You're listening to Tim Bulkeley's 5 minute Bible
The beginning John chapter 8, the story of the woman caught
in adultery,
is a fascinating case study.
You see, whatever messages you take from the pericope itself
and it's interesting enough
it isn't present in any of the earliest manuscripts of John's gospel
or any of the earliest complete manuscripts to the New Testament
it's just not there
and in the later manuscript it's sometimes in other places
or even Luke's gospel instead of John's
So, a text critic looking at it
comes to the conclusion
that wherever it came from
this pericope wasn't part of John's gospel
the way it was first written
Yeah, it's a pericope that's been preached on,
proclaimed,
studied,
by Christians down across the centuries
and the closer you look at it the more it rings true
as a piece of authentic remembering of Jesus
passed on in the early church
but somehow
not attached at first to any particular gospel
fascinating stuff
you see the whole romantic movement stressed going back to the originals
the source
that was what was authentic
for the romantics of the nineteenth century
and their descendants of the twentieth century
and so the Chicago Statement on biblical inerrancy one of the key documents for
super conservatives in the Christian church
in its section on transmission and translation, says:
"it is necessary to affirm
that only the autographic text of the original documents was inspired
and to maintain the need for textual criticism
as a means of detecting any slips that they have crept into the text
in the course of its transmission."
Now, for John 8
the woman caught in adultery
that statement is a real problem
because quite clearly
under that statement it is not Scripture
because it's not part
almost certainly
of the original
autographic text, to use their language, of John's gospel
wherever it came from it almost certainly was not part of John's gospel
from the start
it became part of John's gospel
in the course of transmission
the church has made it part of John's gospel
though once it wasn't it
that happened
around or after the time that the text was canonised
you see the problem
it is fascinating stuff because this text is one that's frequently preached on
it's a text it's been dear to many many Christians across the years
precisely because it so clearly
reveals Jesus to us
and the same Jesus we find revealed it all of the other gospel texts
but it wasn't part of John
until the early church
in about four or five hundred AD
made its so
before that it must have been a sort of free-floating rememberance
of Jesus
So, the Chicago people
it is not part of the Bible people, so don't preach on it
it's not inspired
the other end of the religious spectrum things a bit different
the Jesus Seminar they can vote on it like any other passage from
the gospels and see whether it gets black balled
or whether it gets voted in
the problem with that is, it's a
do-it-yourself Bible
you decide what's in and what's out, no worries
bits you like are in, the bits you don't are out
that won't do either
You see, what we need is a view of Scripture
the takes seriously its nature canonical text
text the church has passed down
the community has handed on from one generation to another
by that standard
the story of the woman taken adultery
is part of John's gospel
and has been since round about five hundred AD
before that
who cares?
That doesn't solve all the problems of course
because there's still the issue of
and we change the Bible again
or at what point did the Bible become unchangeable
that's a head ache nearly as bad as the ones that I've just given
to the inerrantists
and that the Jesus Seminar give me
it's rather fun though, God bless!