It is one of the most well-known stories about Jesus during His ministry, and yet, as far as we can tell, it has no real true “home” in any of the Gospels. The story involves Jesus and the woman caught in adultery found in modern Bibles in John 7:53-8:11, known also as the pericope adulterae: the Bible extract about the adulterous woman.
Christians devoted to textual criticism of the Biblical text, even from antiquity, recognized the difficulty with the pericope adulterae. Many of the earliest commentators on the Gospel of John, including Origen, John Chrysostom, Cyril of Alexandria, and Theodore of Mopsuestia, provide no commentary whatsoever on the passage, strongly suggesting it was not present in the copies of the Gospel of John they were reading. Jerome spoke of how many of the Greek and Latin copies of the Gospel of John included the pericope, as if its inclusion was not the default in most manuscripts (cf. Against the Pelagians 2.17).
The textual evidence as it has been preserved for us bears similar witness. The passage is omitted in manuscripts ???? 66,75 א B L N T W Δ Θ Ψ 0141 0211 33 565 1241; A and C do not fully preserve that part of John, but measurements seem to indicate there would not have been room for the pericope in them based on the size of the missing sections. D M and Latin texts do preserve the pericope. Some other manuscripts, like E S Λ, contain part or the whole of the pericope but with asterisks or obeli indicating the copyist’s understanding of its disputed nature. Furthermore, the pericope is present in other manuscripts but in different places in the Gospels: 225 after John 7:36, {115} after John 8:12, ƒ1 as an “appendix” to the Gospel after John 21:25, and in f13 after Luke 21:38, as well as the corrector of 1333 placing it as an “appendix” to the Gospel of Luke after Luke 24:53.
Such involves a lot of technical terms from the discipline of New Testament textual criticism; in short, most of the earliest attestations of the Gospel of John from the papyri of the 3rd century, “uncial” manuscripts of the 4th and 5th centuries, and even many of the later “minuscule” manuscripts do not record the pericope at all, and some which have it but placed elsewhere, further reinforcing the textual difficulties.
On account of these textual critical issues, ancient and modern, as well as additional literary factors, most scholars and commentators do not believe John the Evangelist wrote the pericope adulterae, John 7:53-8:11. According to this understanding, in order to appreciate the flow of the narrative as presented by John the Evangelist, the reader should proceed from John 7:52 to John 8:12; thus John 8:12-59 represents additional discourses of Jesus with the Pharisees, other Jewish leaders, and the Judeans who believed in Him on the final day of the Feast of Tabernacles (or Booths; Sukkot). This exercise can provide additional attestation to John 7:53-8:11 as a later insertion, since the narrative flows much better when John 8:12-59 is properly considered with John 7:37-52.
What, then, should we say about this pericope adulterae? While most scholars and commentators do not believe it was written by John the Evangelist, most nevertheless believe the pericope preserves an authentic story involving Jesus, scribes and Pharisees, an adulterous woman, and a crowd of Jewish people in Jerusalem. There were, no doubt, all kinds of such stories circulating in the days of Jesus, the Apostles, and in early Christianity; the pericope adulterae was written down and preserved, and perhaps attached to the end of the Gospel of Luke and/or John as a sort of “appendix.” People later decided to attempt to find the best place to insert the story into the Gospel narrative: someone who might have seen it attached to Luke felt it worked best after Jesus’ discourse on Jerusalem in Luke 21:38, but the person who perhaps saw it attached to John placed it as John 7:53-8:11 since Jesus is in Jerusalem throughout John 7:10-8:59, and the latter’s copy of the Gospels was clearly better reflected in later manuscripts.
On account of all these things we do well to consider the pericope adulterae as an authentic and inspired recollection of the story as written. Yet we know nothing else about its context other than its location in the Temple in Jerusalem (John 8:2). John the Evangelist never used the term “scribe” to speak of any of the Jewish authorities as Matthew, Mark, and Luke do (John 8:3); despite its current placement, therefore, the pericope might be more associated with the Synoptic traditions than Johannine. In the Synoptic Gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke, most of Jesus’ experiences on the Mount of Olives and in the Temple center on the final week of His life, and thus perhaps the events of the pericope took place at that time; its placement after Luke 21:38, therefore, might not be terribly off in terms of timeframe. Yet all of the suggestions from this evidence should give us pause about considering it either part of John the Evangelist’s narrative or as taking place around the time of the Feast of Tabernacles in the second year of Jesus’ ministry.
It is perhaps the textual critic who inserted the pericope adulterae who adapted the existing narrative by sending everyone home, with Jesus going to the Mount of Olives, and then having everyone return to the courts of the Temple the next morning (John 7:53-8:2). The pericope itself really got going with Jesus teaching the people in the Temple courts: while He did so, scribes and Pharisees brought in a woman who had been caught committing adultery in flagrante – in the very act of doing so (John 8:3-4). They presented her before Jesus, declaring the Law of Moses commanded such women to be stoned to death, and asked Jesus what He would say about it (John 8:5). The narrator of the pericope affirmed the woman had been caught committing adultery, but also how the scribes and Pharisees were trying to trap Jesus so they might bring charges against Him (John 8:3, 6).
The narrator related how Jesus then bent over and began writing on the ground with His finger (John 8:6). The scribes and Pharisees persisted in their line of questioning; Jesus finally stood up and declared how whoever among them who was without sin could cast the first stone at her (John 8:7). While He returned to writing on the ground with His finger, the scribes, Pharisees, and crowd ostensibly remained in awkward silence; the oldest among them began to file away, followed, again ostensibly, by the younger, until only the accused woman and Jesus remained (John 8:8-9). Jesus stood up and asked her where everyone had gone and if any had condemned her; she responded, “no one, Lord” (John 8:10-11). Jesus then told her He did not condemn her either, and told her to depart, yet to sin no more (John 8:11). In this way the pericope adulterae ended, and seemingly without any real attempt to “smooth over” the transition back into John the Evangelist’s narrative in John 8:12ff.
The pericope adulterae might be short and without a lot of context, but it remains endlessly dynamic and fascinating with many subtle twists and turns which we do well to address and consider.
We know the scribes and Pharisees do not act in good faith but look for a reason to accuse Jesus. Even beyond this, however, what they want to do proves problematic. The scribes and Pharisees claim to have caught the woman in flagrante, which begs the question: where is the man with whom she was committing adultery? The Law of Moses did not actually demand stoning as the means of execution for those caught in adultery in Leviticus 20:10 and Deuteronomy 22:22-24, just that they be executed; but of greater importance was the commandment for both of them to be stoned. Thus, does the Law really demand for “such women” to be stoned, as the scribes and Pharisees allege (John 8:5)? It would be misogynist, unjust, and a miscarriage of justice to compel the woman to submit to capital punishment while the equally culpable man got off free. Jesus’ response indicated a far greater concern than this particular technical concern, but it should disabuse us for any sympathy we might be tempted to have for the scribes and the Pharisees. They are not really concerned for fulfillment of the Law and its demands for justice and righteousness; the woman was being used as a pawn in their crusade against Jesus, which rendered their behavior as all the more reprehensible.
What was Jesus writing on the ground in John 8:6, 8? Everyone wants to know! It is possible to interpret the narrator’s use of Greek katagrapho, “writing,” as more specifically as “writing an accusation” based on the context; manuscripts U 264 700 preserve a scribal addition of “the sins of all of them” in John 8:6 or John 8:8, so many in antiquity already considered this option quite valid. While it remains possible Jesus’ spoken words alone were enough to convict the members of the crowd of their guilt, one can also imagine at least one person who would have proven quite self-righteous and who would thus take it upon him or herself to begin the stoning. But if Jesus was indeed writing out the sins of the crowd, or perhaps some verse of the Torah which they all would have violated in some way at some time (e.g. love your neighbor as yourself, Leviticus 19:18), such self-righteousness would have proven shameful. We cannot possibly know what precisely Jesus was writing, but we would not be wrong to associate it with the immediate context of the events and as having some bearing on the ultimate result of the entire pericope.
Yet Jesus’ treatment of the woman remains the most compelling about the pericope adulterae. At no point did He, or anyone else, dispute the legitimacy of the accusation, nor did He or anyone else downplay its severity or the punishment as declared in the Law. Yet such remains the ultimate irony of the whole pericope: Jesus is without guilt, and thus had the right and standing to cast the first stone (cf. Hebrews 4:15). Yet He did not condemn the adulterous woman.
Jesus would have been entirely just, and in the right, if He told the scribes and Pharisees to go and seize the adulterous man and have them both executed. Having the woman and the man executed would satisfy justice and righteousness, but neither could then be saved. Jesus had told Nicodemus in John 3:16-17 how the Father did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but for the world to be saved through Him. He demonstrated as much in the case of the adulterous woman.
Jesus’ treatment of the adulterous woman should therefore resonate with all of those who would claim to be His disciples. Sinners sin; sinners were sinning in the first century, and sinners in the twenty-first century continue to sin. Sin remains an affront to God and His holiness and righteousness; sin denigrates our humanity and leads to our hurt and injury. In certain circumstances among God’s people, with sufficient evidence from two or three witnesses, the people of God may be compelled to disassociate from a so-called Christian who would persist in sin and/or false teachings (cf. Romans 16:17-19, 1 Corinthians 5:1-13).
When the final day comes, Jesus will judge everyone on the basis of what they have done, and those who persisted in disobedience will be condemned (cf. Matthew 25:31-46, Romans 2:5-11). Indeed, at no point should the people of God commend, excuse, or justify sin: Jesus did tell the woman to go and sin no more, after all. But it is not our place to judge and condemn people (cf. Matthew 7:1-4, James 4:11-12). We have all sinned and fallen short of the glory of God; therefore, who among us has the right to pick up a stone to judge and condemn anyone else? The One who does have that right will ultimately judge, but we have not yet arrived at that day. Jesus’ mission remains the same today as it was when He spoke with Nicodemus: He came not to condemn the world, but to save it.
Even if someone were to deny the authenticity of the pericope adulterae, or if it had never existed, if we were to imagine such a scenario in which scheming Jewish authorities hauled a pawn up before Him and asked Him what they should do about her, what other kind of response would we imagine might come from Jesus other than the one given in the pericope? It absolutely sounds like how Jesus would handle that kind of situation. And even though John the Evangelist most likely did not write the pericope adulterae, John’s portrayal of Jesus well aligns with Jesus in the pericope. We thus do well to heed the lessons of the pericope adulterae: go and sin no more, but remember how we have all sinned and fallen short of the glory of God, seek to direct those who sin to Jesus for healing and repentance, leaving final judgment to Him. Whenever we prove more zealous for the execution of justice and righteousness than the Lord Himself, we actually do the work of the Adversary and Accuser, forgetting how much we depend on God’s grace, and how liable we would otherwise be to similar punishment. May we faithfully serve God in Christ and encourage everyone to follow Him so we might all obtain the resurrection of life!
Ethan R. Longhenry