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
Jesus places the would-be execution witnesses under the searching demand of the law; received details about conscience, age, and the last departure are not equally supported in every form of the story.
Variant class
Punctuation
2Textus Receptus
Greek reading
The hearers are convicted by their own conscience and depart from the eldest to the last.
Authorized Version
“He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her.” — John 8:7
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
Shorter forms omit “by their own conscience,” “even unto the last,” or other details while retaining the first-stone saying.
Translation or explanation
Shorter forms omit “by their own conscience,” “even unto the last,” or other details while retaining the first-stone saying.
Metzger’s report of the UBS committee
Metzger reports the UBS4 committee's treatment of 4 variation units within this record's range. The notes ground the relevant decisions in the weight and distribution of external attestation, the likelihood of scribal or liturgical expansion; the printed confidence ratings represented here are {C}, {A}. This is a controlled synopsis rather than a quotation.
Locator: Bruce M. Metzger, A Textual Commentary on the Greek New Testament, 2nd ed., notes on John 8:8, 8:8, 8:9, 8:9
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 8:7–9, 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 8:7–9 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 17:7 supplies the nearer background: the witnesses’ hands must be first in an execution.
Internal and transcriptional evidence
A source-level internal and transcriptional synopsis remains open; consult the full essay.
Reception and ecclesiastical use
John 8:7–9 in the received text and major pericope forms.
Providential-preservation analysis
Providential preservation is not used as a substitute for evidence at John 8:7–9. 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
Age may have brought a longer memory of guilt, greater prudence about the failed trap, or simply precedence in leaving. John does not say why the eldest depart first. He does say what the movement accomplishes: no accuser remains to carry the prosecution forward.
The received reading makes the collapse both moral and public. Men who arrived as a united body leave separately under the word of Christ. The woman is not pronounced sinless; her accusers prove unable to stand in the role they claimed. Conscience and legal qualification meet at the first stone.
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 8:7–9, the received text reads “The hearers are convicted by their own conscience and depart from the eldest to the last.” and its Authorized Version representation reads “He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her.” — John 8:7”. The assessed critical reading is “Shorter forms omit “by their own conscience,” “even unto the last,” or other details while retaining the first-stone saying.”. 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 8:7–9, the received Hebrew/Greek form is “The hearers are convicted by their own conscience and depart from the eldest to the last.”; the Authorized Version represents it as “He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her.” — John 8:7”. The assessed critical form is “Shorter forms omit “by their own conscience,” “even unto the last,” or other details while retaining the first-stone saying.”.
- 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 8:7–9, the received text reads “The hearers are convicted by their own conscience and depart from the eldest to the last.” and its Authorized Version representation reads “He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her.” — John 8:7”. The assessed critical reading is “Shorter forms omit “by their own conscience,” “even unto the last,” or other details while retaining the first-stone saying.”. 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 8:7–9
Received reading: The hearers are convicted by their own conscience and depart from the eldest to the last.
Principal competing reading: Shorter forms omit “by their own conscience,” “even unto the last,” or other details while retaining the first-stone saying.
Editorial status: Preliminary record accepted for staging; independent review remains pending.
“He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at
her.” — John 8:7
The saying is commonly detached from its courtroom setting and made
to mean that an imperfect person may never correct another. Deuteronomy
17:7 supplies the nearer background: the witnesses’ hands must be first
in an execution. Jesus addresses men presenting themselves as lawful
accusers and tests whether they will occupy that role before him.
Anamartētos, “without sin,” is broad language. Their
consciences are not irrelevant, and the command reaches beyond a
technical defect in paperwork. Yet Scripture elsewhere appoints fallible
judges, requires discipline, and calls believers to restore offenders
meekly. Jesus is not abolishing every human judgment. He is uncovering
this prosecution, its hidden purpose, and the moral condition of those
demanding the stone.
The received account says that the hearers, “being convicted by their
own conscience,” went out one by one, beginning with the eldest and
continuing “even unto the last.” The pericope’s fluid transmission
affects these details. Some forms lack the conscience clause or the
final phrase; current presentations that include the story do not all
reproduce the received wording at every point. A responsible defense
should distinguish the stability of the central saying from the narrower
evidence for each expansion.
Age may have brought a longer memory of guilt, greater prudence about
the failed trap, or simply precedence in leaving. John does not say why
the eldest depart first. He does say what the movement accomplishes: no
accuser remains to carry the prosecution forward.
The received reading makes the collapse both moral and public. Men
who arrived as a united body leave separately under the word of Christ.
The woman is not pronounced sinless; her accusers prove unable to stand
in the role they claimed. Conscience and legal qualification meet at the
first stone.
Sources and further reading
- Deuteronomy 17:6–7; Matthew 7:1–5; Galatians 6:1.
- John 8:7–9 in the received text and major pericope forms.
- Augustine, Tractates on John, on the departure of the
accusers.
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-2163
- 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 8:7–9 — “He That Is without Sin”: The First Stone, the Conscience, and the Eldest,” VAR-2163, Confessional Bibliology Research Center, version 1.0-staging, last revised 2026-07-22.
Revision history
- — Chris Thomas