Text, canon, and the woman caught in adultery
The pericope in John 7:53-8:11 is a fascinating test case in the interaction of text criticism and canon. Both the history of canon, and textual criticism seem dull and unexciting. Yet here they combine into a detective story or a theological conundrum that contributes to making the Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy conflict with most Christian preachers' practice! In this post I won't address the detective story. But I will discuss this passage as a hint that we need a supple and flexible view of Scripture to deal "properly" with this passage.Right-click here to save the podcast for this audio
Note 1. The word "pericope" is transliterated from Greek, it is used in theology and biblical studies to refer to a traditional textual unit, especially one used as a unit in church or synagogue. By extension it is sometimes used as a fancy way of saying "textual unit". Here it would appear that our text was such a traditional unit in the early period, but by the time the chapter divisions were made the first verse had been attached to the "previous" unit. [RETURN]
Note 2. For the detective story approach see e.g. A. Watson, “Jesus and the Adulteress” in Biblica 80 (1999): 100-108 [RETURN]
posted by Tim @ 7:03 AM
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