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Join Date: Jan 2007
Location: Canada
Posts: 528
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And as to the need for luck in convincing anyone that the version of the woman to be stoned story that Didymus refers to is not John 8:1-11, I don't think I need it.
This has already been recognized by Ulrich Becker (Jesus und die Ehebrecherin. Untersuchungen zur Textund Überlieferungsgeschichte von Joh. 7,53-8,11),
Dieter Lurhmann ("Die Geschichte von einer Sunderin und andere Apokryphe Jesusuberlieferungen bei Didymos von Alexandrien"), and others.
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Mr. Gibson makes an assertion here, using an obscure (1963) German work unavailable to English readers, and hardly a mainstream reference. (It has only been cited recently by Petersen, an almost anal over-citer of other obscure works (he typically cites over 100 authors in 40 pages).
Although we are not going to attempt a translation of Becker's 400 pg error-riddled work here, we are fortunate in having an excellent review of it in JSTOR (a journal we are sure Gibson approves), by a reputable peer in English. I will quote some of the substance of this review to allow English readers some idea of the quality and content of that drearily boring work:
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"In 1959 this work served as a "Inaugural-dissertation" at the Faculty
of Theology of the University of Erlangen; its preface mentions the
names of Professor Stauffer and Professor Friedrich as consultants. The
book deals with the text and tradition of the famous pericope de adultera
and commendably approaches its subject from several different angles.
Part I covers the history of the pericope as a part of the four Gospel
canon, analyses its text and context, and reconstructs the earliest, or
rather "a very early" (p. 43), form of its text. Part I studies the extra and
pre-canonical tradition: there are a number of hints to Judaeochristian
Gospels. Part IT1 sums up the results, and then proceeds to
interpret the pericope from the point of view of Jewish law and its
history. According to Becker, certain disputes among Jewish authorities
concerning the proper punishment of an adulteress form its original
background. Here one should compare J. D. M. Derrett, Law in the
New Testament: The Story of the Woman Taken in Adultery, New Testament
Studies 10 (1963-64) 1-26. In Derrett's opinion, which is very well
documented, Jesus' action was essentially a critique of the competence
and the motives of the witnesses, i.e. the accusers. We shall leave this
matter to the experts. My comments, to be given below, will concern
some points of textual history and criticism and the interpretation of one
or two of the testimonia veterum. But, before going into details, let us
first look at Becker's main conclusions and give some general impression.
As to the main problem, Becker's conclusion is that the pericope
adulterae was inserted into the Fourth Gospel at the beginning of the
third century, presumably in (Greek speaking) Judaeo-christian circles,
where one was still sufficiently aware of Jewish festal practice to appreciate
the excellent setting that John 7,52 offers.
The pericope was not originally a part of one of the synoptic Gospels -a view still recently defended by Riesenfeld (1952) -, nor was it invented.
If it had been
invented for any of the purposes scholars have suggested, it would have
been a different story: without the sharp contrast between Jesus and
Moses, and with a great deal about confession and repentance. So
Becker accepts the historical character of the pericope and tries to fit this
controversy-story into its original setting, the life of Jesus.
Our general impression of the book is, that it is a capable, ambitious
and imaginative attempt to solve the many problems of the pericope
adulterae, even where, perhaps, simply stating them critically should have
been given priority. Much of the relevant material has been collected
and studied and there are many useful suggestions.
But the investigation is not as thorough and complete as its impressive appearance might suggest and it could have gained considerably by criticism and guidance.
The accuracy of the book is somewhat below average. I mention only
the repeated misquotation of Pacian of Barcelona (1- before 392), the
earliest Latin author to mention the pericope explicitly: . . . quod pepercerit
Dominus etianz adulterae confitenti, quam nemo damnarat (right on
p. 25, but conjidenti on pp. 31 and 161) and the consistent misspelling of
the name C.A. Phillips and the English word "Judaism".
On p. 10, where
Becker lists the witnesses of the pericope among New Testament codices,
read Lambda for Delta, and 346 for 246. ...Does minuscule 300 really contain the
scholion cited on p. 1l?
The books lacks indices, which is tiresome in a work of this kind. But
we should not blame the author for that: none of these Beihefte has any
index. The publishers do not seem to realize that after reading these
books one sometimes likes to consult them again. There is an extensive
booklist on pp. 188-203, not a specific bibliography of the subject.
J. P. P. Martin's study in part B IV of his Introduction d la critique textuelle
du Nouveau Testament (Paris, 1883-86), seems to have escaped the
author's attention. Earlier monographs by C. F. Staudlin, J. Schulthess
and others should at least have been mentioned; even S. A. Buddingh,
Annotatio brevis in loca quaedam dijiciliora, quae leguntur cap. VIII.
Euang. Joannis (thesis Leiden, 1833), has some good remarks.
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I would like to deal now with some points that even after Becker's
study may need further consideration:
(1) In his paragraph "Der textgeschichtliche Befund" Becker states
that both in the Greek manuscript tradition and in the ancient versions the
earliest stages show no trace of the pericope. Its oldest witness is Codex
Bezae, a late representative of the Western text (pp. 28f, 54, 74); the
Byzantine text includes thepericope only when it is fully developed (p. 27),
in codices EFGH cett. (Von Soden's group Ki, or family E). This statement
should be qualified: ll and its family side with these, and not with
A, see J. Geerlings, Family 17 in John (Salt Lake City, 1963) pp. 97ff.
That is to say, we find the pericope in one of the earliest forms of the
ecclesiastical text, whose origin, date and place are relevant to the subject
of this book. The form in which we find the pericope here is almost
identical with Von Soden's y5 (see Geerlings, p. 99). Evidently, Von
Soden's contribution deserves more credit than Becker gives it. He
simply repeats Lietzmann's verdict of 1907 and acquits himself of reconstructing
the development of the Greek text of the pericope.
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(2) As for the Latin versions and the Diatessaron tradition Becker
argues that there is some (relatively late) pre-Vulgate evidence for the
pericope. Ambrose at least is relevant here, but he may or may not have
translated from the Greek himself. But probably the pericope did not
belong to a pre-Vulgate stage of the Latin Diatessaron, as Plooij believed.
Again, I should point out that the case is not closed.-
In the Old-Latin codices the pericope always is a (non-western) interpolation,
deriving from Greek codices such as Jerome used for his
revision, that is, codices with a Koine type of text. Here Becker has an
independent opinion: usually it is thought that "the pericope is.. . a piece
of floating tradition which circulated in certain parts of the Western
Church. It was subsequently inserted into various [Greek] manuscripts
at various places [in the Gospels]" (B. M. Metzger, The Text qf the New
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Testament (Oxford, 1964) p. 224). Now Becker's thesis would have been
much more safely based, if he had cared to investigate the Old-Latin
texts of this passage in detail. He implies that what looks like "free"
rendering is not -as it usually is -evidence of an early date. He also
implies that there is no "african" vocabulary in the Old-Latin texts of
the pericope, and this may be hard to prove (see v. 3 in moecationem (IT2).
v. 4 sponte nloecata (e); 11. 7 sine delicto (ff')). If there is, a late fourth
century date for the earliest stratum in these versions is unlikely.
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(3) In the second chapter Becker studies the pericope's language and
style. To him, the numerous similarities with Luke do not show that
Luke is the author, mainly because one argument of a different nature
outweighs these similarities: in such a story, Luke would not have
omitted the idea of repentance (p. 70f). If one can say that, Becker is
probably right in pointing out the non-Lukan character of a few expressions
such as ~inevw ith a dative. In an interesting passage (p. 72) he
draws a parallel between Luke's style and vocabulary and a general
tendency towards good or at any rate better Greek, evident in early
biblical manuscripts and recensions. With the Unknown Gospel (Papyrus
Egerton 2), the pericope is a representative of this tendency. Here
I hesitate: on this supposition,it becomes all but impossible to pin-point
the original style of any author as distinct from stylistic corrections, and
variants that are less good Greek are difficult to account for; yet they
do occur.
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(4) Becker's analysis of the language of the pericope aims not only at
determining its origin, but also at establishing its text. He intends to base
his decision between variants mainly on "internal" considerations, and
reconstructs the text of the passage on p. 73f. His text is even shorter
than Hort's, which Nestle prints; he omits the first part of v. 6. He often
begins his discussion with Von Soden's and B. Weiss' judgement -
German scholarship still honours the verba maiorum -where the reader
might have preferred a presentation of the material relevant for comparison.
Von Soden, for example, considered n a p a y i v ~ ~Da in~ v . 2 to be
a scribe's error. The copyist of D sometimes is careless (p. 47, note 14).
So Becker dismisses the variant. That is, he rejects the reading because
he does not trust the witness. His own program however asks for at least
some discussion of the historic present in different forms of the Gospel
narrative and in the pericope especially. Similarly, the discussion of the
reading in v. 11 nop~\jou]h a y &D will satisfy us only as long as we do not
seriously consider the possibility -which Becker accepts in principle -
that D might on occasion give the original reading. This is exactly what
one should do when studying a reading's intrinsic value. Still, in this
case, Becker's concluding remark on the variant is valuable: "Aus welchem
Grunde D in unserem Vers bnuyo vorzieht, ist schwer zu entscheiden;
eine Beeinflussung durch ahnliche Formulierungen bei den Syn.
(Mc. 1,44 . . .) oder bei Joh. (4,16 . . .) ist wahrscheinlich" (p. 67). On the
other hand, one could go on, it would be easy to tell why D wrote
(Becker's terminology concerning variant readings: . . . vorschlagen, auswechseln,
wechselweise etc. is often misleading) Bnays, if we suppose this
reading to be traditional. Why the others should prefer nop~6ov in a
story of more or less Lukan style is obvious from Becker's own statement:
"Lukas ist . . . bestrebt, das vulgare hnayw zu vermeiden." As for
this variant, Becker leaves us with the impression that there is a prima
facie case for the reading he rejects; a much fuller discussion seems
desirable.
Again, in r. 4 Becker reads ~ a t ~ h ~ jw(i~th$ Eq .. .l7 al. (Weiss) against
~ a t e i h q n ~Da t 1 pc. (Hort) and &iAqntaM~ SA 69 (Von Soden). The
perfect was introduced, it seems, to achieve conformity with the context
(v. 3 ~ a t ~ t h q p p i v~qa]tahqcp$&ioavE . . . II . . .). Becker may be right
here, but it is a little disappointing that he does not even try to go beyond
reproducing Weiss' arguments, dating from 1903. The use of perfects
and aorists has been extensively studied since then. Moreover, the possible
confusion with ~at&h~icpm$qa y be a case in point.
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(5) In Part I1 of his book Becker investigates the "extra-canonical
tradition" of the pericope, that is to say the traces it has left or may have
left as part of one of the Judaeo-christian Gospels. The first passage for
consideration is the well-known statement on Papias in Eusebius' Ecclesiastical
History (I11 39,17). Becker is not inclined to leave much room
for doubt that it really was the pericope adulterae which Papias explained.
He even tries to force an argument out of a variant in the Dutch Diatessaron:
'. ..enwyf . . . die begrepen was in onkuscheden', a woman who
was caught in unchasteness. The designation of her sin is as specific
here as in the other reading overhoere. For the general designation of it,
2 Peter 2,14 may be cited, where kpaptia has been translated by libido
(Vetus Latina, type X). Still, Eusebius' expression Eni nohhaiq &pap-
~iatqre mains somewhat puzzling, and Becker's conclusions on pp. 99f
are much more positive than caution would recommend.
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(6) Among several passages that seem to have something in common
with the pericope adulterae, Origen's often cited comment on Romans
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7,2b, which Daube discussed in this connection, is perhaps the least
uncertain. The Law according to the letter, Origen says, is dead in Jerusalem;
it has lost its power, as it cannot punish a murderer, nor stone
an adulteress: the Roman government claims all jurisdiction. From the
words "nec adulteram lapidare" Becker would like to conclude that
Origen knew the pericope, but suppressed it (p. 123: "Wir mochten antworten:
Origenes kennt die Ehebrecherinperikope . . ." is fairly positive;
but cf. p. 124: "Nur mit allem Vorbehalt . . ." However, I cannot find
these restrictions). There is very little to justify this conclusion, though
some fixed formula "the adulteress must be stoned" instead of "the
adulteress must be put to death" (Lev. 20,lO) may indeed have been
familiar to Origen (see also In Matth. XIX, 24 (GCS Or X, 1 (1935),
p. 34132, cf. 3309) and Clement of Alexandria, Strom. I1 xxiii, 147, 1 and 4
(GCS ClemAl I1 (31960), pp. 193-194)). We know that Christian polemists,
with their opinion of the Old Testament Law ("the letter kills"),
use biblical texts concerning capital punishment more or less freely: see
Acts 3,23; Born. 7,3; Justin, Dialogue 10,3 and 23,4; Hom. Clem. 111,
53 (Rehm (1953), p. 76), Dialogue of Timothy and Aquila (Conybeare
(1898), p. 87f). Stoning was, for the writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews,
characteristic of the severity of the Law (12,20), as at the beginning of
the Acts of John it seems to be characteristic of the Jews. Now admittedly
it was in fact the prescribed punishment for the adulteress (so also Becker,
p. 121, 165); this is an obvious conclusion from the biblical text, Deut.
22,21-24, and Josephus still mentions it as normal practice. The Mishna
however prescribes strangulation. It is a little far-fetched to surmise, with
Professor Daube, that Origen at this point depends on Jewish circles that
opposed the mishnaic reform. Becker rightly points out that Origen's
argument is theological (p. 120, note 3), and it should not be pressed
beyond its polemic purpose. To me, it seems just as far-fetched to declare
that Origen here betrays his acquaintance with the pericope de adultera.
Why the pericope rather than Clement or Josephus? Most likely this was
just common tradition.
Some of these critical comments may, however slightly, affect the
picture of the history of the pericope adulterae which Becker has drawn.
He himself does not in any way consider it to be final (see p. 6). ...
J. Smit Sibinga Vigiliae Christianae, Vol. 22, No. 1. (Apr., 1968), pp. 55-61.
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05-14-2007, 09:58 AM
