Ben C Smith

It got swallowed up by my poor typography. Nice catch. Here is the corrected quotation:

Simul et historiam quondam subiungit de muliere adultera, quae accusata est a Iudeis apud dominum. habetur autem in evangelia, quod dicitur secundum Hebraeos, scripta parabola.

That is, of course, always possible. However, in this case I tend to think the Greek preserves the original Eusebian wording. I do not think Eusebius would have brought up the Papian story and compared it (only) to the gospel according to the Hebrews if he knew that it was the same as a canonical story. Once we admit, then, that Eusebius probably did not know the pericope de adultera (from either Luke or John), it becomes probable, based on the wording many sins and some of the alternate versions that Klijn adduces (especially the one from the Stuttgart Diatessaron, caught in unchaste acts), that Papias knew a different version of the story.

When Rufinus chanced along this Eusebian note about Papias, it would have been an easy matter, if Rufinus himself now knew about the pericope de adultera in John (or Luke, for that matter) that Eusebius did not, to bring the wording into closer alignment with the canonical version (changing woman charged with many sins to adulterous woman).

That is my proposed trajectory, FWIW.

What makes it Lucan in style? Those five words or phrases (7 minus 2) that I brought up from Hawkins? Or is there something more?

Nor do I, because something like it was apparently in Papias. But I do not think the pericope was originally canonical.

Klijn is not at all discussing the genuineness or spuriousness of the pericope de adultera. The information I gleaned from him I am pressing in other directions. From what I can tell, he himself assumed the majority position, that the pericope is spurious.

Good things happen when one cribs from the masters, of whom Hawkins is chief.

The problem I see for any such statistical analysis with this pericope is one that Carlson called attention to. Hawkins called certain words or phrases Mattheanisms, Marcanisms, or Lucanisms by counting instances in all three synoptics; the categories were relative, not absolute. We can do the same thing for the pericope de adultera with respect to Luke and John, of course, tallying Lucanisms and Johanninisms (is that the right word?) to see whether the pericope fits better in Luke or in John. But that procedure does not in any way deal with what is actually the majority position, namely that it does not really belong in either Luke or John. Proving that the passage is more Lucan than Johannine (a relative statement) does not prove that the passage is Lucan (an absolute statement).

(Hopefully Stephen will let me know if I botched anything in that paragraph; statistics are not my strong suit.)

Ben.

No Robots

The argument is that independent scribes/communities excised the passage. In the period of consolidation, ie. c. 400, we would expect the status of the pericope to become an issue, which is exactly what we find to be the case.

jgibson000

No. The idea that the best or only way to explain the absolute lack of attestation of the PA in not only the best Greek, but also in all the Eastern and most Western versional, witnesses, as well as in the commentaries on Jn or the quotations of scripture by all the Eastern (and many Western) fathers until the 10th century, is that the text was excised early from the exemplars upon which these MSS were based is a claim that is being made, not an argument..

If there is any argument here, it is over whether this claim (which is, at base, an argument from silence) has any merit, and whether other explanations for the absoluet lack of attestation to the PA are better.

Why would we expect this, let alone expect it only then?

We do? Can you quote the actual sources that you feel demonstrate that this is the case?

Jeffrey Gibson

No Robots

Thanks for the pedantic lesson in dialectics.


Absolute lack? How did we get to that from "all the Eastern and most Western versional, witnesses"? Besides, Didymus the Blind is eastern, as is the Didascalia.




The process of establishing a canonical version of the NT required an assessment of what should be in and what should be out. Pretty simple.

Certain persons of little faith or rather enemies of the true faith, fearing, I suppose, lest their wives should be given impunity in sinning, removed from their manuscripts the Lord's act of forgiveness toward the adulteress, as if He who had said 'sin no more' had granted permission to sin.
Augustine. S. S. Patrum J. B. Cotelerius, Antwerp, 1698, vol. i, p.235.

In the Gospel according to John in many manuscripts, both Greek and Latin, is found the story of the adulterous woman who was accused before the Lord.

Jerome. Migne, Patrologiae Cursus Completus, Series Latina, vol. 23, col. 579.

These quotations can be found here.

jgibson000

Leaving aside the question of whether I was indeed pedantic, you might want to look up the word "dialectic". What I was up to in that which you "thank" me for, was hardly "dialectic", let alone a lesson in it.

More importanly, do you dispute my disctinction? Is what I said not true?

We don't. A slip of my editing pen. But at the risk of being charged with the same, I think you are nit picking here.

More importantly, however, it by no means certain, as you sem to think it is, that either Didymus the Blind or the author of the Didascalia were referring to the PA, at least as we know it now. (See the recent discussion of this in A.T. Lincoln's commentary on John). In fact, it seems more likely that the Didascalia is referring to Lk. 7:36-50. And the note from Didymus that the text he refers to is to be found in "other gospels" indicates that he did not find it in any of the canonical ones. So appealing to Didymus and to the Didascalia as evidence of "Eastern" attestation is highly questionable. (see further, Ulrich Becker, "Jesus und die Ehebrecherin" (ZNW 28 [1963]).


The process of establishing a canonical version of the NT began long before the 400s, and it had to do with what books should be regarded as scripture, not what passages within those books. Besides that, why was Lk. 7:36-50 not also excised?

Yes, but Augustine is only referring to what was going on in the West and, more importantly, in his own time. It is illegitimate to use this statement as evidence that the PA was an original part of John which (as has to be the case if your claim has any hope of being true) very early on was excised from the exemplars of the Greek MSS upon which the Latin versions of the NT with which Augustine was familar were based.

Again, Jerome is speaking of MSS from his time. To take this as evidence that the PA was in the autograph of John, let alone, any of its earliest witnesses, is special pleading.

Jeffrey Gibson

No Robots

Of course it is. Talk about nitpicking, though. Sheesh.

I say nothing at all about the PA originally belonging to John. I stand with what Ehrman says is the opinion of the majority of scholars, that it was part of the oral tradition that somehow wound up in John.

jgibson000

If you don't say what you mean, you won't mean what you say.

OK. On this latter point -- that the PA as we see it in Jn 7:53-811 was a tradition not original to GJohn (and certainly not to Luke) that eventually wound up in GJohn -- we agree. But Ehrman also has said that the PA was not early tradition (i.e., from the first century), let alone originally an oral one. He thinks, if I read him right, that it was something that was composed, this is, from the beginning a written story, and not until the second century.

Anyway, you can ask Bart about this yourself. He can be reached at

behrman@email.unc.edu

Jeffrey Gibson

No Robots

I'm all for precision in language. But I also think we should try to decipher our interlocutors' intentions. Spirit before letter.




I wrote Ehrman quite some time ago to bring his attention to Constantin Brunner. I received no response, which is pretty much what I have received from every other academic.

PhilosopherJay

Hi Jeffrey,

Your point seems to be that one cannot reconstruct a story originating from a different language except in the original language. This seems an absurd proposition to me. According to this way of thinking, if someone says 'DesCartes said "I think therefore I eat ice-cream" ', it would be impossible for me to translate this back into 'DesCartes said "I think therefore I am" ' without knowing Latin or that he said "Cogito Ergo Sum" Obviously one can do the reconstruction of narratives regardless of the original language.

Is there any concepts in the story as I have reconstructed it that cannot be expressed in Aramaic or Greek? It seems to me that concepts concerning adultery were pretty clear and could be expressed in either Aramaic or Greek.

I am not familiar with Geoff Hudson's claims in this regard, so I do not know if my claims are similar or dissimular to his.

It is an interesting question at what point did this story get changed from a story regarding Simon and Helene to a story concerning Jesus and Mary. I will have to give it some thought.

Warmly,

PhilosopherJay

pharoah

Assuming there was an early oral-only tradition about that the PA, then that presents two possibilities:

1) One or more of the canonical gospel writers was aware of the PA but decided not to use it. When you consider the very good light that this story puts Jesus in, then the writer(s) remarkable decision calls the reliability of the oral tradition into serious question.

2) None of the canonical gospel writers were aware of the PA. Considering that the latest canonical writings date to almost near the end of the 1st century, then this would almost certainly mean that the oral tradition rose from 2nd-century legend. This is hardly surprising - just look at books like the Infancy Gospel of Thomas.