The Jewish Gospel of John: Discovering Jesus, King of All Israel by Eli Lizorkin-Eyzenberg

Author:Eli Lizorkin-Eyzenberg
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
Tags: 'jewish, gospel, john, samaritans, anti judaism'

Chapter 8

[Adulterous Woman]; “Light of the World”; Truth, Origin and Identity

53 They went each to his own house, 1 but Jesus went to the Mount of Olives. 2 Early in the morning he came again to the temple. All the people came to him, and he sat down and taught them. 3 The scribes and the Pharisees brought a woman who had been caught in adultery, and placing her in the midst 4 they said to him, “Teacher, this woman has been caught in the act of adultery. 5 Now in the Law Moses commanded us to stone such women. So what do you say?” 6 This they said to test him that they might have some charge to bring against him. Jesus bent down and wrote with his finger on the ground. 7 And as they continued to ask him, he stood up and said to them, “Let him who is without sin among you be the first to throw a stone at her.” 8 And once more he bent down and wrote on the ground. 9 But when they heard it, they went away one by one, beginning with the older ones, and Jesus was left alone with the woman standing before him. 10 Jesus stood up and said to her, “Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?” 11 She said, “No one, Lord.” And Jesus said, “Neither do I condemn you; go, and from now on sin no more.”

In other portions of this book, we considered how the science of textual criticism can help Christian believers to know which texts are authentic and which are not; which belong to the Bible, and which constitute edits done by scribes who handled the transmission of the Holy Writ before the invention of the printing press. Since we don’t have a single original manuscript or scroll of any of the books of the Bible – multiple versions (most of them with minor differences) of most biblical texts do exist – the science of textual analysis seeks to determine which versions of the available textual witnesses are more reliable. There are times when clear answers cannot be given, but sometimes this is just not the case.

In the passage we are considering, as we come upon one of the most famous and beloved Gospel stories, we are very much in need of textual analysis. So what is the issue? Simply that all the earliest and most reliable manuscripts of the Gospels do not contain this beautiful story that is otherwise so magnificently consistent with the rest of the Gospel of Christ. All modern translations of the Bible, with a disclaimer that this story is not found in early manuscripts, still include it in their printed texts. What is perhaps even more intriguing for our discussion is, to this day this story is often passed on orally more often than many other stories! It is clearly among the people’s favorites. This implies that, while the textual criticism scholars have made a

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