Complete textual-variant dossier
Adverse entailment established
Sections distinguish readings, edition history, evidence, theological consequences, and the Research Center's evaluation. CBGM is an analytical tool; editorial committees—not the software—make textual decisions.
1Passage and issue
Passage
Issue
The accusers invoke Moses while withholding the woman’s partner and using the case to trap Jesus; the passage exposes a corrupt prosecution without weakening the law against adultery.
Variant class
Punctuation
2Textus Receptus
Greek reading
The scribes and Pharisees present the woman, cite the command to stone, and question Jesus in order to accuse him.
Authorized Version
“This they said, tempting him, that they might have to accuse him.” — John 8:6
Edition note
The Research Center uses the received Greek text underlying the Authorized Version as its baseline; edition-specific differences are recorded when the variation unit requires them.
3NA28 baseline and critical-text rationale
NA28 baseline reading
The whole scene is omitted with John 7:53–8:11, while copies that contain it preserve several smaller narrative subreadings.
Translation or explanation
The whole scene is omitted with John 7:53–8:11, while copies that contain it preserve several smaller narrative subreadings.
Metzger’s report of the UBS committee
Metzger reports the UBS4 committee's treatment of the variation unit. The note grounds the relevant decision in the weight and distribution of external attestation; the printed confidence rating represented here is {A}. This is a controlled synopsis rather than a quotation.
Locator: Bruce M. Metzger, A Textual Commentary on the Greek New Testament, 2nd ed., note on John 8:4
ECM / CBGM evidence and editors
No passage-specific ECM/CBGM editorial explanation is attached to this record. Official method sources describe the CBGM as a set of coherence procedures, not a decision-maker: editors define variation units and local stemmata and evaluate pre-genealogical, genealogical, and stemmatic coherence together with transcriptional, intrinsic, and other philological evidence.
4UBS6 and intended NA29 revision
UBS6 retains the NA28 / UBS5 Greek main-text wording in John, so no main-text change is shown for this passage. The separate project ledger covers Acts, Mark, and Revelation.
No change row is attached to this passage.
UBS6 is published, and the German Bible Society identifies its Greek main text as identical to the intended NA29 main text. The complete NA29 volume and its apparatus remain forthcoming. Project-ledger rows retain their source and verification statements until they are checked against the published UBS6 text and, when available, the NA29 apparatus.
5Doctrinal and four-point analysis
Effect class
Exegetical or interpretive consequence
Exact proposition affected
No single doctrinal proposition is directly changed; the principal consequence is exegetical, historical, or cumulative.
Doctrinal analysis
Exegetical or interpretive consequence. The record does not establish that the variant by itself removes an entire Christian doctrine; explicit wording, exegesis, and cumulative testimony must be distinguished.
Bahnsen four-point examination
Arbitrariness
At John 8:3–6, the critical choice avoids arbitrariness only to the extent that it states public manuscript, transcriptional, and intrinsic grounds. Editorial status: Preliminary record accepted for staging; independent review remains pending.
Inconsistency
The criteria used at John 8:3–6 must be applied to comparable readings as well. A principle such as age, difficulty, brevity, or coherence cannot be decisive here and quietly reversed elsewhere merely to escape a historical, grammatical, or theological difficulty.
Consequences
Exegetical or interpretive consequence: No single doctrinal proposition is directly changed; the principal consequence is exegetical, historical, or cumulative.
Preconditions of intelligibility
The argument presupposes stable authorship, meaningful language, objective logical norms, transmissible evidence, and a coherent account of how Scripture can be received and identified by the church. The analysis tests whether the method can make those conditions intelligible without reducing the text to an indefinitely revisable editorial construct.
This framework examines an argument and its conditions; it does not claim to read an editor's private motives.
6Argument for the received reading
External and historical evidence
Deuteronomy also requires an established charge and qualified witnesses before execution. A harsh answer can be turned against Jesus’ reputation; a dismissive one can be called lawlessness; any answer can be detached from the defective proceeding and used by hostile witnesses. It tests these would-be witnesses in this prosecution before the one who knows their hearts.
Internal and transcriptional evidence
Passage: John 8:3–6 Received reading: The scribes and Pharisees present the woman, cite the command to stone, and question Jesus in order to accuse him. — John 8:6 The scribes and Pharisees do not approach Jesus as neutral students of Moses. The legal omissions are conspicuous.
Reception and ecclesiastical use
The received text and the double-bracketed SBLGNT form of John 8:3–6.
Providential-preservation analysis
Providential preservation is not used as a substitute for evidence at John 8:3–6. It supplies the confessional context in which manuscript transmission, broad reception, and the church's actual possession of Scripture are evaluated together.
Canonical coherence with the rest of Scripture
Canonical coherence remains an explicit test: a proposed reading must make grammatical and theological sense within the immediate context and the rest of Scripture. No conflict is asserted merely because two editions differ; the claimed incoherence must be demonstrated at this passage.
Canonical-coherence verdict
The Authorized Version is retained where its representation of the TR forms a coherent reading within the immediate context and the rest of Scripture. Any competing form must demonstrate an equal or better canonical fit rather than merely invoke an edition or method label.
Response to the principal critical argument
Editorial status: Preliminary record accepted for staging; independent review remains pending.
Passage-specific evidence from consulted works
Core 0.6.3 supplied-source audit complete: 1 passage-specific note attached. Incidental citations and global-method sources are retained in the audit report rather than presented as local textual evidence.
The Causes of the Corruption of the Traditional Text of the Holy GospelsDedicated appendix on the Pericope Adulterae
John William Burgon; edited by Edward Miller — supplied PDF Appendix I, pp. 184–221 (scan pagination)
Burgon treats John 7:53–8:11 as a distinctive large omission. He weighs Greek manuscripts, versions, fathers, lectionary practice, the passage’s varying placement, and the immediate sequence of John 7–8. His positive case argues that the traditional location and ecclesiastical reception are evidence of genuineness and that the omission requires an historical explanation rather than being assumed from the surviving early codices alone.
I have purposely reserved for the last the most difficult problem of all: viz. those twelve famous verses of St. John’s Gospel … which contain the history of “the woman taken in adultery.”
Editorial use: The appendix is a sustained historical argument for the received passage. Its witness claims are attributed to Burgon and are not substituted for a current apparatus or independent recollation.
Conclusion
Jesus refuses the terms. His silence delays the manufactured crisis. His later word about the first stone brings the accusers themselves under the law they have invoked. That response does not repeal the seventh commandment or declare that only sinless magistrates may act. It tests these would-be witnesses in this prosecution before the one who knows their hearts.
The textual history of the pericope remains difficult, and several copies vary in the titles used for the accusers or in the wording of their charge. Those differences do not dissolve the received narrative’s moral and legal coherence. Adultery is sin; false or selective prosecution is also sin. Christ permits neither offender to hide behind the guilt of the other.
Logical entailment
The Authorized Version serves as the faithful English representation. The preservation claim applies immediately to the authentic Hebrew and Greek texts—not to an English translation as though it were the inspired source.
Status: Established
Immediate textual or doctrinal consequence
At John 8:3–6, the received text reads “The scribes and Pharisees present the woman, cite the command to stone, and question Jesus in order to accuse him.” and its Authorized Version representation reads “This they said, tempting him, that they might have to accuse him.” — John 8:6”. The assessed critical reading is “The whole scene is omitted with John 7:53–8:11, while copies that contain it preserve several smaller narrative subreadings.”. The immediate consequence is that the critical text no longer states the received wording at this locus. The immediate local effect is exegetical or interpretive; this argument does not claim that a distinct Christian doctrine disappears from the verse.
Necessary reasoning chain
- At John 8:3–6, the received Hebrew/Greek form is “The scribes and Pharisees present the woman, cite the command to stone, and question Jesus in order to accuse him.”; the Authorized Version represents it as “This they said, tempting him, that they might have to accuse him.” — John 8:6”. The assessed critical form is “The whole scene is omitted with John 7:53–8:11, while copies that contain it preserve several smaller narrative subreadings.”.
- The received and critical forms are not the same at this locus. Therefore, if the competing critical form is original, the received form is secondary rather than the authentic wording at this place. The immediate consequence is: At John 8:3–6, the received text reads “The scribes and Pharisees present the woman, cite the command to stone, and question Jesus in order to accuse him.” and its Authorized Version representation reads “This they said, tempting him, that they might have to accuse him.” — John 8:6”. The assessed critical reading is “The whole scene is omitted with John 7:53–8:11, while copies that contain it preserve several smaller narrative subreadings.”. The immediate consequence is that the critical text no longer states the received wording at this locus. The immediate local effect is exegetical or interpretive; this argument does not claim that a distinct Christian doctrine disappears from the verse.
- If the received form at this place is secondary rather than original, then the authentic Hebrew/Greek text was not kept pure at this place in the received textual tradition; therefore the unqualified confessional preservation claim must be denied or redefined.
Ultimate preservation consequence
If the competing reading is original and the received reading is secondary, then God did not preserve and keep pure the authentic text at this place in the received textual tradition. The unqualified confessional claim that Scripture was kept pure in all ages must therefore be denied or redefined.
Sources
- Westminster Confession of Faith (1647)Chapter 1, section 8 — Governing confessional preservation claim
- F. H. A. Scrivener, The New Testament in the Original Greek according to the Text followed in the Authorized VersionReceived Greek reading
- German Bible Society — UBS6 publications and relation to NA29Current critical-edition, ECM, or editorial documentation
- The Causes of the Corruption of the Traditional Text of the Holy Gospelssupplied PDF Appendix I, pp. 184–221 (scan pagination) — Dedicated appendix on the Pericope Adulterae
- German Bible Society — The Sixth Edition of the Greek New TestamentCurrent critical-edition, ECM, or editorial documentation
Read the full research essay and its sources
Passage: John 8:3–6
Received reading: The scribes and Pharisees present the woman, cite the command to stone, and question Jesus in order to accuse him.
Principal competing reading: The whole scene is omitted with John 7:53–8:11, while copies that contain it preserve several smaller narrative subreadings.
Editorial status: Preliminary record accepted for staging; independent review remains pending.
“This they said, tempting him, that they might have to accuse him.” —
John 8:6
The scribes and Pharisees do not approach Jesus as neutral students
of Moses. They set a woman in the center of his teaching circle, allege
that she was caught in adultery, quote the capital sanction, and demand
his judgment. John then discloses their purpose: the case is bait for an
accusation against Jesus.
The legal omissions are conspicuous. Leviticus 20:10 and Deuteronomy
22:22 speak of both parties to adultery, yet the man is absent.
Deuteronomy also requires an established charge and qualified witnesses
before execution. The narrative does not tell the reader that the woman
was innocent; it shows that her prosecutors are manipulating a grave law
while concealing their own aim.
A trap with more than one
edge
Readers often reconstruct a simple choice: uphold Moses and collide
with Roman authority, or spare the woman and contradict Scripture. Roman
jurisdiction may belong to the background, but John names only the
intended accusation. The trap can work at several levels. A harsh answer
can be turned against Jesus’ reputation; a dismissive one can be called
lawlessness; any answer can be detached from the defective proceeding
and used by hostile witnesses.
Jesus refuses the terms. His silence delays the manufactured crisis.
His later word about the first stone brings the accusers themselves
under the law they have invoked. That response does not repeal the
seventh commandment or declare that only sinless magistrates may act. It
tests these would-be witnesses in this prosecution before the one who
knows their hearts.
The textual history of the pericope remains difficult, and several
copies vary in the titles used for the accusers or in the wording of
their charge. Those differences do not dissolve the received narrative’s
moral and legal coherence. Adultery is sin; false or selective
prosecution is also sin. Christ permits neither offender to hide behind
the guilt of the other.
Sources and further reading
- Leviticus 20:10; Deuteronomy 17:6–7; 19:15–19; 22:22–24.
- John 7:45–52; 8:3–6, 10–18.
- The received text and the double-bracketed SBLGNT form of John
8:3–6.
7Related materials
Open a group to follow connected articles, books, biographies, media, research notes, variants, or downloads. Research Center relationships use permanent record IDs; external items retain their actual link.
- Record
- VAR-2161
- Status
- Preliminary
- Version
- 1.1-dossier
- Review
- Level B — Editorial synthesis
- Editor
- Chris Thomas
- Reviewer
- Independent reviewer pending assignment
- First date
- 1st century · Date Range
- Last revised
- 2026-07-22
Evidence and editorial controls
- Verification
- Passage, principal readings, and stated editorial comparison checked against Scrivener’s received Greek text and the current SBLGNT text and apparatus; exhaustive manuscript collation remains open. Metzger commentary entries were matched by exact passage where present; ECM/CBGM rationale is passage-specific only when an official editorial explanation is cited. Ledger rows are identified as UBS6 / intended NA29 data but retain their row-level verification caveats pending direct collation. Supplied-source audit completed in Core 0.6.3. Accepted local notes were matched by canonical passage and manually bounded; source claims remain attributed where current apparatus verification is pending.
- Rights and access
- Original editorial synthesis. Biblical readings are short scholarly quotations; cited editions and digital witnesses retain their stated rights and access conditions.
- Known limitations
- This staging record summarizes the principal variation unit and representative evidence. It is not a fresh collation of every extant manuscript, version, lectionary, or patristic citation.
Links from this record
No public outgoing links are recorded.
Records that cite or connect here
No public backlinks are recorded.
Corrections and evidence submissions
No correction submission is presently attached to this record. Submit evidence or read the correction policy.
Chris Thomas, “John 8:3–6 — The Accusation, the Test, and the Attempt to Condemn Jesus,” VAR-2161, Confessional Bibliology Research Center, version 1.0-staging, last revised 2026-07-22.
Revision history
- — Chris Thomas