a form of violence, usually murder, conceived of by its perpetrators as extra legal punishment for offenders or as a terrorist method of enforcing social domination. ...
Torah, (תורה) is a Hebrew word meaning teaching, instruction, or especially law. It primarily refers to the first section of the Tanakh–the first five books of the Hebrew Bible, or the Five Books of Moses, but can also be used in the general sense to also include both the Written...
The episode is famous for the words "He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her", spoken by Jesus to the woman's accusers, and is a favorite for film adaptations, because it is one of the clearest and most dramatic examples, in the Canonical Gospels, of Jesus rescuing someone in mortal danger. A biblical canon is a list published by a religious authority of those books of the Bible that are considered inspired by God. ...
This is also the only occasion on which Jesus is recorded to have written anything, though it is not known what was written. Many scholars suspect that it is likely for John to be implying that Jesus wrote down part of the law, possibly the ten commandments, or some cataloguing of the sins of those present.[citation needed] Others believe it was an indication that he gave that law in the first place.[citation needed] This 1768 parchment (612x502 mm) by Jekuthiel Sofer emulated the 1675 Decalogue at Amsterdam Esnoga synagogue. ...
Christian exegesis of this passage has traditionally assumed that the Scribes and Pharisees had already condemned the woman to death, and that Jesus's actions saved her. However the earliest recorded discussion of the passage, in the Disascalia Apostolorum, takes the contrary view; that the Scribes and Pharisees had declined to declare a judgement - but had instead presented the case, with its associated pitfalls, to Jesus for his determination. This alternative view would accord with contemporary Rabbinic teachings, which stated that - where an accusation is made of adultery - the evidence can never be so absolute as to justify punishment by stoning, according to the letter of the Mosaic Law.
Textual History The pericope is not found in any of the earliest surviving Gospel manuscripts; neither in the two 3rd century papyrus witnesses to John - P66 and P75; nor in the 4th century Codex Sinaiticus and Codex Vaticanus. The first surviving Greek manuscript witness to the pericope is the Latin/Greek diglot Codex Bezae of the fifth century. However, Saint Jerome reports that he found the pericope in many (though not all) Greek and Latin manuscripts in Rome, and accordingly included it in the Latin Vulgate around 384. Following the Vulgate, the passage rapidly became universal in Latin Gospel manuscripts, in its canonical place in the Gospel of John; and many other Latin Church Fathers - Augustine, Ambrose, Pacian - comment on the pericope. A portion of the Codex Sinaiticus, containing Esther 2:3-8. ...
Page from Codex Vaticanus Graece 1209, B/03 The Codex Vaticanus (The Vatican, Bibl. ...
A sample of the Greek text from the Codex Bezae The Codex Bezae Cantabrigensis (Gregory-Aland no. ...
“Saint Jerome†redirects here. ...
Nickname: The Eternal City Motto: SPQR: Senatus PopulusQue Romanus Location of the city of Rome (yellow) within the Province of Rome (red) and region of Lazio (grey) Coordinates: Region Lazio Province Province of Rome Founded 21 April 753 BC - Mayor Walter Veltroni Area - City 1285 km² (580 sq mi) - Urban...
The Vulgate Bible is an early 5th century version in Latin, partly revised and partly translated by Jerome on the orders of Pope Damasus I in 382. ...
Forum of Theodosius I built in Constantinople. ...
“Augustinus†redirects here. ...
Saint Ambrose, (Latin: Sanctus Ambrosius, Ambrosius episcopus Mediolanensis; Italian: SantAmbrogio) (c. ...
Until recently, it was not thought that any Greek Church Father had taken note of the passage before the 12th Century; but in 1941 a large collection of the writings of Didymus the Blind (c313- 398) was discovered in Egypt, including a reference to the Pericope Adulterae; and it is now considered established that this passage was present in its canonical place in a minority of Greek manuscripts known in Alexandria from the 4th Century onwards. In support of this it is noted that the 4th century Codex Vaticanus, which was written in Egypt, marks the end of John chapter 7 with an "umlaut", indicating that an alternative reading was known at this point. The Ethiopic version, which is commonly thought to derive from an Alexandrian archetype of the fifth century or earlier, also includes the passage in John; but - except for the Latin Vulgate - it is absent from the best witnesses to all other early versions. For the movie, see 1941 (film). ...
Page from Codex Vaticanus Graece 1209, B/03 The Codex Vaticanus (The Vatican, Bibl. ...
None of the surviving witnesses to the "Majority" Byzantine text-type include the passage until the 8th century codex "E" - and in that manuscript it is marked with "obeli" indicating a doubtful status; as it is too in a number of other Byzantine witnesses of the 9th and 10th centuries. A small variant group of minuscule manuscripts - written in Calabria, a Greek-speaking part of Italy - include the passage after Luke 21:38; and these are believed to derive from an Uncial ancestor of the seventh century, with a Caesarean text-type. From the 9th century onwards, the passage becomes standard in the Greek Byzantine tradition - with some 1,863 witnesses including it, and only 280 omitting. The Byzantine text-type (also called Constantinopolitan, Syrian, ecclesiastical, and majority) is the largest group of Greek manuscripts of the New Testament. ...
It has been suggested that this article or section be merged into Letter case. ...
The Book of Kells, c. ...
This article needs cleanup. ...
The Didascalia Apostolorum - a Syrian manual of discipline dating from the 3rd century - refers to the story of the adulteress; but in terms that differ considerably from the canonical form, in that the woman is accused of unspecified "sins", rather than adultery; and also in that it is explicitly stated that the Scribes and Pharisees had not formally condemned the woman before passing her on to Jesus. A still earlier reference appears to be found in Eusebius's account of the writings of Papias (c125); but here the biblical source for the passage is stated as being in the apocryphal 'Gospel of the Hebrews'. Eusebius is the name of several significant historical people: Pope Eusebius - Pope in AD 309 - 310. ...
Papias (working in the 1st half of the 2nd century) was one of the early leaders of the Christian church, canonized as a saint. ...
The Gospel of the Hebrews (see About titles below), is a lost gospel that is only preserved in a few quotations in the Panarion of Epiphanius, a church writer who lived at the end of the 4th century AD, who goes on to say that. ...
History of textual criticism on John 7:53-8:11 During the 16th Century, Western European scholars - both Catholic and Protestant - sought to recover the original Greek text of the New Testament, rather than relying on the Vulgate Latin translation. At this time, it was noticed that a number of early manuscripts containing John's Gospel lacked John 7:53-8:11 inclusive; and also that some manuscripts containing the verses marked them with critical signs, usually a lemniscus or asterisk.[citation needed] Protestantism is a general grouping of denominations within Christianity. ...
John 21:1 Jesus Appears to His Disciples--Alessandro Mantovani: the Vatican, Rome. ...
The Vulgate Bible is an early 5th century version in Latin, partly revised and partly translated by Jerome on the orders of Pope Damasus I in 382. ...
Early textual critics, familiar with the use and meaning of these marks in classical Greek works like Homer, interpreted the signs to mean that the section (John 7:53-8:11) was an interpolation, was not an original part of the Gospel. Homer (Greek: , Hómēros) was an early Greek poet and aoidos (rhapsode) traditionally credited with the composition of the Iliad and the Odyssey. ...
Reference to the early Church Fathers showed that some showed no knowledge of the passage, many (especially in the West) strongly defended it, and that a few had rejected it as an interpolation. This led some 16th century critics, such as Theodore Beza, to doubt its authenticity, even though its obvious orthodoxy and edifying content made it appear to be a genuine incident in the life of Jesus. It was assumed that it had circulated as a piece of oral tradition, and was inserted early into the manuscript tradition at this point in order to preserve it.[citation needed] The Church Fathers or Fathers of the Church are the early and influential theologians and writers in the Christian Church, particularly those of the first five centuries of Christian history. ...
To meet Wikipedias quality standards, this article or section may require cleanup. ...
John Calvin, in his Commentary on John, wrote pragmatically: John Calvin (July 10, 1509 – May 27, 1564) was a French Protestant theologian during the Protestant Reformation and was a central developer of the system of Christian theology called Calvinism or Reformed theology. ...
It seems that this passage was unknown anciently to the Greek Churches; and some conjecture that it has been brought from some other place and inserted here. But as it has always been received by the Latin Churches, and is found in many old Greek manuscripts, and contains nothing unworthy of an Apostolic Spirit, there is no reason why we should refuse to apply it to our advantage. Beginning with Lachmann (in Germany, 1840), reservations about the pericope became more strongly argued in the modern period, and these opinions were carried into the English world by Samuel Davidson (1848-1851), Tregelles (1862), and others; the argument against the verses being given body and final expression in Hort (1886). Those opposing the authenticity of the verses as part of John are represented in the 20th century by men like Cadbury (1917), Colwell (1935), and Metzger (1971). Samuel Davidson (1807 - 1 April 1898), Irish biblical scholar, was born near Ballymena in Ireland. ...
Samuel Prideaux Tregelles (January 30, 1813 - April 24, 1875) was an English theologian. ...
Fenton John Anthony Hort (April 23, 1828 - November 30, 1892) was an English theologian. ...
Bruce Metzger pictured on the cover of his autobiography Reminiscences of an Octogenarian Bruce Manning Metzger (born 1914) is a professor emeritus at Princeton Theological Seminary and Bible editor who serves on the board of the American Bible Society. ...
On the other hand, many scholars strongly defended the Johannine authorship of these verses, and presented opposing arguments and counter-analysis. This group of critics is typified by such scholars as Nolan (1865), and Burgon (1886); and find modern counterparts and apologists in Hoskier (1920), O.T. Fuller (1978), Pickering (1980), Hodges & Farstad (1985), Pierpont, and Robinson (2005). John William Burgon (August 21, 1813 - August 4, 1888), English divine, was born at Smyrna, the son of a Turkey merchant, who was a skilled numismatist and afterwards became an assistant in the antiquities department of the British Museum. ...
Few modern scholarly defenders of the passage now argue that it has constantly been present in the majority manuscript tradition. This is because; "The Pericope Adultera in fact has NO "majority text" (Robinson 1995); the manuscript witnesses to this passage divide into three groups, each around 30% of the total. Significantly, these manuscript divisions bear no relation to the counterpart manuscript affinities found for the majority text of the rest of chapters 7 and 8. Hence, when the Greek text of the Gospel of John prepared by Hodges & Farstad is collated against that by Pierpont & Robinson, some 16 major variants are apparent in this one passage; which compares with only 20 in the whole of the rest of John's Gospel. Modern textual editors are therefore bound to treat the passage as though it was discrete Gospel of its own, and not as part of the Gospel of John; their differing assumptions as to critical methods yielding very different Greek texts. This indicates that - whether the passage originally stood in John's Gospel or not - it cannot have been transmitted to the surviving majority witnesses of John along with the rest of the Gospel; consequently defenders of the authenticity of the pericope tend now to postulate an early removal, and subsequent re-instatement.
Almost all modern translations now include the Pericope de Adultera at John 7:53-8:11; but most enclose it in brackets, with a note that the passage is not considered part of the original text of John's Gospel.
Authorship
Arguments against Johannine authorship The pericope is viewed by some contemporary critical scholars of the New Testament as an interpolation, both on account of its being absent from the earliest witnesses, and also in that it is thought to disrupt the narrative between chapter 7 and in the remainder of chapter 8. According to some scholars [attribution needed] it appears to use Greek more characteristic of the synoptic Gospels than of John. In addition, it is noted that the Synaxarion, the calender of lectionary readings for each day in the Greek Orthodox Church, specifies John 7:37-52 plus 8:12 as the set reading for Pentecost (i.e. omitting 7:53-8:11) . Since the Synaxarion is generally considered to have been fixed in Byzantium in the 7th or 8th century, this is argued as suggesting that the Pericope Adulterae cannot have become standard in Byzantine New Testament manuscripts until later than this. This article is being considered for deletion in accordance with Wikipedias deletion policy. ...
John 21:1 Jesus Appears to His Disciples--Alessandro Mantovani: the Vatican, Rome. ...
Ancient texts come down to us mostly in late handwritten copies, themselves copied from early copies. ...
The Synoptic Gospels are the Gospels of Mark, Matthew, and Luke. ...
This article needs to be cleaned up to conform to a higher standard of quality. ...
Greek Orthodox Church (Greek: HellÄ“northódoxÄ“ EkklÄ“sÃa) can refer to any of several hierarchical churches within the larger group of mutually recognizing Eastern Orthodox churches. ...
Pentecost (Greek: [], pentekostē [hēmera], the fiftieth day) is the fiftieth day after Easter Sunday, which corresponds to the tenth day after Ascension Thursday. ...
Bruce Metzger (20th century textual critic, co-editor of the UBS Greek text, 1968) writes that "the evidence for the non-Johannine origin of the pericope of the adulteress is overwhelming". Bruce Metzger pictured on the cover of his autobiography Reminiscences of an Octogenarian Bruce Manning Metzger (born 1914) is a professor emeritus at Princeton Theological Seminary and Bible editor who serves on the board of the American Bible Society. ...
Even among those scholars who reject the passage as non-Johannine, many nevertheless accept it as an authentic tradition of Jesus that was added to the gospel by another writer for the sake of completeness. This article is about Jesus of Nazareth. ...
Apologist James Patrick Holding argues that it was an authentic account from the ministry of Jesus, but more likely to have been authored by Luke, and his "loose leaf" was incorporated into copies of John's Gospel.[2] Luke the Evangelist (לוק×, Greek: Loukas) is said by tradition to be the author of both the Gospel of Luke and the Acts of the Apostles, the third and fifth books of the New Testament. ...
Arguments for Johannine authorship On the other hand, Zane C. Hodges and Arthur L. Farstad, in the introduction to their edition of the Majority Text (a version of the New Testament based primarily on the number of witnesses to a reading, rather than automatically or critically assuming the oldest texts are the most accurate), argue for Johannine authorship of the pericope. They point to the phrasing at 8:6, which follows a similar grammatical structure to 6:6, 7:39, 11:51, 12:6, 12:33, and 21:19, verses regarded as particularly Johannine by most critics. Further, the use of the vocative γύναι (woman) is a very typical Johannine usage. The phrase "sin no more" in 8:11 occurs only one other time in the New Testament, at John 5:14. The Byzantine text-type (also called Constantinopolitan, Syrian, ecclesiastical, and majority) is the largest group of Greek manuscripts of the New Testament. ...
John 21:1 Jesus Appears to His Disciples--Alessandro Mantovani: the Vatican, Rome. ...
Hodges and Farstad also argue that the pericope is particularly suited to the point in the Gospel where it occurs in the majority of the 1,863 copies that contain it. The Feast of Tabernacles is being celebrated (John 7:14), so there would be a large number of pilgrims in the city, making it more likely that strangers would be thrown together. The pericope thus occurs naturally at this point. The confrontation would had to have taken place in the Court of the Women, and indeed John 8:20 indicates that that is where Jesus was. Hodges and Farstad conclude, "If it is not an original part of the Fourth Gospel, its writer would have to be viewed as a skilled Johannine imitator, and its placement in this context as the shrewdest piece of interpolation in literary history!"
Defenders of Johannine authorship argue that the earliest witnesses to the location of the passage within the canonical gospels point unambiguously to John 7:53 - 8:11, both in the Vulgate text and in the critical markings of the Codex Vaticanus; all other supposed locations being clearly singular and later. They point out that there is no other known example of a substantial passage being first incorporated into the canonical tradition as late as the 3rd or 4th century; and so they argue that a minority tradition of manuscripts of John must always have contained the passage, even though those early manuscripts that survive do not.
See also Image File history File links Commons-logo. ...
Wikimedia Commons logo by Reid Beels The Wikimedia Commons (also called Commons or Wikicommons) is a repository of free content images, sound and other multimedia files. ...
The Comma Johanneum was a clause present in most translations of the First Epistle of John published from 1522 until the later part of the 19th century, owing to the widespread use of the third edition of the Textus Receptus (TR) as a sole source for translation. ...
John 21:1 Jesus Appears to His Disciples--Alessandro Mantovani: the Vatican, Rome. ...
Textual criticism or lower criticism is a branch of philology or bibliography that is concerned with the identification and removal of errors from texts. ...
This article needs to be cleaned up to conform to a higher standard of quality. ...
Mark 16 is the final chapter of the Gospel of Mark in the New Testament of the Christian Bible. ...
For other uses, see Gospel (disambiguation). ...
External links The text: - John 7:53-8:11 (NIV)
- John 7:53-8:11 (KJV)
- The Pericope Adulterae, a detailed text-critical description of the evidence, the manuscripts, and the variants of the Greek text (PDF, 23 pages).
- The Pericope de Adultera Homepage New Site Links to a wide range of material about all aspects of this text, dozens of new articles here.
- The Pericope de Adultera Homepage Links to a wide range of material about all aspects of this text, plus links to information about the stoning of people today.
Interpretation of the story: - John 8:1-11 The Woman Caught In Adultery - Gary DeLashmutt
|
Feeds |
Contact