Thursday, October 22, 2009

The Pericope of the Adulteress in Brackets

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The results from our first ever poll:

Should the Pericope of the Adulteress be included in our bibles?

Yes: 30 (ca. 27%)
Yes, in square brackets: 41 (ca. 37%)
No: 37 (ca. 34%)

108 persons voted.

14 comments

  1. "108 persons voted."

    It seems safer to conclude "108 votes have been registered".

    Ulrich Schmid

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  2. Maybe they were not all persons.

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  3. Because, among other problems, the voters were self-selected, the results of the poll are statistically insignificant and meaningless.

    regards,
    #John1453

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  4. Insignificant and meaningless non-persons.

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  5. "the results of the poll are statistically insignificant and meaningless."

    I would wager that those who contributed votes represent our blog readership to some degree. This makes the results interesting to me. I am surprised to see so many votes for "yes without brackets". Jim Leonard tells me that he voted "Yes" 27 times, though, so perhaps this explains some things.

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  6. Wait. I thought we were polling on whether Bill Warren should have all of us over for dinner during SBL.

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  7. I voted for Yes, without brackets, because:

    1) English NT's follow a 16th-century order from Matthew to Revelation, even though most (all?) GNT mss don't.

    2) English NT's have verses numbered consecutively according to a common scheme, even though no NT mss or even ms fragments do.

    3) English NT's are all divided by identical chapter arrangements (other than maybe a little fudging on Revelation 12/13).

    If we are going to remove evidence of all later accretions to the text, we can start a whole lot more recently than the canonization of the Johannine Pericope.

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  8. John C.T. "he results of the poll are statistically insignificant and meaningless."

    If you read my original post you will see that I tried this poll "mostly for fun": I promise you I will not attempt to publish these results in a journal article ;-)

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  9. John C.T. "he results of the poll are statistically insignificant and meaningless."

    If you read my original post you will see that I tried this poll "mostly for fun": I promise you I will not attempt to publish these results in a journal article ;-)

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  10. Perhaps they should have browsed our website on authenticity before voting:

    http://adultera.awardspace.com

    - Particularly the startling new internal evidence in favour of GJohn being composed using it.

    Nazaroo

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  11. Nazaroo,

    The phrase "Pericope de Adultera" would translate:
    "section from the adulteress." I think that you mean "Pericope Adulterae." I see your reading all over the internet, but I am not sure that it is correct. Any opinions from the blogosphere?

    Also, I think that your contention that "the passage was attacked for political, rather than scientific reasons" is not defensible. As far as content goes, most of us who voted against its inclusion in modern translations have no issues with its content. The issue is the manuscripts, IMO.

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  12. I think that you mean "Pericope Adulterae."

    If you had actually explored our massive website, which houses discussions on the PA going back 300 years, you'd have noticed that "Pericope de Adultera" was the original handle given to the passage, and which lasted for hundreds of years. Whether your modern Latin skills are up to the job of Latin as actually used 200 years ago, I wonder.

    I think that your contention that "the passage was attacked for political, rather than scientific reasons" is not defensible.

    Your point here (and the justification following) is astounding, since the quote you've taken from the website has been there for 3 years and cannot possibly reference your recent poll.

    Our mention of political attacks references the heated battles of the 4th century and 9th (A.D.), not internet blog polls.

    Perhaps a bit more concentration during reading will assist your comprehension.

    peace
    Nazaroo

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  13. Navaroo, can you give me a justification for the "de," since you have chosen to adopt this phrase. I would guess that "Pericope de Adultera" has disappeared from use in modern scholarship because it resounds with influence from modern romance languages. Hodge apparently uses the term, but I do not understand why. I now see your point concerning "political reasons," but I think that your website could be more clear on this since the issue of removing the Pericope is also a modern one. Indeed, I am guessing that this is the raison d'être for the webpage which covers modern scholarship as well as reconstructing the ancient history of the text. Furthermore, I think that "political" may not be the best word; perhaps, "sectarian" or "cultural"?

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  14. ...no justification beyond the use of the title in the majority of articles we reference onsite.

    I have to insist on political, since we are currently engaged in both a cultural war with Islam and also some very real wars.

    Our sister-site explains well the modern political dimension:
    pa-worldwatch.awardspace.com
    There you will see all too clearly that connection.

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