Toto

How does this pericope relate at all to mythicism? Do all historicists accept this pericope and mythicists reject it, or vice versa? What if the positions were reversed?

To my knowledge there is no ideologically-based variance between mythicists and historicists on it, and no reason for any variance.

Rick Sumner

I'm not a mythicist. I think it's interpolated. Which is a majority view. "Mythicists" don't isolate themselves from the scholarly community on this one.

To be sure, there are points where they do so. That whole Jesus not existing thing doesn't seem to sit well with the mainstream (which is rather the point of this thread). The Pericope de Adultera, however, is not one of those points. Far from issuing an idictment against mythicists, you belie your own unfamiliarity with the issue, or rather, your familiarity with only one side of it.

Regards,
Rick Sumner

No Robots

The question is whether or not mythicists are truly willing to engage in scholarly discussion. I picked the pericope of the adultress as a test case precisely because it has no direct bearing on the mythicist position, yet over it mythicists seem all the same to have isolated themselves from the scholarly community. This is an anomaly that I am trying to fathom. My own opinion is that the pericope is a problem for mythicists because it is a problem for orthodox Christians. Why, if the Gospels were produced for ecclesiastic purposes, would they contain obstacles to those purposes? Clerics didn't like the pericope, as Ambrose attests. Why is it in there, then? I would say, of course, that the reason it is in there is because it is an authentic episode in the life of Christ. I think that mythicists are aware of the argument I make, and therefore deny the validity of the pericope.

No Robots

I would like to see your citations and arguments on this. I know for a fact that Bart Ehrman does not regard it as an interpolation.

Here is my previous post on Ehrman and the pericope.

S.C.Carlson

:huh: I'm really confused now, because the linked post you give rakes Ehrman over the coals for all-too-blithely concluding that the adulteress passage is an interpolation.

Stephen

Amaleq13

I'm with Mr. Carlson on this one. The linked post clearly shows that Ehrman joins with the majority in considering this an interpolation. The final quote, contrary to your characterization, does not indicate he considers it genuine but indicates he feels it should be included in the canonical text (presumably because of the early nature of the interpolation) but with a disclaimer indicating that it is likely not original to the author.

spin

You unfortunately indulge in hypocrisy when you make the accusation of intransigence to me. This passage is obviously not known early in the east. No Greek father refers to it in the first ten centuries, despite various commentaries on John. Face the fact that it's a later addition -- if you don't like the word interpolation. There are many additions to the christian testament. Why are you so intrasigent about this one?

You can say non sequiturs as much as you like. You won't say anything meaningful, but you make some noise.


spin

Diogenes the Cynic

Ehrman definitely does think the adulteress passage is an interpolation. He has explicitly said so both in print and in public interviews. It would actually be more controversial and newsworthy if a scholar of Ehrman's caliber did not think it was interpolated.

I wonder if No Robots is reading too much into Ehrman's speculation that the adulterous woman had a currency in oral tradition before it was added to John. I know Ehrman doesn't think it's authentic. IIRC, he has explicitly called it "fiction" in public interviews.

andrewcriddle

There is an interesting but maybe speculative article by Ehrman on this subject (Jesus and the Adulteress New Testament Studies 34 (1988) pps 24-44)

He suggests that the story interpolated in John is a conflation of two distinct apocryphal traditions the first mainly witnessed by the Didascalia Apostolorum (and derived church orders) and the second mainly witnessed by Didymus the Blind in one of his recently discovered Old Testament commentaries.

Andrew Criddle

S.C.Carlson

That sentence No Robots quoted from Text of the New Testament is also found unaltered in the third edition by Metzger. There's been some complaints that Ehrman should have more thoroughly revised that book, so it is best to attribute that sentence to Metzger. No Robots interpretation is actually more consistent with Metzger's views than Ehrman's. For example, on p. 229 of the thrd edition, regarding Mark 16:9-20, Metzger says that there are "not four but five evangelic accounts of events subsequent to the Resurrection of Christ."

Stephen