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Word Gems 

exploring self-realization, sacred personhood, and full humanity

Prof. Bart D. Ehrman

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Editor's prefatory comment: Dr. Ehrman explains that the 5700 early copies of the New Testament – copies of copies of copies – contain hundreds of thousands of discrepancies. Many of these are inconsequential but a significant number alter the meaning of the text in important ways. Most of these constituted mere human error in copying but some of them, it appears, were purposefully injected into the text by editorial judgment of scribes. This entire area of scholarship is far more complex than most realize, leading the objective reviewer to understand that, in many cases, we have no knowledge of the original text of the New Testament. In addition to Dr. Ehrman’s books, his lectures are available on youtube; for example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pfheSAcCsrE&t=12s

The story of the woman taken in adultery, John chapters seven and eight, was not part of the original text but added centuries later.

How do we know this? This pericope is not found in the earlier and best manuscripts but appears in copies centuries later. Further, the early commentators on John know nothing of this story.

It appears that about a thousand years after the time of Christ some scribe thought that this narrative would be a good way of describing the compassion of Jesus, and it was added in the margins of a copy.

Later, subsequent scribes simply added the marginal reference to the main text, thereby creating the illusion that it was all genuine information. Fake news.

We are shocked to know of all this as the "woman taken in adultery" and Jesus' compassion is a very well known item in the New Testament - but it never happened. This story was added to the text a thousand years after the time of Christ.