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Reconsidering ‘The Story of Jesus and the Adulteress Reconsidered’

As recently as 1988, Bart D. Ehrman could speak of a 'scholarly consensus' regarding the story of the woman caught in adultery (John 7.53-8.11), viz., that 'the passage did not originally form part of the Fourth Gospel . . .'. He regarded the evidence for this view as 'overwhelming' and the conclusion 'unanimous'. Although it was gratuitous to call this conclusion 'unanimous' it was nevertheless the overwhelming scholarly consensus. This consensus has been recently challenged in an article by John Paul Heil, 'The Story of Jesus and the Adulteress (John 7,53-8,11) Reconsidered', Biblica 72 (1991) 182-91. The basic thesis of Heil's article is that there is strong internal evidence (both linguistic and literary) which argues for the authenticity of the pericope adulterae. The author excludes external evidence from his study with the query (which concludes his essay), 'Is it possible that the external evidence is not so overwhelming after all and that the story could have been omitted very early on in the manuscript traditions?' (191). His footnote at this point seems to indicate the author's bias