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It's almost completely unsourced. Its main section is completely dedicated to apologetics against modern scholars' consensus, which is flat out unacceptable. Statements like "Some "experts" have also falsely claimed that no Greek Church Father had taken note of the passage before the 1100s." or "Many modern textual critics have ignored the early church evidence that is available and have speculated that" undermining entire modern scholarship are out of place in encyclopedic entry. Views of the modern scholars are not represented in any shape or form other than such grotesque strawmans.
The article requires citations and solid rewriting.
I read somewhere that some scholars have contended that the Jews had actually abolished stoning as punishment for adultery at the time of Jesus, which counts as additional evidence against the authenticity of the pericope - i.e. whoever wrote it was unaware that adultery was no longer a "stoneable" offence at the time. I don't know enough about this debate to edit the article, however. Muzilon (talk) 02:27, 12 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
My addition earlier today was adequately referenced. I therefore undid the "undo" which removed it. I was not saying anything about my own opinion. The booklet by James Snapp is a notable contribution to the subject of the main article, and was mentioned in the appropriate section. DFH (talk) 19:03, 27 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
CodeTalker literally linked it. Here's the relevant text:
"Self-published expert sources may be considered reliable when produced by an established subject-matter expert, whose work in the relevant field has previously been published by reliable, independent publications."
I don't believe J.E.S. Jr. has had any previous work on the PA published to therefore be considered okay as a self-published source. I also fail to see why the opinion of J.E.S. Jr is necessary to include in the article, especially as there's already other sources from reliable secondary sources noting the arguments for Johannine authorship.
See also WP:FRINGE: Snapp cannot be used to give the lie to most mainstream Bible scholars. In other words, Snapp does not express a mainstream academic viewpoint, and he is not notable enough to be WP:CITED for a minority viewpoint. A wannabe Bible scholar should not be used to contradict full professors from WP:CHOPSY. Nor books published by CHOPSY. tgeorgescu (talk) 21:10, 27 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Why on earth is "pseudepigraphical" in the first sentence here? It is in no way the single-most important fact to share on this pericope.
It's not even accurate. What is really meant is that this was a "late addition" to John. But pseudepigraphical means "false authorship" which is not quite the same thing. It's not like this section "claims" to be by someone who we know didn't write it. Like the rest of the gospel, it's anonymous. Additionally, there are entire books of the Bible that couldn't possibly be by the person claimed to have written them, and not every story is introduced as "pseudepigraphical", as that would be ridiculous. It's a matter for the top-level article to discuss.
Okay, so we really mean "late addition, not part of proto-John." But I don't see how this is first-sentence worthy either. Again, this happens with lots of Biblical books; see Textual variants in the New Testament. Luke was probably being revised for decades after proto-Luke. All of this was completely unknown to centuries worth of Christians, who treated the story seriously. Even if we grant that they were "wrong" to do so for a moment (which is ridiculous given how much other books have grown & shrunk..), so what?
The lede should be revised. To be 100% clear I'm not saying to remove this discussion, but it should not be in the first sentence. SnowFire (talk) 21:06, 9 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I don't agree with this - that the PA is a later pseudepigraphical addition to the Gospel of John (doesn't matter if 'John' itself is a false attribution; by pseudepigraphical this means "not by the same author as") is practically the main talking point when it comes to the passage from the late 19th century onwards. It should therefore appear in a place of prominence, and the first sentence is a more than adequate location for this. Stephen Walch (talk) 00:24, 10 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
That's not what "pseudepigrapha" means. Let's say that incontrovertible evidence comes out that the Book of Daniel was a unity, written by one author in the 2nd century BCE (as indeed many scholars think). It'd still be pseudepigraphical because the prophet Daniel didn't write it. Conversely, let's say that we know 100% that a part of a work was later adapted and not part of the proto-work / lost first edition. That doesn't mean the addition is pseudepigraphical, either. For example, Books_of_Kings#Deuteronomistic history indicates that the book almost assuredly went through two layers of work / editions. But it never claims to be written by a single author, either. The work is anonymous, and it expanding over time just means... it expanded over time. Now, if we want to talk about the historicity of the woman taken in adultery story being suspect in a "quest for the historical Jesus" matter due to later traditions being less reliable than earlier traditions, fine, but that's again not psuedepigrapha and also not first-sentence worthy. There are tons of stories also of dubious historicity and that also isn't generally first-sentence worthy. SnowFire (talk) 15:35, 10 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
"That's not what "pseudepigrapha" means." - Yes, I know thanks; if the GoJ is pseudepigrapical, then a later inserted story is *also* pseudepigraphical, which then absolutely becomes pseudepigraphical if the GoJ is in fact by John the son of Zebedee, within which the PA story is not original. "There are tons of stories also of dubious historicity and that also isn't generally first-sentence worthy" - irrelevant. I defer to what I originally put regarding the main talking point when it comes to the PA. Stephen Walch (talk) 19:57, 10 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I don't think we do agree on what pseudepigrapha means. Per the lede of our own article, it's generally used for explicit false claims of authorship (e.g. 2 Peter), not later questionable attributions (e.g. the 4 anonymous gospels). Also by your own logic, we should introduce absolutely every pericope in every gospel as pseudepigraphal in the first sentence, which seems obviously not right. SnowFire (talk) 21:51, 10 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Regardless of whether we agree/disagree on the word's meaning, you're not giving any justification for as to why it shouldn't be used in the first sentence. I also disagree that "It is in no way the single-most important fact to share on this pericope" when if you go through the article, it is 95% about its falsely-attributed authorship and location in the GoJ (practically from the heading "History of Textual Criticism" onwards is to do with this). However I am open to reworking the lede if another editor believes it is necessary. Stephen Walch (talk) 10:06, 11 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
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