A Text-Critical Analysis of John 7:53–8:11 with a Focus on Its Stylistic Discontinuity

John 7:53–8:11, the pericope of the woman caught in adultery, is a well-known text-critical issue in the New Testament. The originality of this pericope as part of John’s Gospel has long been investigated by biblical scholars. Most contemporary biblical scholars argue that the pericope of the woman caught in adultery was not an original composition of John’s Gospel. NTG28 and GNT5 both identify John 7:53–8:11 not only as a later addition to the original Greek text by placing double square brackets around the passage but also as a nonsignificant variant for textual reconstruction by providing a negative apparatus and assigning the A rating in the apparatus. Almost all translations indicate John 7:53–8:11 to be a non-original text through various means. Recent commentaries on John’s Gospel generally deny the possibility of John 7:53–8:11 being part of the original part. On the other hand, some textual critics still hold to the Johannine originality of John 7:53–8:11 and offer various textual evidence.<br/> However, the extant studies of both views only focus on whether John 7:53–8:11 can fit into the broader context of John’s Gospel but fail to examine the stylistic continuity of the pericope with its co-text. According to the principle of modern linguistics, it is the co-text of John 7:53–8:11, as its immediate linguistic context, that serves as the primary determinant for the Johannine authenticity of the pericope. This paper conducts a text-critical analysis on John 7:53–8:11, adopting reasoned eclecticism to evaluate both external and internal evidence and paying particular attention to whether the pericope demonstrates the stylistic continuity with its co-text. Based on this analysis, the paper argues that John 7:53–8:11 has no canonical authority. Since this text-critical analysis is conducted for the purpose of reconstructing the original Greek text of the New Testament, this paper proposes that John 7:53–8:11 should be removed from the text of John’s Gospel in the Greek New Testament and modern translations. As the non-canonical text, the pericope remaining in its usual place interrupts the Tabernacles discourse in John’s Gospel and will mislead contemporary readers. Given the fact that John 7:53–8:11 has been included in the New Testament for such a long history, the pericope can be placed in a footnote at the end of the Gospel with the textual note indicating its non-Johannine originality.