Hello Foogword, thanks for responding.
You said:
"It is not confirmed Papias mentioned the pericope from the Gospel of John. Papias (via Eusebius) does not mention adultery but a woman's "many sins." And he mentions the pericope in the context of the lost Gospel According to the Hebrews, not the Gospel of John. There are a wide range of similar stories about a woman caught in some sin, adultery or otherwise. Ref. <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Papias_of_Hierapolis#Pericope_Adulterae>"
Ironically, the Wikipedia page you cited connects Papias' testimony to the pericope adulterae, saying:
"The parallel is clear to the famous Pericope Adulterae (John 7:53–8:11), a problematic passage absent or relocated in many ancient Gospel manuscripts. The remarkable fact is that the story is known in some form to such an ancient witness as Papias."
Contrary to what you claim, there are not a wide variety of stories about a woman caught in sin and brought before Jesus.
There is only this one in all the Gospels.
You said:
"What the Papias and Augustine references prove is that there were a lot of Jesus stories floating around in the first century, some of which inexplicably made it into canon while others did not. One would think that if God is there and cared about his only communication with mankind he would have perfectly preserved his authentic sacred writings. In fact we have no original manuscripts, many contradictions in the bible as a whole, many denominations and schisms and many discrepancies among the surviving copies of copies of copies..."
It does not prove anything of the kind, my friend.
We do not have a single bit of evidence for the Gospels being compiled from a lot of stories floating around.
Rather, we have consistent testimony that the authors wrote their Gospels in whole, from the start.
We have no manuscripts of pseudo-Gospels, no manuscripts of anything like Q, no evidence whatsoever that there was an "earlier" form of any Gospel.
We have lots of speculation from over-zealous modern voices, but zero historical or archaeological evidence.
Likewise, the charges of contradiction in the Bible are vastly overblown.
For over ten years, I've been asking people to produce a genuine contradiction -- someplace where the Bible says both "A" and "Not A," where both statements absolutely cannot be true together.
So far, no one has produced one.
Most often, people have made assumptions about the text, and their assumptions clash with the text, but the text itself coheres just fine. Almost as often, people don't know the history/culture/grammar, but a few seconds of research supplies everything you need to understand the passage properly.
You said:
"Even gotquestions.org, certainly a widely confirmed conservative source of Christian dogma, states that, "The fact, however, remains that John 7:53—8:11 is not supported by the best manuscript evidence. Thus, there is serious doubt as to whether it should be included in the Bible. Many call for Bible publishers to remove these verses (along with Mark 16:9–20) from the main text and put them in footnotes." Ref. <https://www.gotquestions.org/John-7-53-8-11.html>"
They miss the most crucial bit of evidence.
This passage isn't in our earliest surviving manuscripts -- BUT IT IS IN EARLIER ONES.
- The Didascalia (first half of the third century) refers to it.
- Book II of the Apostolic Constitutions does as well (3rd century).
- Didymus the Blind (350 A.D.) referred to it directly in his commentary on Ecclesiastes.
- Ambrose preached on it around 375 A.D., saying that it caused offence to the unskilled. (He mentioned the tradition which appears in much early art that Christ wrote in the dust, “Earth accuses earth.”)
- Jerome, just after 400 A.D., said it was in many (in multis) Greek and Italian manuscripts (Migne, Patrologia Latina, 23), and used it as authoritative in his rebuke to the Pelagians. You don’t use a passage to refute error if its authority is in question — you use a different passage. Jerome used this one.
- Augustine testified, saying: "“Certain persons of little faith, or rather enemies of the true faith, fearing, I suppose, lest their wives should be given impunity in sinning, removed from their manuscripts the Lord’s act of forgiveness toward the adulteress, as if he who had said, Sin no more, had granted permission to sin.” De Adulterinis Conjugiis, 2:6–7
- Vaticanus has a diacritical mark — a mark that some scribes used to show they were aware of an alternate text at a particular point. Vaticanus excludes the account, but its scribe apparently knew of it well enough to indicate its existence.
The evidence is clear. The story is well known from the earliest days of the Church. Augustine testifies that people began removing it.
Those two facts tell you all you need to know.
