John 7:53-8:11

     The King James Version contains the pericope about the woman caught in the act of
adultery. Many of the modern English translations contain it, either set off from the text or
in brackets, with a note that the earliest manuscripts do not contain it.

     John 7:53-8:11 is not in codices Sinaiticus and Vaticanus, nor is it in p66, a Bodmer
papyrus  dated  from  about  200 A.D. and p75 dated from the early third century. No 
patristic writer prior to Euthymius Zigabenus in the twelfth century mentions the passage.
It isn't in the Diatessaron, Origen, Chrysostom, Cyril, Tertullian, and Cyprian. It isn't in
any of the earliest manuscripts from the second to the fourth century. It appears first in
the fifth century in Codex Bezae (D), and no other Greek manuscript contains it until the
ninth century.

     John 7:53-8:11 as it stands in the English versions portrays the Lord as we see him in
the undisputed texts; compassionate, just, and  forgiving.  Many  passionate  sermons
have been preached from this text and others will undoubtedly follow, yet there is little
doubt that the passage was not written by John, therefore not a part of the original text.

                                                                                                                    R. Daly

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