John7chapter 7

One of the most beloved stories about Jesus is missing from the earliest copies of John, and in the later copies that have it, it does not stay in one place.

• Papyrus 66 (P66) (c. AD 200): Does not contain the passage. John 8:12 follows directly on John 7:52.
• Papyrus 75 (P75) (c. AD 175-225): Does not contain the passage. This is our earliest substantial copy of this part of John, and the story is simply not in it.
• Codex Sinaiticus (א) (c. AD 330-360): Does not contain the passage.
• Codex Vaticanus (B) (c. AD 300-350): Does not contain the passage.
• Codex Alexandrinus (A) and Codex Ephraemi (C) (5th century): Both are damaged exactly here, so neither can be read directly, but in each case scholars have measured the missing leaves against the surviving handwriting, and there is not enough room for the passage. The gap is too small to have held it.
• Codex Bezae (D) (5th century): Contains the passage in its familiar place after John 7:52. This is the earliest surviving Greek manuscript that has it.
• The Old Syriac and the early Coptic versions (3rd-5th century): Do not contain the passage. Its absence is not confined to Greek copies; the early translations into other languages do not have it either.
• Later Greek manuscripts, and this is the striking datum (9th century onward): Where the passage does appear, it moves. Most copies place it after John 7:52. Some place it after John 7:36. One family of manuscripts puts it at the very end of the Gospel, after John 21:25. Another family takes it out of John altogether and places it in Luke, after Luke 21:38. A passage that travels between Gospels is behaving unlike anything else in the New Testament.
• Manuscripts that carry it under a mark of doubt (9th century onward): Many copies that include the passage flag it with asterisks or obeli, the scribal signs for material known to be questioned. The scribes copied it and told the reader they had reservations.