QUESTION: Were the verses of John 7:53—8:11 [also known as the pericope adulterae]/[the Pericope de Adultera] part of John's original gospel?
By far the majority of scholarly opinion is that the pericope adulterae was NOT part of the original text (see below).
MARGINAL NOTES"Most of the
ancient authorities omit John vii. 53--viii. 11. Those which contain it vary much from each other." -
American Standard Version (1901)"John 7:53-8:11 is
not found in most of the old mss." -
New American Standard Version (1963)"
The earliest and most reliable manuscripts and other ancient witnesses
do not have John 7:53-8:11." -
New International Version (1973)"the author of this passage is
not John" -
The Jerusalem BibleBIBLE COMMENTATORSThe
evidence for the non-Johannine origin of the pericope of the adulteress is overwhelming. [...] No Greek Church Father prior to Euthymius Zigabenus (twelfth century) comments on the passage, and Euthymius declares that the accurate copies of the Gospels do not contain it. When one adds to this impressive and diversified list of external evidence the consideration that the style and vocabulary of the pericope differ noticeably from the rest of the Fourth Gospel [...]
the case against its being of Johannine authorship appears to be conclusive." -- Bruce Metzger, A Textual Commentary on the Greek New Testament (Stuttgart, 1971), pages 219-221
"St. John vii. 53--viii. 11, is a passage which has held its place in the text by a
very doubtful tenure [...] We can no more canonise this passage, if it were not genuine Scripture from the beginning, than we can the books of the Apocrypha, or any other writings. If the best MSS., versions, and fathers, know nothing of such a portion of Holy Scripture, it behoves all who value God's word not to adopt, as part of it, what is not only
unsupported by sufficient evidence, but which is opposed by that which could hardly be surmounted. " - Samuel P. Tregelles, An Account of the Printed Text of the Greek New Testament (London, 1854), pages 236-243
"It is plain enough that this passage was unknown anciently to the Greek Churches; and some conjecture that
it has been brought from some other place and inserted here" -- John Calvin, Commentary on the Gospel of John, on John 8:1
"On all intelligent principles of mere criticism
the passage must needs be abandoned: and such is the conclusion arrived at by all the critical editors" --
F.H.A. Scrivener, A Plain Introduction to the Criticism of the New Testament (4th edition. London, 1894), volume ii, pages 364-368
"The [...] question is whether the story of the adulteress was part of the original Gospel according to John or whether
it was inserted at a later period. The answer to this question is clearly that it was a later insertion." - Raymond E. Brown, The Gospel According to John (i-xii), in the Anchor Bible series (Garden City, New York: Doubleday, 1966), pages 335
TEXTUAL ANALYSISEARLY TRANSLATORS "As far as I am concerned, I do not conceal that I justly regard as suspected what the ancients with such consent either rejected or did not know of. Also such a variety in the reading causes me to
doubt the fidelity of the whole of that narration." -- Theodore Beza [whose annotated Greek text was the basis of the King James version] from Tregelles p. 34.
WEBSITE COMMENTARIES"Modern translations, such as the NIV and the ESV, include the section but bracket
it as not original. This is because the earliest (and many would say the most reliable) Greek manuscripts do not include the story of the woman taken in adultery. [...] The Greek manuscripts show fairly clear evidence that John 7:53—8:11 was not originally part of John’s Gospel. No church father commented on the section until the twelfth century, and, even then, his comment was that accurate Greek manuscripts did not contain it.
www.gotquestions.org/John-7-53-8-11.htmlMany analysts of the Greek text and manuscripts of the Gospel of John have argued that it was "
certainly not part of the original text of St John's Gospel."[3] - wikipedia