Was the story of the adulteress originally a part of John’s Gospel?
This text is from a letter written by David Gooding in 1991.
The story of the adulteress (John 7:53–8:11) appears to me as follows:
- Consideration of the manuscript evidence might well lead to the conclusion that this story was not an original part of the Gospel of John; though all agree it is an authentic story from the life of Jesus.
- Consideration of stylistics would likewise suggest that this story was not originally composed by John: the style is different from what John employs elsewhere.
- But consideration of the thematic structure of this part of the Gospel shows very clearly, in my opinion, that John originally incorporated this story, wherever he got it from, into his Gospel as part of that original structure.
To demonstrate this to you would involve a tremendous amount of detailed argument, and would devour much more time than I have now at my disposal. Let me simply give you a hint or two.
Our Lord's third visit to Jerusalem on the occasion of the Jewish religious festivals extends from John 7:1 to John 10:42. This third visit took in two religious festivals, that of Tabernacles (John 7:2), and that of The Dedication (John 10:22). Among the many functional relationships that are to be noticed within these four chapters, chapters 7 and 10 have this very interesting theme in common: our Lord's approach to Jerusalem and to Judaism.
The verb John uses in this connection is anabainō. It is used five times in chapter 7 (John 7:8, 10, 14) of our Lord's deliberately secret approach to Jerusalem, and in John 10:1 of the approach of the thief and robber to the Jewish fold. The very way in which the thief 'goes up to' and climbs over the fold (Greek: anabainō once more) is evidence that he is a thief, and not the true shepherd.
Similarly, chapters 8 and 9 have striking themes in common. In both chapters Christ announces 'I am the light of the world' (John 8:12; 9:5). In chapter 8, he is the light of the world, in the sense that he is the light by means of which people can see themselves for the sinners they really are; and in chapter 9 he is the light of the world in the sense that he can give people sight to see with, whereas before they were blind.
And again, chapter 8 begins with the story of the adulteress, in which Christ stoops down and writes twice with his finger on the ground (Greek: eis tēn gēn). In writing with his finger, he recalls the fact that the tablets of the law, originally written with the finger of God, were broken by the people's sin, and had to be written again a second time. Chapter 9 begins with Christ spitting on the ground (Greek: chamai) and making clay of the spittle and anointing the eyes of the blind man with clay. This recalls how God, in Genesis 2:7, moulded man out of the dust of the ground.
In John 8, therefore, Christ is seen as the Lawgiver incarnate, able to expose sin far more effectively than the original law of Moses could, and able also to point to a forgiveness greater than the law of Moses ever knew about.
In chapter 9, on the other hand, Christ shows himself to be not the Lawgiver but the Creator incarnate, who originally formed man of the dust of the ground and now, on this occasion, forms in the blind man the faculty of sight that he never before possessed.
These similarities in functional relationship between the four chapters of this section of John are, of course, not accidental. Nor do they stand alone.
The four chapters deal with a basic theme which one can express as follows. If Jesus is really the Son of God, and God wants the world to know that he is, how can one account for the fact that God sent him into our world for only thirty-three years; that he spent thirty out of those thirty-three years in complete obscurity; the most of the three years, likewise, in the comparative obscurity of Galilee; and that, when he did go to Jerusalem and the authorities began their attempts to arrest him, he announced that he was going away (John 7:33); and did so a very short time thereafter?
One can extrapolate this problem. If God wants the world to know that Jesus is his Son, why does God not arrange to have it written up in the sky in every language once every day, that Jesus is the Son of God? If one believes that Jesus is God's supreme way to reveal himself to this world, one has to be able to account both for the shortness of our Lord's visit to our earth and the deliberate obscurity and secrecy in which he spent most of that visit.
This section of the Gospel raises this problem through the mouth of Christ's own brothers at the beginning of chapter 7; and chapters 7-10 are a very carefully constructed answer to this question which puts forward four different sides both to the problem and to its answer.
Here, then, are just a few hints for you in your own study of the Gospel. I am sorry I have not the time to give you more. Allow me, at the same time, to suggest that you need to be wise and careful in trying to put this kind of study across to people whose minds are contaminated by the older historical critical approach to Scripture, and who, being theologians, have no concept of how literature works—indeed, whose concepts of literary criticism are the old-fashioned, nonsensical kind, employed by Wellhausen and his followers down to this present time.
There is a vast literature in existence dealing with the more modern literary approach to Scripture, but people for whom the Wellhausen kind of literary criticism appears unquestionable are, it often seems to me, constitutionally unable to grasp what the new literary criticism is saying. Our Lord himself warned us against wasting pearls on those who constitutionally are unable to appreciate them.
Yours sincerely in Christ,
