John 8:1-30

III

Christ, The Light Of The World, The Real Fulfilment Of The Jewish Torch-Light Festivities, As Against The Pretended Seers, The False Lights, In Israel. The Adulteress, And Christ’s Sentence. His Ideal Appearance At The Court Of The Jews, And The Two Witnesses. The Judges Shall Come Into Judgement. A Twofold Lifting Up Of Christ At Hand. Appearance Of Yielding; Or, A Great Vacillation Towards Faith

(John 7:53) John 8:1-30

John 7:53. And every man went unto his own house. [;]

John 8:1 [But]1 Jesus went unto the mount of Olives: 2And early in the morning lie came again into the temple, and all the people2 came unto him; and he sat down and taught them.3 3And the Scribes and [the] Pharisees brought unto him a woman taken in adultery [or in sin],4 and when they had set her in the midst, 4They say unto him [The priests say unto him, tempting him that they might have to accuse him],5 Master, this woman was taken6 in adultery, in the very Acts 5:0 Now Moses in the law commanded 6us, that such should be stoned: but what [what then] sayest thou? This they said, tempting him, that they might have to accuse him.7 But Jesus stooped down, and with his finger, wrote on the ground, as though he heard them not [omit as though he 7heard them not]8 So [But] when they continued asking him, he lifted up himself, and said unto them, He that is without sin among you, let him first cast [be the first to cast] a stone at her. 8And again he stooped down, and wrote [with his finger]9 on the ground. 9And they which heard it being convicted by their oivn conscience [And when they heard this, they], went out one by one, beginning at [with] the eldest [or, elders, ὰπὸ τῶν πρεσβυτέρων], even unto the last:10 and Jesus was left alone, and the woman standing in the midst. 10When Jesus had lifted up himself, and saw none but the woman [omit and saw none but the woman],11 he said unto her, Woman,12 where are those thine accusers? [where are they?]13 hath no man condemned 11thee? [Did no one condemn thee?] She said, No man [no one], Lord. And Jesus [he] said unto her, Neither do I condemn thee: go, and [henceforth]14 sin no more.

12Then spake Jesus [Jesus therefore spoke] again unto them [see John 7:37 sqq.], saying, I am the light of the world: he that followeth me shall not walk in [the]15 darkness, but shall have the light of life. 13The Pharisees therefore said unto him, Thou bearest record [witness] of thyself; thy record [witness] is not true. 14Jesus answered and said unto them, Though I bear record [witness] of myself, yet [omit yet] my record [witness] is true: for I know whence I came, and whither I go: but ye cannot tell [know not] whence I come, and [or]16 whither I go. 15Ye judge after the flesh, I judge no man. 16And yet if I judge [But even if I myself judge], my 17judgment is true:17 for I am not alone, but I and the Father that sent me. It is also [Moreover, it is] written in your law, that the testimony of two men is true. 18I am one that bear [he who beareth] witness of myself; and the Father that sent me, beareth witness of me. Then said they [They said therefore] unto him. Where 19is thy Father? Jesus answered, Ye neither know [neither] me, nor my Father: if ye had known me, ye should have known [would know] my Father also.

20These words spake Jesus [he]18 in the treasury, as he taught [while teaching] in the temple: and no man [no one] laid hands on him, for his hour was [had] not yet come.

21Then said Jesus again [Again therefore he said] unto them, I go my way [I go away], and ye shall [will] seek me [in vain], and shall [will] die in your sins [sin]: 22whither I go, ye cannot come. Then [Therefore] said the Jews, Will he kill himself? because he saith, Whither I go, ye cannot come. 23And he said to them, Ye are from beneath; I am from above; ye are of this world; I am not of this world. 24I said therefore unto you, that ye shall [will] die in your sins: for if ye believe not 25that I am he, ye shall [will] die in your sins. Then [Therefore] said they unto him, Who art thou? And Jesus saith unto them, Even the same that I said unto you from the beginning [For the beginning; or, To begin with (I am) that which I even say to you].19 26I have many things to say, and to judge of you [before I fully express myself concerning myself]: but he that sent me, is true; and I speak20 to the 27world those things which I have heard of him [what I heard from him]. They 28understood not that he spake [spoke] to them of the Father. Then [Therefore] said Jesus unto them, When ye have lifted up the Son of man, then shall [will] ye know that I am he, and that I do nothing of myself, but as my21 Father hath taught me, I speak these things. 29And he that sent me is with me: the Father [he]22 hath not left me alone; for I do always those [the] things that please him.

30As he spake [spoke] these words, many believed on [in] him.

TEXTUAL AND GRAMMATICAL

[The whole section concerning the adulteress, from John 7:53 to John 8:11, is omitted as spurious, or bracketted as doubtful by the critical editors of the Gr. Test. Hence I have italicized the E. V. to distinguish it from the undisputed text. (The same course should be pursued with Mark 16:9 ff.) Without anticipating the very full and judicious discussion of the genuineness by Dr. Lange in the Exeg. and Chit, below, I shall only state the chief authorities for both opinions, and the conclusion to which I have attained:

1. The section is defended as genuine by Augustine (who comments on it in Tract. xxxiii., and suggests, in another place, De conj. adult., II. 7, that it was thrown out of the text by enemies or weak believers from fear that it might encourage their wives to infidelity), Mill, Whitby, Fabricius, Lampe, Maldonatus, Corn. a Lapide, Bengel, Michaelis, Storr, Kuinoel, Hug (R. C.), Scholz, Klee, Maier (R. C.), Home, Owen, Webster and Wilkinson, Wieseler, Ebrard, Stier, Lange.

2. It is rejected as an interpolation (though not on that account as untrue) by Erasmus, Calvin (?), Beza, Grotius, Wetstein, Semler, Paulus, Knapp, Lücke, Tholuck, Olshausen, Bleek, De Wette, Baur, Reuss, Luthardt, Meyer, Ewald, Hengstenberg (who regards it as an apocryphal fiction of some strongly anti-Jewish Christian of the second century), Godet, Wordsworth (?), Scrivener. So also Lachmann, Tischendorf, Tregelles, Alford, Wescott and Hort.The prevailing critical evidence, though mostly negative (especially from the Eastern Church), is against the passage, the moral evidence for it; in other words, it seems to be no original part of John’s written Gospel, but the record of an actual event, which probably happened about the time indicated by its position in the 8th chapter. The story could not have been invented, the less so as it runs contrary to the ascetic and legalistic tendency of the ancient church which could not appreciate it.

It is eminently Christ-like and full of comfort to penitent outcasts. It breathes the Saviour’s spirit of holy mercy which condemns the sin and saves the sinner. It is a parallel to the parable of the prodigal, the story of Mary Magdalene and that of the Samaritan woman, and agrees with many express declarations of Christ that He came not to condemn, but to save the lost (John 3:17; John 12:47; Luke 9:56; Luke 19:10; comp. John 5:14; Luke 7:37 ff.). His refusal to act as judge in the case, has a parallel in a similar case related by Luke 12:13-15. The conduct of the Scribes and Pharisees in trying Jesus with ensnaring questions is characteristic and sustained by many examples of the synoptical Gospels. Calvin, who is disposed to reject it, admits that it “contains nothing contrary to the apostolic spirit.” Meyer (p. 321), while disowning its Johannean origin, says: “It entirely agrees with the tone of the Synoptical Gospels, and betrays not the least indication of a dogmatic or ecclesiastical reason which might account for its later invention.” It is moreover so manifestly original, and has so many positive witnesses in its favor, especially in the Western church, that it may be regarded as a genuine relic of the primitive evangelical tradition which was handed down in various recensions, but treated with great caution from fear of abuse in a licentious age, until in the second, certainly in the third, century it found its way into many copies of the Gospel of John. (Comp. Meyer.) Some older critics supposed that it is the same story as that which Papias (perhaps from the mouth of John) related of “a woman taken in many sins” (ἐπὶ πολλαῖς ἁμαρτίαις, not one ἁμαρτία, as in our case), and which was contained in “the Gospel of the Hebrews ”(Euseb. H. E., III. 39); but this Judaizing Gospel would hardly have given currency to a story so strongly anti-Jewish. Alford suggests that John himself may have, in this solitary case, incorporated a portion of the current oral tradition into his narrative; Wordsworth and others, that John delivered the story orally, and that another hand wrote it first on the margin from which it afterwards passed into the text. But these are mere conjectures.

The number of readings is unusually large. There are two main recensions, that of the received text (from which the E. V. is made), that of Cod. D. (Cod. Bezæ) which is somewhat abridged; both are given with the lectiones variantes by Tischendorf, ed. VIII., I. pp. 830–836, and Tregelles, p. 417. To these may be added a third and more lengthy recension of other MSS. differing from those on which the received text is founded (see Griesbach and Wordsworth, p. 309).

For the critical details, the reader is referred to Dr. Lange’s discussion below, Lücke's Com., Vol. II, pp. 243–279; Meyer, pp. 320–323; Tregelles on the Text of the Gr. Test., pp. 236–243; Tischendorf (ed. VIII.), Bloomfield’s Recensio Synoptica, Alford (ed. VI), and Wordsworth.—P. S.]

Footnotes:

John 8:1; John 8:1.—[Δέ, unquestioned in the original, does not appear in the English Version.]

John 8:2; John 8:2.—Codd. G. S. U., ὄχλος; not decisive against λαός.

[3]Ibid.—[Cod. D. omits the words of the text. rec. καὶκαθί σας ἐδίδασκεν αὐτού ς. Not decisive.]

John 8:3; John 8:3.—Cod. D.: ἐπὶ ἁμαρτίᾳ γυναῖκα είλ. [instead of ἐν μοιχεία]. Euphony.

John 8:4; John 8:4.—[The insertion is from Cod. D.: λέ γουσιν αὐτῷ ἐκπειράζοντες αὐτὸν οἱ ἱερεῖς, ἵνα ἔχωσιν κατηγορείαν ὐτοῦ The text. rec. omits these words here, but has them in John 8:6. Cod. M. has them at the close of John 8:11.—P. S.]

John 8:6; John 8:6.—[Different readings and spellings: κατειλήφθη (aor. I., with augmentum for κατελή φθη, as εἴληφα stands instead of the unusual λέ ληφα, see Winer, p. 69), κατελήφθη, κατείληπται, εἴληπται, κατειλημμέ νην, καταληφθεῖσαν.—P. S.]

John 8:6; John 8:6.—[This clause must be omitted here, if it is inserted with Cod. D. in John 8:4.—P. S.]

[8]Ibid.—In e.g. K., μὴ προσποιούμενος is added. In others, καὶ προσπ. Both exegetical.

John 8:8; John 8:8.—[The rec. omits here τῷ δακτύλῳ, which Cod. U. supplies. Cod. D. and others have the strange addition: ἑυὸς ἕκάστου αὐτῶν τας ἁμαρτό ας.—P. S.]

John 8:9; John 8:9.—e.g. H., etc., omit ἕως τῶν ἐσχάτων; D. and others: ὥστε πά ντας ἐξελθεῖν. [Alford in his version adopts the reading of Cod. D.: “But each of the Jews went out, beginning with the elders, so that all went out.”—P. S.]

John 8:10; John 8:10.—Καὶ γυναικό ς (and seeing none but the woman), is wanting in D. M. S.

[12]Ibid.—Ἡ γυνή wanting in D. E. F., etc.

John 8:10; John 8:10.—[Ποῦ εἰσιν; So Cod. D., etc. The text. rec. inserts ἐκεῖνοι οἱ κατήγοροί σου.—P. S.]

John 8:11; John 8:11.—[The text. rec. reads καί, but Cod. D. ἀπὸ τοῦ νῦν which is more forcible.—P. S.]

John 8:12; John 8:12.—Instead of περιπατήσει, Lachmann and Tischendorf, after Codd. B. C. K. T. have περιπατήσῃ.

John 8:14; John 8:14.—Codd. D. K. T. and many others read ἤ. The καὶ probably comes from the preceding sentence, [Codd. Sin., καὶ.]

John 8:16; John 8:16.—B. D. L., etc., ἀληθινή. So Lachmann, Tischendorf [Alford. Cod. Sin. supports here the text. rec., ἀληθής]

John 8:20; John 8:20.—The ὁ Ἰησοῦς interpolated after ἐλά λησεν.

John 8:25; John 8:25.—[On this difficult passage and its many interpretations, see the Exeg. and Crit. Alford renders τὴν . In very deed (or essentially), that which I also speak (discourse) unto you. Noyes: In the first place, I am just that which I speak to you. Am. B. U. (Conant): That which I also say to you from the beginning. Lauge: Fars. Erste das, was ich auch euch sage (sagen mag).—P. S.]

John 8:26; John 8:26.—B. D. K., Lachmann, Tischendorf: λαλῶ, instead of λέγω. [Cod. Sin., λαλῶ.]

John 8:28; John 8:28.—Μου, an interpolation, according to many authorities [Cod. Sin. among them].

John 8:29; John 8:29.—According to B. D. L., etc., ὁ πατήρ should be dropped. [Cod. Sin. has it, but instead of μετ̓ ἐμοῦ ἐστίν• οὐκ , reads οὐκ • μετ̓ ἐμοῦ ἐστίν.]