This is a text about a dilemma that presents a dilemma itself. The double brackets before verse 53 in chapter seven and after verse 11 in chapter eight cause a dilemma just as much as they contain one.

Jesus has been in Jerusalem for three or four days during the Feast of Booths, teaching and aggravating the crowd. His words caused some to question if He might be someone special and caused others, the majority it seems, to want to get rid of Him. The officers are paralyzed, the officials are angry, and the crowd divided. It’s just a normal Sabbath in the capital when Jesus is in town.

John 7:53 and 8:1 tell us that the crowd dispersed, went home to get some sleep, and met Jesus back in the Temple the next day. Jesus Himself spent the night on the Mount of Olives. Perhaps that seems natural after the last day of the feast, but it brings us to our first heading.

A Dilemma about the Text

The first, and consequential, concern is that the earliest manuscripts of the Gospel of John do not contain John 7:53-8:11. The ESV includes this note before verse 53:

[THE EARLIEST MANUSCRIPTS DO NOT INCLUDE JOHN 7:53-8:11]

The NAS adds a footnote to verse 53:

John 7:53-8:11 is not found in most of the old mss.

What does that mean and what does it matter? Those are part of the dilemma.

What does that mean?

In order to answer that question, which is important, I need to introduce the subject of, or refresh us about, the work of textual criticism.

Textual criticism is the science of determining the original words of God’s Word, both Old and New Testaments. Why is that necessary? It’s necessary because there are no original autographs of any part of the Bible. Without keyboards and computers, digital files and online backups, the original writings were left in all their handwritten fragility. God preserved those writings long enough for them to be copied but, again, those copies were done entirely by hand. That was the only option.

Copying was primarily the work of scribes. Scribes were well-trained and they took their responsibility very seriously. That doesn’t, however, guarantee that they always copied everything correctly.

As time and distance away from the originals increased, whether the originals were lost or weren’t accessible to a scribe, it’s not hard to imagine that unintentional mistakes could be made (especially at the end of a long day in a dark room copying hard to read texts). It’s also not hard to imagine that, at times, a scribe might need to make a judgment call when comparing two or more discrepancies of the same text. Most of these variances deal with one letter or word (for example, “ours” or “yours”). Rarely do they deal with entire sections, like here in John 8 and Mark 16:9-20. Never do the variances change a doctrine. For example, no copy ever calls God a Mother or says that a person can be saved by adding money to his faith.

Textual criticism involves reading and comparing the different manuscripts (the hand-written copies), putting the differences through a series of tests (such as, What kind of change is it? When was this particular copy made? Where was it made? Who might be tempted to “fix” it?), and then making a decision about the most likely original text. This is difficult, meticulous work that must be done since we don’t have any originals and since differences in copies do exist. Thankfully in God’s providence, most unbelieving textual critics are motivated to get it right for sake of their academic credibility even if they aren’t interested in believing what they read.

Also, there are thousands of manuscripts or manuscript pieces that remain today to compare. On one hand, that makes for more work, but it also makes for more likelihood of determining the original.

Other than the KJV/NKJV—which are based on the more recent manuscripts—I could not find one scholar/commentator/preacher/Bible translation that argued for the authenticity of John 7:53-8:11 in John’s Gospel. Almost all the evidence points to it being added later.

• Earlier (closer to the original) manuscripts, those before the 5th century, do not include it.
• Later manuscripts include it in at least five different locations (after John 7:36, 44, or 52; after John 21:25, or after Luke 21:38)(Köstenberger, 247; Borchert, 369). It is a “floating” text looking for a context.
• No Greek church father commented on the passage until the 12th century. (MacArthur Study Bible, )
• It was included in the first printed Greek New Testament (by Erasmus in 1516) with a note about it not being original to the text, but that he included it because many Vulgate readers found it beneficial. Note that the question about it’s originality came before the earlier/older manuscripts were found.
• It includes numerous vocabulary and syntax that are unique to John or, in other words, are non-John like.
• It breaks the flow of the narrative from 7:52-8:12.

So, to say that the earliest manuscripts do not contain this text is to say that this story is not part of the Bible.

What does it matter?

It matters because, if this text cannot be concluded to be part of the original, then it cannot be given the authority of the inspired Word of God. That means at a minimum that no doctrine can be determined from this text.

Even though I believe that this event is not originally here in John’s Gospel, even though it interrupts the flow from 7:52 into 8:12, we’re already here, so let’s take a look at it.

A Dilemma in the Text (7:53-8:11)

This is just the sort of story, with just the sort of trap set and just the sort of response from Jesus that we’d expect to find in a gospel.

[[They went each to his own house, but Jesus went to the Mount of Olives. Early in the morning he came again to the temple. All the people came to him, and he sat down and taught them. The scribes and the Pharisees brought a woman who had been caught in adultery, and placing her in the midst they said to him, “Teacher, this woman has been caught in the act of adultery. Now in the Law Moses commanded us to stone such women. So what do you say?” 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. 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.” And once more he bent down and wrote on the ground. 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. Jesus stood up and said to her, “Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?” She said, “No one, Lord.” And Jesus said, “Neither do I condemn you; go, and from now on sin no more.”]] (John 7:53–8:11 ESV)

The religious leaders, scribes and Pharisees , or in other words, the law people, set a trap for Jesus. It says so straightforwardly in the first half of verse 6: This they said to test him, that they might have some charge to bring against him.

A couple questions. First, if you catch a woman in adultery, don’t you also catch someone else? Don’t you also catch the man? Where is he? Was he too quick and got away? Did the religious authorities not care about him? Something’s not right already.

Second, if they knew the law, as they pointed out to Jesus, why did they need His approval to obey it? The Law Moses commanded in this case was Deuteronomy 22:21 (if it was a married woman) or 22-24 (if the woman was a betrothed virgin). It appears that she was a married woman (γυνή) rather than an engaged girl, and the term is “adultery” (μοιχεία) not a more generic sin. The law was not complex, so what was keeping them from obeying it?

The scene more than implies that the Jews were not practicing their own Law, and probably hadn’t been for some time. According to D.A. Carson, “there is little evidence that [stoning] was carried out very often in first-century Palestine” (335). Stoning especially, which was a gruesome form of capital punishment, was no doubt a distasteful and so disused punishment. That doesn’t make it any less disobedient.

If Jesus had told them not to obey the Law, the authorities would condemn Him for speaking against Moses; they’d get Jesus for being lawless. If Jesus told them to stone the woman, the authorities would condemn Him for being harsh; they’d make Jesus unpopular. The authorities set up the dilemma in such a way to make it seem that mercy and righteousness are at odds.

Here is a recurring lesson in John’s Gospel, a repeated lesson in Jesus’ ministry and among us: men who claim to be experts in God’s Word who not only don’t obey God’s Word, but who also use God’s Word as a weapon to hurt others. They use false dichotomies and presume doubt when they have none, all in order to protect themselves.

This does not make us equivalent to Pharisees any more than getting mad makes us equivalent to [think of the most angry person you know]. It does mean that we should watch out for similar, if smaller, expressions of the same sin. This is a lesson illustrated in John 7:53-8:11 even if the lesson doesn’t originate here.

Their moral dilemma, their question about righteousness, masked their own condemnation.

Jesus bent down and wrote with his finger on the ground (verse 6b). What did He write? Answering that is another pseudo-dilemma. There are no Dirt Critics who study and compare dirt writings to give us the answer. Some suggest that Jesus wrote the sins of the authorities, but why would they keep asking their question (verse 7)? Others suggest that Jesus wrote Jeremiah 17:13.

O LORD, the hope of Israel,
all who forsake you shall be put to shame;
those who turn away from you shall be written in the earth (“dust” NIV),
for they have forsaken the LORD, the fountain of living water.
(Jeremiah 17:13, ESV)

That’s interesting and offers an idea about why the story might be inserted here in a context of drinking living water, but there’s no way to know. Others suggest that Jesus was doodling (think whittling without a knife), ignoring their questions as if to say that they weren’t worth His attention.

As they pestered, Jesus replied in the last half of verse 7: “Let him who is without sin among you be the first to throw a stone at her.” Deuteronomy 13:9 required those who witnessed the unlawful behavior to throw the first stones.

Jesus was not saying that no one who sins can do anything about someone else’s sin. Otherwise, the Old Testament laws could never be enforced because there are never any perfectly obedient judges. Instead, Jesus is confronting hypocrites who used their Bibles to avoid their own disobedience. We must avoid that as well. We learn the blessings AND the boundaries of studying the Bible from studying the Bible.

Jesus said a similar thing in Matthew 7. “Judge not, that you be not judged” (verse 1) isn’t the end of the matter. Stop judging from self-righteousness is His point. Take the log out of your own eye and then go to work on the speck in your brother’s eye (verse 5). Applied here, the scribes and Pharisees were unwilling to get the log out.

Jesus was also not saying that adultery was okay. He calls the woman’s sin sin and then tells her to stop sinning. The significant part is that He told her to stop sinning out of mercy.

The dilemma in the text is, who was condemned? The woman and the law-copying, law-using scribes and Pharisees; both were condemned. But who was forgiven? Only the woman. The scribes and Pharisees came to Jesus condemned, even if they didn’t know it, and they left with even greater condemnation.

• The woman was sinning and the authorities were sinning.
• The woman was caught and the authorities were covering.
• The woman leaves forgiven and the authorities leave condemned.

Mercy displayed has different results.

Conclusion

In terms of dealing with the dilemmas about and in this text:

We ought to be thankful that God has preserved His Word for us. Questions about manuscripts keep us from presumption (and probably from idolatry), but they do not keep us from believing. The Holy Spirit testifies in our hearts about the reliability of God’s Word.

We ought also to be thankful for God’s law and for God’s forgiveness. Questions about mercy remind us that we need mercy and that we know a God of mercy. Part of the reason that the event in John 8:1-11 sounds good is because it sounds like Jesus. Jesus loves to show mercy to the humble.

Think Psalm 51.

For you will not delight in sacrifice, or I would give it; you will not be pleased with a burnt offering.
The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit;
a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.
Do good to Zion in your good pleasure;
build up the walls of Jerusalem;
then will you delight in right sacrifices, in burnt offerings and whole burnt offerings;
then bulls will be offered on your altar.
(Psalm 51:16–19, ESV)

Bible study and doctrinal clarity and precise liturgy are all fantastic unless they make our hearts proud rather than help us come humbly before the Lord. The religious authorities regularly masked their own unrighteousness and disobedience and guilt with religious dress. The story in John 7:53-8:11 possibly provides another example of that sort of hypocritical behavior. It also illustrates the great mercy of Jesus which forgives those who admit guilt and helps them forsake a life of sin.