Can We Know What Biblical Texts Originally Said?

One of the most commonly asked questions about the Bible is the question of whether we can know what the texts that make it up originally said. This question is of interest to a lot of people. Obviously, Christians want to know what these texts originally said because they believe that the writings included in the Bible are directly inspired by God and that they can teach people the right way to live their lives.

Meanwhile, many of us who aren’t Christians are interested in knowing what these texts originally said as well because we want to know more about the historical development of Christianity and about what the earliest Christians in ancient times believed.

I suppose, then, there’s good news and bad news for everyone. The bad news is that the surviving manuscripts of the texts included in the New Testament contain a wide array of overt discrepancies, errors, and later insertions. The good news is that, in spite of this, in the vast majority of cases, we actually have a pretty good idea of what the texts originally said.

For the purposes of this article, I will be focusing primarily on the texts of the New Testament because I know more about them and they were originally written in a language that I have personally studied (i.e. Koine Greek). Many of the general things I am about to say are applicable to the texts of the Hebrew Bible as well, but I will not be focusing on those texts here.

No “original Bible”

It is important to emphasize that there never was an “original Bible” in the sense that many people today imagine. The texts that now make up both the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament were originally written as completely separate documents. It was only later that these works were eventually incorporated into the New Testament canon. In other words, the author of, say, the Gospel of Mark had no idea their work would later be bound together in a single volume with other early Christian writings.

The earliest texts that are now incorporated into the New Testament are the seven authentic Pauline Epistles, which were written between c. 49 AD and c. 57 AD. The earliest of the canonical gospels, the Gospel of Mark, was probably written in around 70 AD or thereabouts. The Gospel of Matthew was probably written within a few decades after the Gospel of Mark. The Gospel of Luke and the Book of the Acts of the Apostles were written by the same person, probably in around the late 90s AD. The last of the canonical gospels, the Gospel of John, was probably written sometime between c. 100 and c. 115 AD.

The New Testament canon as we know it developed gradually. The four gospels and the Pauline Epistles were already widely agreed to be canonical by middle of the second century AD. By the lifetime of Origenes of Alexandria (lived c. 184 – c. 253 AD), the majority of the canon was basically agreed upon, but there were still some texts whose canonicity was debated. It was not until the late fourth century AD that the canon was definitively finalized.

I wrote a detailed account of the development of the New Testament canon in this article I published in August 2019, which I highly recommend reading, because it provides a lot of useful background information. In that article, I also thoroughly debunk the widespread misconception that the New Testament canon was decided by Constantine I. (In reality, Constantine I had virtually no role whatsoever in deciding which texts would be included in the New Testament canon.)

ABOVE: Photograph of the text of the Muratorian canon, a text that was originally written in Greek in around the late second century AD listing which works were considered part of the New Testament canon at that time

Original texts versus translations

On some level, there is no doubt that most people reading the Bible today are not reading the texts included in it in their original forms since very few people are reading these texts in their original languages. The books of the Hebrew Bible were mostly written in Biblical Hebrew, although some books have parts that were originally written in Aramaic. The texts of the New Testament, meanwhile, were all originally written in Koine Greek.

If you are reading the Bible in English, then, obviously, you definitely are not reading the works contained therein in their original forms. One of my Greek professors once told me that, if you are reading any text in translation, you are “utterly removed” from the original in every sense. I think that is a bit of an exaggeration, but he nonetheless has a very good point, which is that, if you really want to understand a text, you have to read it in the original language.

There are a number of passages from the Bible that are widely misunderstood because people always read them in English and not in the original language. The most obvious example I can think of off the top of my head is the First Epistle to the Corinthians 13:4–7. Here is the passage as it is translated in the New Revised Standard Version (NRSV):

“Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.”

People read this passage in English and assume it is talking about romantic love. They assume that the passage is about specifically how a person is supposed to treat their romantic partner. That’s why you almost always hear this passage read aloud at weddings.

This passage is not really about romantic love at all, though. Here is the exact same passage as it is appears in the original Koine Greek:

“ἡ ἀγάπη μακροθυμεῖ, χρηστεύεται ἡ ἀγάπη, οὐ ζηλοῖ, [ἡ ἀγάπη] οὐ περπερεύεται, οὐ φυσιοῦται, οὐκ ἀσχημονεῖ, οὐ ζητεῖ τὰ ἑαυτῆς, οὐ παροξύνεται, οὐ λογίζεται τὸ κακόν, οὐ χαίρει ἐπὶ τῇ ἀδικίᾳ, συγχαίρει δὲ τῇ ἀληθείᾳ· πάντα στέγει, πάντα πιστεύει, πάντα ἐλπίζει, πάντα ὑπομένει.”

In English, we only have one word for “love,” but, in Greek, there are several different words that are used to refer to several different kinds of love. The specific word for “love” that is used in this passage is ἀγάπη (agápē), which does not normally refer to romantic love, but rather to love in the universal, charitable, Christian sense.

When he wrote this passage, Paul was trying to describe how Christians should behave towards their fellow human beings in general, not how they should act specifically in the context of a romantic relationship. I personally think that the word ἀγάπη in this context would be better translated as something more along the lines of “beneficence” or “goodwill.”

ABOVE: Fresco from the Catacomb of Saints Marcellinus and Peter in Rome, dating to the fourth century AD, depicting early Christians having an agape feast. In the Epistle to the Corinthians 13:4–7, Paul was talking about love in a universal, charitable sense.

Scribes deliberately tampering with texts

Obviously, because most people are not reading the Bible in the original ancient languages, they are not reading the texts that are contained in the Bible in their original forms. Nonetheless, the question of whether or not the texts included in the Bible exist today in their original forms goes significantly deeper.

We do not have the original manuscripts for any of the works included in the Bible. The texts that are included in the New Testament were mostly written in the first century AD and early second century AD, but the earliest fragments of New Testament texts that have survived to the present day date to the middle of the second century AD and the earliest complete texts that have survived date to the fourth century AD.

The manuscripts we have, then, are not the originals, but rather copies of copies of copies. It should be noted that this is not at all unusual for ancient texts in any sense. Indeed, there are almost no ancient texts at all that have survived to us in the original autograph manuscripts. Instead, the manuscripts we have are all copies—usually ones from centuries later.

For instance, as I talk about in this article I wrote in December 2019, we don’t have the original written version of the Iliad; instead, the earliest surviving fragments come from centuries after the poem was originally written and the earliest complete manuscript copy is from the ninth century AD. We don’t have the original handwritten manuscripts of the dialogues of Plato or the treatises of Aristotle either; instead, all we have are much later copies.

Texts in ancient times were copied exclusively by hand. Naturally, the scribes copying these texts didn’t always copy things exactly as they were written. Thus, the surviving manuscripts of the texts included in the Biblical canon contain all sorts of variations and deviations.

ABOVE: Illustrated page from a Greek manuscript copy of the Iliad, dated to the late fifth century AD or early sixth century AD.

People often talk about scribes deliberately tampering with the texts of the works included in the Bible. It is undeniably true that, in some cases, scribes definitely did tamper with Biblical texts. Unfortunately, many people have gotten the misimpression that the vast majority of scribes copying Biblical manuscripts were dishonest and that the texts of the Bible have all been altered totally beyond all hope of reconstruction.

The truth is that the vast majority of variations in the texts of works included in the New Testament are minor, obviously accidental, and often easily recognized. They are, in other words, honest mistakes made by well-intentioned scribes. For instance, the scribe might accidentally leave out a letter, accidentally misspell a word, accidentally leave out a word, accidentally leave out an entire line, accidentally copy a letter twice, accidentally copy a word twice, accidentally copy a line twice, and so on. In some cases, a scribe may have accidentally copied a word incorrectly, mistaking one word for a different, similar-looking word.

These kinds of errors are usually fairly easy to recognize. In fact, scribes often corrected their own errors and sometimes even the errors of earlier scribes. If a scribe found that they had accidentally left out a word or a line, for instance, they might re-insert the word or the line with a caret. (Unfortunately, in some cases, scribes accidentally mistook notes written in the margins of texts for parts of the text itself that had been left out and reinserted. We’ll get to that later.)

Even when manuscripts disagree and it is hard to tell which one is correct, the vast majority of the time the differences between the texts make very little difference at all in terms of meaning. Texts often have variants such as words that are spelled differently, phrases that are flipped around but retain the same meaning, definitive articles that are included or missing, words that are repeated or not repeated later on in the sentence for emphasis, and so forth. Discrepancies with profound theological implications are generally rare.

It is also worth noting that we find fewer discrepancies in the oldest and most reliable manuscripts, while discrepancies are more common in later, less reliable manuscripts. By looking at the earliest manuscripts, we can get a better impression of what the original text said than we can by looking at later ones.

Now that we’ve clarified all this, let’s look at just a few famous examples of places where Biblical texts have obviously been changed in ways that are definitely significant. It is worth emphasizing that there are other places where the text has obviously been significantly changed apart from the ones we’re about to look at; the following examples are just ones that I have picked out as especially significant or noteworthy.

ABOVE: Mid-tenth century Byzantine manuscript illustration of Matthew the Apostle with Byzantine-era scribal equipment

The ending of the Gospel of Mark

The Gospel of Mark is the earliest surviving gospel. It is generally believed by scholars to date to around 70 AD or thereabouts, meaning it was written only around forty years after the crucifixion of Jesus. Naturally, it occupies a very important place in the field of Biblical studies. The Gospel of Mark, however, originally had a very puzzling and abrupt ending.

In the original Gospel of Mark, the resurrected Jesus never actually appears to anyone at all. Instead, the gospel says that Mary Magdalene (who, contrary to what modern popular culture has led many people to believe, was almost certainly not Jesus’s wife in any sense), Mary the mother of James, and Salome went to the tomb of Jesus on the morning of the day after the Sabbath to find, to their astonishment, that the stone in front of Jesus’s tomb had already been rolled away.

Then they went into the tomb to find a young man dressed in a white robe sitting on the right side. The young man told them that Jesus had been resurrected. Then the gospel abruptly ends, saying that the women fled in terror and told absolutely no one of what they had seen because it was too frightening.

The original Greek text of the Gospel of Mark 16:1–8 reads as follows:

“καὶ διαγενομένου τοῦ σαββάτου μαρία ἡ μαγδαληνὴ καὶ μαρία ἡ [τοῦ] ἰακώβου καὶ σαλώμη ἠγόρασαν ἀρώματα ἵνα ἐλθοῦσαι ἀλείψωσιν αὐτόν. καὶ λίαν πρωῒ τῇ μιᾷ τῶν σαββάτων ἔρχονται ἐπὶ τὸ μνημεῖον ἀνατείλαντος τοῦ ἡλίου. καὶ ἔλεγον πρὸς ἑαυτάς, τίς ἀποκυλίσει ἡμῖν τὸν λίθον ἐκ τῆς θύρας τοῦ μνημείου; καὶ ἀναβλέψασαι θεωροῦσιν ὅτι ἀποκεκύλισται ὁ λίθος, ἦν γὰρ μέγας σφόδρα. καὶ εἰσελθοῦσαι εἰς τὸ μνημεῖον εἶδον νεανίσκον καθήμενον ἐν τοῖς δεξιοῖς περιβεβλημένον στολὴν λευκήν, καὶ ἐξεθαμβήθησαν. ὁ δὲ λέγει αὐταῖς, μὴ ἐκθαμβεῖσθε· ἰησοῦν ζητεῖτε τὸν ναζαρηνὸν τὸν ἐσταυρωμένον· ἠγέρθη, οὐκ ἔστιν ὧδε· ἴδε ὁ τόπος ὅπου ἔθηκαν αὐτόν. ἀλλὰ ὑπάγετε εἴπατε τοῖς μαθηταῖς αὐτοῦ καὶ τῶ πέτρῳ ὅτι προάγει ὑμᾶς εἰς τὴν γαλιλαίαν· ἐκεῖ αὐτὸν ὄψεσθε, καθὼς εἶπεν ὑμῖν. καὶ ἐξελθοῦσαι ἔφυγον ἀπὸ τοῦ μνημείου, εἶχεν γὰρ αὐτὰς τρόμος καὶ ἔκστασις· καὶ οὐδενὶ οὐδὲν εἶπαν, ἐφοβοῦντο γάρ.”

Here is the same passage, as translated in the New Revised Standard Version (NRSV):

“When the sabbath was over, Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James, and Salome bought spices, so that they might go and anoint him. And very early on the first day of the week, when the sun had risen, they went to the tomb. They had been saying to one another, ‘Who will roll away the stone for us from the entrance to the tomb?’ When they looked up, they saw that the stone, which was very large, had already been rolled back. As they entered the tomb, they saw a young man, dressed in a white robe, sitting on the right side; and they were alarmed. But he said to them, “’Do not be alarmed; you are looking for Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified. He has been raised; he is not here. Look, there is the place they laid him. But go, tell his disciples and Peter that he is going ahead of you to Galilee; there you will see him, just as he told you.’ So they went out and fled from the tomb, for terror and amazement had seized them; and they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid.”

The original Gospel of Mark ended right here, with chapter sixteen, verse eight.

It is unclear why the Gospel of Mark originally ended so abruptly at this point. One explanation that has been proposed holds that, maybe, the author of the Gospel of Mark meant to write more, but never got around to finishing his gospel. This would explain why the Gospel of Mark has such an abrupt and puzzling ending. It would also explain why the writing style of the Gospel of Mark in the original Greek is so rough and unpolished: because it is only a rough draft that the author originally meant to polish up later.

There are problems with this explanation, though. One problem with it is that, while the ending of the gospel may seem abrupt and dissatisfying to us, it may not have seemed this way to the person who originally wrote the gospel. Furthermore, apart from the seemingly abrupt ending and the unpolished language—both of which can be given alternative explanations—there is no evidence that the Gospel of Mark as we have it is unfinished.

In any case, regardless of the reason why, this is where all the earliest and most reliable surviving manuscripts of the Gospel of Mark end. The version of the Gospel of Mark contained in Codex Vaticanus, the earliest surviving manuscript containing most of the books of the New Testament, which has been dated to between c. 300 and c. 325 AD, ends right here with chapter sixteen, verse eight

Likewise, the version of the gospel found in the slightly later manuscript Codex Sinaiticus (dated to between c. 330 and c. 360 AD) ends with chapter sixteen, verse eight as well. A number of later copies of the Gospel of Mark also end with this verse, including some dating to even much later.

ABOVE: The Holy Women at Christ’s Tomb, painted in around the 1590s by the Italian painter Annibale Carracci. The Gospel of Mark originally ended at 16:8 without the resurrected Jesus actually making an appearance.

Many early Christians evidently found the original ending of the Gospel of Mark unsatisfying, however, because later authors came in and added multiple different endings to the gospel. The best known alternative ending is the so-called “Longer Ending,” which is the ending found in most traditional English versions of the Bible, including the King James Version.

The Longer Ending is quite clearly a summary of the resurrection stories found in the Gospel of Luke and the Gospel of John, both of which were written decades after the original Gospel of Mark. The Longer Ending exists in a few different versions, but here is the most standard version (which is usually printed in double brackets to show it is not part of the original text):

“[[ἀναστὰς δὲ πρωῒ πρώτῃ σαββάτου ἐφάνη πρῶτον μαρίᾳ τῇ μαγδαληνῇ, παρ᾽ ἧς ἐκβεβλήκει ἑπτὰ δαιμόνια. ἐκείνη πορευθεῖσα ἀπήγγειλεν τοῖς μετ᾽ αὐτοῦ γενομένοις πενθοῦσι καὶ κλαίουσιν· κἀκεῖνοι ἀκούσαντες ὅτι ζῇ καὶ ἐθεάθη ὑπ᾽ αὐτῆς ἠπίστησαν. μετὰ δὲ ταῦτα δυσὶν ἐξ αὐτῶν περιπατοῦσιν ἐφανερώθη ἐν ἑτέρᾳ μορφῇ πορευομένοις εἰς ἀγρόν· κἀκεῖνοι ἀπελθόντες ἀπήγγειλαν τοῖς λοιποῖς· οὐδὲ ἐκείνοις ἐπίστευσαν. ὕστερον [δὲ] ἀνακειμένοις αὐτοῖς τοῖς ἕνδεκα ἐφανερώθη, καὶ ὠνείδισεν τὴν ἀπιστίαν αὐτῶν καὶ σκληροκαρδίαν ὅτι τοῖς θεασαμένοις αὐτὸν ἐγηγερμένον οὐκ ἐπίστευσαν. καὶ εἶπεν αὐτοῖς, πορευθέντες εἰς τὸν κόσμον ἅπαντα κηρύξατε τὸ εὐαγγέλιον πάσῃ τῇ κτίσει. ὁ πιστεύσας καὶ βαπτισθεὶς σωθήσεται, ὁ δὲ ἀπιστήσας κατακριθήσεται. σημεῖα δὲ τοῖς πιστεύσασιν ταῦτα παρακολουθήσει· ἐν τῶ ὀνόματί μου δαιμόνια ἐκβαλοῦσιν, γλώσσαις λαλήσουσιν καιναῖς, [καὶ ἐν ταῖς χερσὶν] ὄφεις ἀροῦσιν, κἂν θανάσιμόν τι πίωσιν οὐ μὴ αὐτοὺς βλάψῃ, ἐπὶ ἀρρώστους χεῖρας ἐπιθήσουσιν καὶ καλῶς ἕξουσιν. ὁ μὲν οὗν κύριος ἰησοῦς μετὰ τὸ λαλῆσαι αὐτοῖς ἀνελήμφθη εἰς τὸν οὐρανὸν καὶ ἐκάθισεν ἐκ δεξιῶν τοῦ θεοῦ. ἐκεῖνοι δὲ ἐξελθόντες ἐκήρυξαν πανταχοῦ, τοῦ κυρίου συνεργοῦντος καὶ τὸν λόγον βεβαιοῦντος διὰ τῶν ἐπακολουθούντων σημείων.]]”

Here is the passage as it is rendered in English in the NRSV:

“[[Now after he rose early on the first day of the week, he appeared first to Mary Magdalene, from whom he had cast out seven demons. She went out and told those who had been with him, while they were mourning and weeping. But when they heard that he was alive and had been seen by her, they would not believe it.”

“After this he appeared in another form to two of them, as they were walking into the country. And they went back and told the rest, but they did not believe them.”

“Later he appeared to the eleven themselves as they were sitting at the table; and he upbraided them for their lack of faith and stubbornness, because they had not believed those who saw him after he had risen. And he said to them, ‘Go into all the world and proclaim the good news to the whole creation. The one who believes and is baptized will be saved; but the one who does not believe will be condemned. And these signs will accompany those who believe: by using my name they will cast out demons; they will speak in new tongues; they will pick up snakes in their hands, and if they drink any deadly thing, it will not hurt them; they will lay their hands on the sick, and they will recover.’”

“So then the Lord Jesus, after he had spoken to them, was taken up into heaven and sat down at the right hand of God. And they went out and proclaimed the good news everywhere, while the Lord worked with them and confirmed the message by the signs that accompanied it.]]”

The early Christian historian Eusebios of Kaisareia (lived c. 260 – c. 340 AD) mentions that, in his own time, there were versions of the Gospel of Mark in circulation that included the Longer Ending, but also versions that ended with chapter sixteen, verse eight.

The earliest surviving manuscript containing a version of the Gospel of Mark with the Longer Ending is Codex Alexandrinus, which is dated to between c. 400 and c. 440 AD. Some of the manuscripts that include the Longer Ending mark it as probably being a later addition to the gospel.

Other people wrote alternative endings for the Gospel of Mark as well. For instance, there is also an ending known as the “Shorter Ending,” which reads as follows:

“[[πάντα δὲ τὰ παρηγγελμένα τοῖς περὶ τὸν πέτρον συντόμως ἐξήγγειλαν. μετὰ δὲ ταῦτα καὶ αὐτὸς ὁ ἰησοῦς ἀπὸ ἀνατολῆς καὶ ἄχρι δύσεως ἐξαπέστειλεν δι᾽ αὐτῶν τὸ ἱερὸν καὶ ἄφθαρτον κήρυγμα τῆς αἰωνίου σωτηρίας. ἀμήν.]]”

Here is the Shorter Ending again, as translated in the NRSV:

“[[And all that had been commanded them they told briefly to those around Peter. And afterward Jesus himself sent out through them, from east to west, the sacred and imperishable proclamation of eternal salvation.]]”

The Shorter Ending is attested without the Longer Ending in Codex Bobbiensis, which is dated roughly to the early fifth century AD. This shows that the Shorter Ending and the Longer Ending evidently arose independently. Some later manuscripts have both the Shorter Ending and the Longer Ending, while others only have the Longer Ending.

ABOVE: The Appearance of Jesus Christ to Mary Magdalene, painted in 1835 by the Russian Academic painter Alexander Andreyevich Ivanov. The Longer Ending of the Gospel of Mark includes a mention of the resurrected Jesus appearing to Mary Magdalene.

The Pericope Adulterae

One of the most famous stories in the entire Bible, a story that appears in nearly every modern adaptation of the life of Jesus, is the story of Jesus and the woman taken in adultery, which is told in the Gospel of John 7:53–8:11. In textual criticism, this passage in the Gospel of John is known as the Pericope Adulterae, which means “the pericope of the adulterous woman” in Latin.

The story goes that the scribes and Pharisees brought a woman who had been caught in the very act of adultery before Jesus. They told him that the law commanded them to stone her to death as punishment and they asked him what he thought they should do with her. Jesus supposedly told them, “Let anyone among you who is without sin cast the first stone.” The scribes and Pharisees, knowing they were not without sin, left and let the woman live.

The Greek text of the Gospel of John 7:53–8:11 reads as follows:

“[[καὶ ἐπορεύθησαν ἕκαστος εἰς τὸν οἶκον αὐτοῦ, ἰησοῦς δὲ ἐπορεύθη εἰς τὸ ὄρος τῶν ἐλαιῶν. ὄρθρου δὲ πάλιν παρεγένετο εἰς τὸ ἱερόν, καὶ πᾶς ὁ λαὸς ἤρχετο πρὸς αὐτόν, καὶ καθίσας ἐδίδασκεν αὐτούς. ἄγουσιν δὲ οἱ γραμματεῖς καὶ οἱ φαρισαῖοι γυναῖκα ἐπὶ μοιχείᾳ κατειλημμένην, καὶ στήσαντες αὐτὴν ἐν μέσῳ λέγουσιν αὐτῶ, διδάσκαλε, αὕτη ἡ γυνὴ κατείληπται ἐπ᾽ αὐτοφώρῳ μοιχευομένη· ἐν δὲ τῶ νόμῳ ἡμῖν μωϊσῆς ἐνετείλατο τὰς τοιαύτας λιθάζειν· σὺ οὗν τί λέγεις; τοῦτο δὲ ἔλεγον πειράζοντες αὐτόν, ἵνα ἔχωσιν κατηγορεῖν αὐτοῦ. ὁ δὲ ἰησοῦς κάτω κύψας τῶ δακτύλῳ κατέγραφεν εἰς τὴν γῆν. ὡς δὲ ἐπέμενον ἐρωτῶντες αὐτόν, ἀνέκυψεν καὶ εἶπεν αὐτοῖς, ὁ ἀναμάρτητος ὑμῶν πρῶτος ἐπ᾽ αὐτὴν βαλέτω λίθον· καὶ πάλιν κατακύψας ἔγραφεν εἰς τὴν γῆν. οἱ δὲ ἀκούσαντες ἐξήρχοντο εἷς καθ᾽ εἷς ἀρξάμενοι ἀπὸ τῶν πρεσβυτέρων, καὶ κατελείφθη μόνος, καὶ ἡ γυνὴ ἐν μέσῳ οὗσα. ἀνακύψας δὲ ὁ ἰησοῦς εἶπεν αὐτῇ, γύναι, ποῦ εἰσιν; οὐδείς σε κατέκρινεν; ἡ δὲ εἶπεν, οὐδείς, κύριε. εἶπεν δὲ ὁ ἰησοῦς, οὐδὲ ἐγώ σε κατακρίνω· πορεύου, [καὶ] ἀπὸ τοῦ νῦν μηκέτι ἁμάρτανε.]]”

Here is the same passage, as translated into English in the NRSV:

“[[Then each of them went home, while Jesus went to the Mount of Olives. Early in the morning he came again to the temple. All the people came to him and he sat down and began to teach them. The scribes and the Pharisees brought a woman who had been caught in adultery; and making her stand before all of them, they said to him, ‘Teacher, this woman was caught in the very act of committing adultery. Now in the law Moses commanded us to stone such women. Now what do you say?’ They said this to test him, so that they might have some charge to bring against him. Jesus bent down and wrote with his finger on the ground. When they kept on questioning him, he straightened up and said to them, ‘Let anyone among you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her.’ And once again he bent down and wrote on the ground. When they heard it, they went away, one by one, beginning with the elders; and Jesus was left alone with the woman standing before him. Jesus straightened up and said to her, ‘Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?’ She said, ‘No one, sir.’ And Jesus said, ‘Neither do I condemn you. Go your way, and from now on do not sin again.’]]”

This is one of the most popular stories found in any of the gospels. If you ask someone to name a story from the gospels about the ministry of Jesus, chances are this will be one of the first ones they will name. Unfortunately, as beloved as this story certainly is, it was not originally a part of the Gospel of John. None of the earliest surviving New Testament manuscripts of the relevant portion of the Gospel of John contain this passage.

The Pericope Adulterae is missing from Papyrus 66 (dated to c. 200 AD), Papyrus 75 (dated to the third century AD), Codex Vaticanus (dated to between c. 300 and c. 330 AD), Codex Sinaiticus (dated to between c. 330 and c. 360 AD), Codex Alexandrinus (dated to between c. 400 and c. 440 AD), and all the other early manuscripts. The earliest references to the Gospel of John containing the Pericope Adulterae are from the third century AD, but these references are few. Additionally, even some later manuscripts that do contain the Pericope Adulterae mark it as probably being a later addition.

The story of Jesus and the woman taken in adultery was probably added to the Gospel of John by a later author based on an earlier story about a woman who had been falsely accused. The church historian Eusebios of Kaisareia mentions in his Ecclesiastical History that the story of Christ defending a woman who had been “falsely accused of many sins” was found in the now-lost work Exposition of the Sayings of the Lord, written by the Church Father Papias of Hierapolis (lived c. 60 – c. 160 AD). This story told by Papias is likely the source for the later story added to the Gospel of John.

ABOVE: Illustration from 1866 by the French artist Gustave Doré depicting Jesus defending the adulterous woman from the angry mob wanting to stone her

The Comma Johanneum

Perhaps the one passage in the whole New Testament that is most widely agreed to be an interpolation is the Comma Johanneum, a passage found in some late Latin versions of the First Epistle of John 5:7–8. Here is the First Epistle of John 5:7–8 as it appears in the vast majority of Greek manuscripts:

“ὅτι τρεῖς εἰσιν οἱ μαρτυροῦντες, τὸ πνεῦμα καὶ τὸ ὕδωρ καὶ τὸ αἷμα, καὶ οἱ τρεῖς εἰς τὸ ἕν εἰσιν.”

Here is the Greek passage, as translated in the NRSV:

“There are three that testify: the Spirit and the water and the blood, and these three agree.”

Now, here is the version of the passage that appears in some relatively late manuscripts of the Latin Vulgate:

“Quoniam tres sunt, qui testimonium dant in cælo: Pater, Verbum, et Spiritus Sanctus: et hi tres unum sunt. Et tres sunt, qui testimonium dant in terra: spiritus, et aqua, et sanguis: et hi tres unum sunt.”

Here is the NRSV’s translation of the Latin passage:

“There are three that testify in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Spirit, and these three are one. And there are three that testify on earth: the Spirit and the water and the blood, and these three agree.”

The part of the Latin passage that is not found in the Greek passage is known as the Comma Johanneum.

The Comma Johanneum is not found in any of the earliest manuscripts in Greek or Latin. Meanwhile, the passage is conspicuously never mentioned by any of the earliest Christian writers whose works have survived. In fact, some early Christian writers such as Klemes of Alexandria (lived c. 150 – c. 215 AD) actually quote 1 John 5:8 without the Comma Johanneum, indicating that the versions of the epistle they were reading did not include this part of the passage.

The earliest definite reference to the Comma Johanneum that can be securely dated comes from a text written by the Spanish Christian writer Priscillian of Ávila sometime around 380 AD or thereabouts. There are a few passages from before this point that some have tried to interpret as referencing the Comma Johanneum, but these are doubtful.

The earliest Latin manuscripts containing the Comma Johanneum date to between the fifth and seventh centuries AD. Meanwhile, the Comma Johanneum only appears in a grand total of eight known Greek manuscripts, all of which are extremely late ones dating to the fifteenth century AD and later. Furthermore, in all of them, the passage appears to have been backtranslated from Latin into Greek.

The Comma Johanneum appears to have originated from a marginal note made in a manuscript by someone in around the early fourth century AD interpreting the phrase “the spirit and the water and the blood” as an allegory for the Holy Trinity. A later scribe came along and copied that manuscript, mistaking the marginal note for text that had been left out and reinserted. Thus, the marginal note became accidentally incorporated into the text.

ABOVE: The Adoration of the Holy Trinity, painted in 1511 by the German Renaissance painter Albrecht Dürer

The Dutch humanist scholar Desiderius Erasmus (lived 1466 – 1536) produced the first printed edition of the New Testament in Greek in 1516. The first edition of Erasmus’s Greek New Testament did not include the Comma Johanneum, nor did the second edition printed in 1519. Erasmus was sharply criticized by clergy and fellow scholars for omitting the Comma Johanneum from his first two editions. Erasmus replied that the Comma simply did not exist in any of the Greek manuscripts.

Eventually, Erasmus reluctantly added the passage to the third edition of his Greek New Testament, printed in 1522, largely in effort to appease his critics. He did, however, include a note expressing his serious doubts regarding the authenticity of the passage. The Comma Johanneum appeared in all subsequent editions of Erasmus’s Greek New Testament, which is known today as the Textus Receptus.

Most English translations of the New Testament over the next few centuries were based solely or primarily on Erasmus’s Greek New Testament. Thus, nearly all early English translation of the Bible, including the King James Version, include the Comma Johanneum. Later, though, Bible translations began to rely on older, more reliable texts, they stopped including the Comma Johanneum. The NRSV, for instance, only includes the Comma Johanneum as a footnote.

The main defenders of the Comma Johanneum today are members of the King James Only movement, who claim that the English King James Bible is directly inspired by God and that it is the only true version of the Bible in English. Members of this movement claim that all English translations other than the King James Version are corrupt and that using these translations will lead people to Hell.

ABOVE: Portrait by Hans Holbein the Younger from 1523 of the Dutch humanist scholar Desiderius Erasmus, who produced the first printed edition of the Greek New Testament in 1516

What we know and what we don’t

The fact of the matter is, there are a large number of verses in the Bible that have clearly been altered or inserted by later scribes—sometimes by accident, sometimes on purpose. The examples I have given here are just a few of the more notable ones. Upon hearing this, it is easy for people to despair and think we have no way of knowing what any of the texts included in the Bible originally said at all. This, however, is exactly the opposite of the kind of response we should be having.

Despite all the changes that have been made in various places, the vast majority of the time, scholars actually have a very good idea of what these texts originally said. Sometimes there are difficulties, but, most of the time, there is broad agreement across manuscripts. It is worth noting that there is literally an entire field of scholarly inquiry dedicated to the study of Biblical manuscripts with the goal of sorting out exactly what the texts originally said.

Indeed, the very fact that scholars are able to recognize passages that have been altered or inserted by later scribes should give us hope because it shows that we are on the road towards a better understanding of these texts and their histories. We will probably never know with absolute certainty what all the original texts said in all cases, but, in most cases, we have a very good idea of what they said.