Fred Franz would be the one who made the decision to exclude it.
???
Only he didn't. The NWT included it (with an explanation) back when he had anything to say about it.
Why remove John 8:1-11 in the NWT if these verses speak highly of Jesus
by I_love_Jeff 24 Replies latest watchtower bible
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TD
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Phizzy
True TD, and though Fred Franz was no qualified scholar, I think he had something of the scholarly attitude about him, which would recognize that we cannot be dogmatic about canonicity.
It is only later in the NWT that the real travesties are carried out, in revisions and of course the latest version, over which FF had no control. Though Fred did perpetrate some very doubtful "translations" in places due to his beliefs.
As I've posted elsewhere, I feel this section of scripture actually contains some of the real teaching of Jesus. There is a huge irony in the fact that it upsets the religious leaders of today, as much as it must have in the 1st Century.
I do wish they would find a very early Manuscript containing it ! But the proof that the early Christians accepted it is strong.
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Earnest
stan livedeath : so--have those verses been omitted from previous NWT's ?
Previous versions of the NWT had a footnote at the end of John 7:52 which read:
Manuscripts Sinaiticus, Vaticanus 1209, Curetonian Syriac omit verses 53 to chapter 8, verse 11, which read (with some variations in the various Greek texts and versions) as follows: etc.
In A Textual Commentary on the Greek New Testament, UBS, 1971, Bruce Metzger commented on this section (pp.219-222) :
The evidence for the non-Johannine origin of the pericope of the adulteress is overwhelming. It is absent from such early and diverse manuscripts as p66 (c. 200 CE), p75 (c.200 CE), Sinaiticus, Vaticanus 1209, L, N, T, W, X, Y, [and many others], Codices Alexandrinus and Ephraemi rescriptus are defective in this part of John, but it is highly probable that neither contained the pericope, for careful measurement discloses that there would not have been space enough on the missing leaves to include the section along with the rest of the text. In the East the passage is absent from the oldest form of the Syriac version, as well as from the Sahidic and the sub-Achmimic versions and the older Bohairic manuscripts. Some Armenian manuscripts and the Old Georgian version omit it. In the West the passage is absent from the Gothic version and from several Old Latin manuscripts. No Greek Church Father prior to Euthymius Zigabenus (twelfth century) comments on the passage, and Euthymius declares that the accurate copies of the Gospel do not contain it.
When one adds to this impressive and diversified list of external evidence the consideration that the style and vocabulary of the pericope differ noticeably from the rest of the Fourth Gospel, and that it interrupts the sequene of 7:52 and 8:12 ff., the case against its being of Johannine authorship appears to be conclusive.
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Earnest
The NWT (2013) also has a footnote to John 7:52 which reads :
The earliest authoritative manuscripts do not have the passage from Joh 7:53 to 8:11. These 12 verses were obviously added to the original text of John’s Gospel. They are not found in the two earliest available papyri containing the Gospel of John, Papyrus Bodmer 2 (P66) and Papyrus Bodmer 14, 15 (P75), both from the second century C.E., nor are they found in the Codex Sinaiticus or Codex Vaticanus, both from the fourth century C.E. They first appear in a Greek manuscript from the fifth century (Codex Bezae) but are not found in any other Greek manuscripts until the ninth century C.E. They are omitted by most of the early translations into other languages. One group of Greek manuscripts places the added words at the end of John’s Gospel; another group puts them after Lu 21:38. That this portion appears at different places in different manuscripts supports the conclusion that it is a spurious text. Scholars overwhelmingly agree that these verses were not part of the original text of John.
Greek manuscripts and translations into other languages that include these verses read (with some variations) as follows: etc.
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Disillusioned JW
Thanks Earnest, so in the online version of the Study Edition it is there as a footnote to John 7:52 (much like it is as a footnote to John 7:52 in the printed edition of the 1984 NWT), though it is not there in the non-Study edition of the 2013 online version nor in the printed non-Study edition of the 2013 Edition.