“Christ and the Adulteress”, a forged ‘Vermeer’ painted by Han van Meegeren and sold to Hermann Göring.
A master painter from the Netherlands
Johannes Vermeer, 1632-1675, was an inspired painter, one of the old Dutch masters. Some consider him to be one of the holy trinity of Dutch painters along with Rembrandt and Vincent van Gogh. Vermeer was a popular painter in his hometown of Delft during his heyday. However, due to the economic hard times brought on by the Third Anglo-Dutch War at sea occurring at the same time as the Dutch Republic was being invaded during the Franco-Dutch War, Vermeer had borrowed a large sum of money in hopes of being able to earn more money as an art dealer rather than just as an artist. Shortly thereafter he died suddenly at age 43 leaving his wife Catharina and the 11 surviving children of the 15 she had born to him, deep in debt. Vermeer and his work quickly faded into obscurity until, In the 19th century, Vermeer’s work was rediscovered by Gustav Friedrich Waagen and Théophile Thoré-Bürger, who published a highly influential essay on Vermeer’s art and attributed 66 paintings to him. There are currently only 34 paintings that are universally attributed to Vermeer, but at one time there were more than 150 paintings that were claimed to be his work.
Vermeer’s work is seemingly broken into two time frames and styles. Vermeer’s early Baroque paintings were often large-scale biblical and mythological scenes, while his later work showed scenes of daily middle class life in interior house settings. Vermeer’s later mature style is crisper and clearer than the more subdued tones and colors he used in his earlier work. The art world, which had once again become enthralled with Vermeer’s work, even debated on whether ‘Vermeer’ might have actually been more that one painter. The art world was eagerly hoping to discover some transitional works proving that Vermeer’s early style had in fact evolved into Vermeer’s later style.
(Which reminds me of how Evolutionists are so eager to find a “missing link” between humans and apes, that they conjured up ‘Nebraska Man’ from only a pigs tooth and fraudulently combined the jaw of an orangutan with a microcephalic human skull to produce ‘Piltdown Man’.)
Adding to Vermeer’s inspired works of art
Next in today’s tale comes aspiring Dutch artist Han van Meegeren, 1889-1947, whose paintings mimicked the styles of artists from the Dutch Golden Age, but critics disparaged his paintings as “derivative” and “unoriginal”. Eventually, to make a better living, van Meegeren became an art dealer just like his idol, Vermeer, had also ended up doing. He sold his own paintings for tiny amounts while selling older works for huge sums. Because he was an art dealer Han van Meegeren became familiar with all the existing ways to authenticate old paintings. Eventually he figured out that he could fool all the inspections by buying old canvases scrubbing the artwork off of them and instead of mixing the old-time powder pigments with oil he mixed them with Bakelite resin and then baked the paintings in his oven until they appeared as if they were dried and cracked from old age.
In 1937 van Meegeren copied Johannes Vermeer’s style in his painting “Supper at Emmaus,”. He then called in art expert Abraham Bredius, nicknamed “the Pope”, reflecting the authority he held in the art world, Bredius then publicly pronounced van Meegeren’s forgery to be “the masterpiece of Johannes Vermeer of Delft.” Although van Meegeren was not nearly as good of an artist as Vermeer, whose art he forged, because he painted exactly what people were dreaming of finding, they paid a fine price for his miraculous “finds” and trusted the art world’s “experts” and testing with regard to their legitimacy. And so it came about that Han van Meegeren ended up trading the poor quality painting shown above to Nazi Germany’s second in command, Hermann Göring, in exchange for over one hundred real original Dutch works the Nazi high command had seized, that were worth a great fortune. Hermann Göring knew that there were very few authenticated works by Vermeer and he did not realize that small number was already inflated by eleven of van Meegeren’s personal forgeries. The rare “Vermeer” painting was everything that Hermann Göring could have wished for, Jesus and the forgiven woman both looked German while the unspecified Jews in the background were dark and sinister looking!
In 2020, while many theatres were closed down, the fascinating drama concerning Han van Meegeren and his forgeries was released as a movie, “The Last Vermeer”, based on the 2008 book “The Man Who Made Vermeers”.
Chicom chicanery
Next our story skips to recent times in communist China where textbooks are being produced, for vocational students by the Chinese University of Electronic Science and Technology Press, containing a modified “Bible story” to teach students professional ethics and respect for the law.
The Chinese have pirated the story of Jesus and the woman taken in adultery and changed the ending:
The crowd wanted to stone the woman to death as per their law. But Jesus said, ‘Let the one who has never sinned throw the first stone.’ Hearing this, they slipped away one by one. When the crowd disappeared, Jesus stoned the sinner to death saying, “I too am a sinner. But if the law could only be executed by men without blemish, the law would be dead,” the textbook said.
LOL So the Chicoms just authored an apocryphal declaration by Jesus that, He too was a sinner. While their swipe at Christianity is transparent, to us, they combine their big lie with a bit of solid truth, rightly teaching that: if nobody who makes mistakes and has flaws is allowed to enforce the law, you thereby allow for no enforcement at all and are in fact putting all laws to death.
The Chinese communist government has often pirated and modified Bible stories in the past, to suit their purposes, but now the Chinese Roman Catholic Church has finally decided to fight back. Apparently the Chicoms making alterations to this particular “Bible story”, that formerly had shown Jesus assisting a woman in cuckolding her husband and getting off scot-free, does not sit well with the Church of Rome.
And why would changing that particular Bible story finally raise the ire of the Church of Rome?
Don’t adulterate our Biblical forgery!
Because the entire story of Jesus and the woman taken in adultery, sometimes referred to in Latin as the “Pericope Adulterae”, (John 7:53–8:11) is in fact Roman Catholicism’s own apocryphal addition to the Gospel of John. It was first added into lost Latin manuscripts by the Great Whore of Rome, possibly sometime during the AD 300’s. In some Bibles the Pericope Adulterae was inserted into Luke’s Gospel rather than John’s.
The Pericope Adulterae is not in Papyrus 66 or in Papyrus 75, both of which have been assigned to the late 100s or early 200s, nor in two important manuscripts produced in the early or mid 300s, Sinaiticus and Vaticanus. The first surviving Greek manuscript to contain the pericope is the Latin-Greek diglot Codex Bezae, produced in the 400s or 500s.
Most notated Bibles will have a note that the text of John 7:53–8:11 is not in any of the earliest manuscripts. It is pretty well recognized that the Pericope Adulterae was written long after the apostles inspired works had all been finished, and we don’t really know who first wrote it, just that it wasn’t John or any of the other original inspired apostles who wrote the New Testament.
Christianity first began to flourish under Roman rule during the time of Emperor Constantine, who converted to the religion in 312 A.D. Although he brought a strong Christian presence to the empire, Roman culture and institutions resisted the change for more than half a century. Christianity became the official religion of Rome during the reign of Emperor Theodosius the Great, who ruled from 379 to 395 A.D.
I believe John 7:53–8:11 was composed and added to the original inspired Gospel of John around the time that the church was being co-opted by the rulers of Rome on its way to becoming their official religion for the Roman Empire. As I have mentioned elsewhere, there were many polytheistic goddess worshippers in Rome, whose religion had included orgies and temple prostitution, who were then forcibly converted to the new state religion of Christianity. Much was done to appease them. I’m sure the Roman rulers didn’t want to have to put all of the adulterous population to death as God’s law, given through Moses, required. (Leviticus 20:10 & Deuteronomy 22:22)
How much better it would be if somebody could “remember” being told an old story of Jesus forgiving somebody who was clearly guilty of adultery, and then that story could be added to one of the Gospels. Perhaps the person could be a sympathetic figure, better make it a woman. Then all adulterers and adulteresses can be absolved of the earthly penalties of the law set up by God for societies own protection. No more law. Voila!
Unfortunately they didn’t just grandfather their whores and whoremongers into Christianity. By adding to God’s inspired words they bound the gate open for all sorts of future lawlessness within Christendom.
As a case in point, I was reading a news story recently about a young boy who had been horrifically abused to death over a number of weeks by his mother’s new boyfriend while his mother helped him to cover up the boys injuries and declining condition and then tried to make her son’s murder appear to be from natural causes. The crime was so gruesome and heinous that most commenters were calling for the mother and her boyfriend to either get the death penalty or life imprisonment. But some chowder-head (a churchian I presume) publicly reprimanded all the other commenters claiming that nobody should be “casting stones” (not even comments indicating a desire to see fitting punishment) at the guilty murderers because we are all sinners as well. And there you have the fruit of it! Churchians will now defend even murderous child abusers against the slightest insult, based solely upon an apocryphal passage added to God’s word. No wonder the Chicoms want to fix that erroneous passage, and prevent any resulting lawlessness that would cause decline in their civilization.
The added passage, when applied, invalidates all law enforcement within Christianity and aids and abets lawlessness.
I myself have always had misgivings about that story of Jesus preventing an adulteress from receiving the earthly penalty of His Father’s law against adultery. She is neither recorded as expressing repentance nor faith. Why would Jesus help her to cuckold her husband, and to deny the cheated husband the justice of the law, and instead condemn the victim to a life he never chose of being bound to an adulteress.
Right about now some Feminist chowder-head churchian is probably already starting to speculate that the husband must have deserved to be cheated on. SMH Seriously! Quit worshipping all whores over God’s laws!
Anyhow, after I expressed my misgivings about the passage here previously, commenter “burnstaicho” pointed out to me that the whole story was not a part of the original inspired Greek New Testament. https://laf443259520.androsphere.net/2019/06/28/horny-housewives-of-the-patristic-age/#comment-1593
(Sorry, but I don’t fall in with the silly “inspired-KJV” dogmatists who think that the King James English translation is somehow God’s only inspired word. I think the KJV is one of the very best English translations, but, it came primarily from Latin manuscripts not directly from the mind of God. Refuting that heresy would be a lengthy post in itself.)
Recently, on another site, when I wrote about the snake-handling, poison-drinking, passage (Mark 16:9-20) that it was also not in the original manuscripts, I got warned that I was likely arousing disbelief among “seekers” by questioning the use of passages we know were later added to the inspired New Testament books. FWIW Mark 16:9-20 seems to have been added in to the New Testament a little bit earlier than John 7:53–8:11, and so even its apocryphal provenance is less dubious than the whore story. But is it really those of us who don’t want spurious and faulty passages kept in the Bible, and taught as inspired truth, who end up discrediting God’s word? We are told elsewhere in the Bible neither to add nor take away from God’s words. Would God have bothered to tell that to us Bible readers if nobody was ever going to effectively try to add or take away from His words? Shouldn’t we be zealous in removing the human-concocted doctrines added by the Great Whore of Rome? If you study the history of the New Testament you’ll see that a few other apocryphal bits that were added to the New Testament have already been removed from most current Bibles.
(If you believe Mark 16:9-20, then get your clot-shot, because believers are supposedly immune to all poisons. /S However I wouldn’t ever recommend risking your future based upon apocryphal additions to the Bible’s known inspired texts.)
The good news is that the Hebrew Old Testament was kept accurately by the Jewish scribes and whenever we find new manuscripts, like the Dead Sea Scrolls, they only further prove the absolute accuracy of the Old Testament’s transcription down through time. Every jot and tittle is the same. Also with all the early manuscripts we have of the Greek New Testament and early translations from around the ancient world we can clearly tell what the original writing’s did say with great certainty. Any serious arguments over alternate wordings are seemingly only related to the very few pieces of later added wording where whoever was adding these apocryphal additions to the original text was also often taking liberties with where they added it and how it was worded. The best way to honor God’s word is to not allow these couple of clearly apocryphal additions to remain in it, nor to try to change or ignore any of the original text due to being ashamed of it or disliking it.
You can do your own research about how the Pericope Adulterae was first added into various Latin Gospels hundreds of years after the apostles were gone, and how it didn’t likely even originate from Greek text like the rest of the inspired New Testament did. There are enablers of lawlessness who defend this passage not being included in any of the earliest manuscripts, but unbiased Biblical scholars have concluded that the Pericope Adulterae is an apocryphal addition to the original text added hundreds of years later and first added into Latin manuscripts and then later added into Greek manuscripts. It kills the law of God that Jesus came to do and uphold:
Matthew 5:17 Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them.
It has always been clear to me that the Pericope Adulterae trashes our heavenly Father’s law and abnegates discipline within the church leading us to today’s lawless churches. Once I found out the passage wasn’t even part of the original Greek Gospel of John, it didn’t take me long to have a zeal to see it removed again, to the glory of my Christ who certainly would not have assisted in violating His Father’s law to keep the cheated husband of an adulteress bound in a cuckolded state. Jesus came to free us from our bondage to sin, not to empower us to sin. Abnegating the enforcement of God’s laws and church discipline will get many unsuspecting churchians cast into hell.
Matthew 7:22 Many will say to Me in that day, ‘Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Your name, cast out demons in Your name, and done many wonders in Your name?’ 23 And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness!’
Just as Han van Meegeren’s poorly painted “Vermeers” were a stain on the beautiful work of Johannes Vermeer until they were discredited and no longer attributed to Vermeer, so also any uninspired passages added to the Bible will only be a stain on the word of God until they are removed and we stop their enabling of lawlessness.
For those who want a second opinion from a New Testament scholar who likes the Pericope Adulterae:
https://bible.org/article/my-favorite-passage-thats-not-bible
I myself have always had misgivings about that story of Jesus preventing an adulteress from receiving the earthly penalty of His Father’s law against adultery. She is neither recorded as expressing repentance nor faith.
That’s an excellent point! The fact that the tale at no point indicates any form of contrition or repentance on the part of the adulteress makes Jesus’s forgiveness of her completely at odds with His treatment of other unrepentant souls in other parts of the Gospels. That was a VERY careless act of omission on the part of the forgers, although at the time the fact that literacy (and thus critical analysis of Scripture among the masses) wasn’t exactly widespread must have aided them in making it stick.
Of course even if it were ultimately to be proved beyond any reasonable doubt that the Pericope Adulterae is an apocryphal forgery, it would make no difference to churchians. Since churchianity is all about making God and His Son palatable to worldly people, there is no more perfect tool for this than the Pericope Adulterae. Indeed, even ostensible Bible “purists” of the non-churchian persuasion will reject the idea of its apocryphal nature, no matter how overwhelming the evidence for it, because of the need to save face. To admit that a key piece of Scripture is actually apocryphal represents a profound embarrassment that they’ll have an impossible time surmounting.
I saw a videoclip where a Biblical scholar was discussing the Pericope Adulterae and he said that he had asked many people if they had to remove only one of the two apocryphal passages, John 7:53–8:11 or Mark 16:9-20, which would they remove. Most said they’d remove the Mark passage even though the apocryphal passage in John was added far later and it is far more easy to prove that it wasn’t in any of the original Gospels. Their reasoning for that counter-intellectual decision usually being that they just really liked the story of Jesus freeing the adulteress.
I imagine some folks may think that if Jesus forgave an adulteress with no punishment for her capital crime, then by all means He will have to accept me and my lesser sins. Or perhaps they just think it makes Jesus out to be such a “nice” White-Knight. Or inwardly they like a story which shows Jesus allowing female sexuality to reign above the law of God, just like their churches all tacitly allow. Either way it is telling, that even today with easily accessible proof that the Pericope Adulterae was not in any of the early Gospel manuscripts, even people who know it to be apocryphal still like having the adulteress-enabling tale in their Bibles. SMH
I personally don’t see the corruption of the inspired Bible, by a couple of apocryphal texts being added in, as some innocent mistake. Satan would like to promote lawlessness and keep the church from exercising judgement and enforcing righteous rules within itself.
1 Corinthians 5:12 For what have I to do to judge them also that are without? do not ye judge them that are within? 13 But them that are without God judgeth. Therefore put away from among yourselves that wicked person.
6:1 Dare any of you, having a matter against another, go to law before the unjust, and not before the saints? 2 Do ye not know that the saints shall judge the world? and if the world shall be judged by you, are ye unworthy to judge the smallest matters? 3 Know ye not that we shall judge angels? how much more things that pertain to this life?
Saying that only the sinless can enforce God’s laws on earth, is an ignorant judgement, and it makes all prior human enforcement of God’s laws wrongfully executed, and it in fact abolishes the law given through Moses, which called for (sinful) people to stone those who were guilty of adultery. Did God the Father send Christ the Son to contradict the laws He had laid down? Is Christ a promoter of lawlessness? No! That’s the Antichrist who promotes lawlessness:
2 Thessalonians 2:3(RSV) Let no one deceive you in any way; for that day will not come, unless the rebellion comes first, and the man of lawlessness is revealed, the son of perdition,
Christ did not come to rule out all human enforcement of His Father’s law and thereby promote lawlessness. The Antichrist is the promoter of lawlessness. And churches which won’t exercise judgement concerning those within and won’t enforce God’s laws within their congregations are those who practice lawlessness, and Christ will tell their leaders and followers to depart into eternal torment when they are judged.
2 Corinthians 6:17 Wherefore come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing; and I will receive you.
Satan would like to promote lawlessness and keep the church from exercising judgement and enforcing righteous rules within itself.
As we all can see, he’s mostly succeeded in this, at least in the Western world. How many “churches” exercise any kind of discipline at all over their bodies? The answer is “none,” because, as we here are all aware, they are not churches, but money-changing whores, like the occupants of the Temple whom Jesus drove out with whip in hand. Discipline empties pews, and thus also collection plates, which is why they avoid it at all costs.
@feeriker,
The presumed loss of money and influence is a practical reason why churches abandon the church discipline that Jesus Christ called for in Matthew 18:15-17. And it is my contention that the apocryphal Pericope Adulterae (John 7:53–8:11) was adopted to provide a twisted bit of “moral authority” or moral-cover excusing hirelings from their negligence and cowardice. The apocryphal passage gives everyone, most especially church leaders, the excuse they need to pimp Christ’s religion for their own personal gain in accordance with their own greed and lust for fame and power.
Revelation 17:1 Then one of the seven angels with the seven bowls approached me and said, “Come, and I will show you the judgment of the great prostitute who sits enthroned on many waters. 2 The kings of the earth have fornicated with her, and the people of earth are drunk on the wine of her prostitution.”
The citizens of earth are literally drunk on the lust induced juices of their prostitute religion’s desire to compromise herself with the powers of this world. And as the church is taken by force, she does not cry out nor fight back, making her guilty of fornication.
Luke 16:13 “No one can serve two masters. Either you will hate the one and love the other, or you will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money.” 14 The Pharisees, who loved money, heard all this and were sneering at Jesus. 15 He said to them, “You are the ones who justify yourselves in the eyes of others, but God knows your hearts. What people value highly is detestable in God’s sight. 16 “The Law and the Prophets were proclaimed until John. Since that time, the good news of the kingdom of God is being preached, and everyone is forcing their way into it. 17 It is easier for heaven and earth to disappear than for the least stroke of a pen to drop out of the Law.
As mentioned in the post above, the great whore of Rome does not fight back until her prostitute-career of making whoring compromises, with this world’s influencers, through adding to and subverting the true words of her betrothed Jesus Christ is threatened. And all our churches today have inherited this line of work from their mother whom they were born from, the Mother of Harlots. They preach the great whore’s same old licentiousness as their own new “gospel” and practice her fornication.(becoming one with the lawlessness of this world)
Don’t get drunk on the wine of your churches fornication, that same old fermented “lusting after the lawless ways of the world” cunt-juice that the Great whore intoxicated her daughter churches with. And don’t forget that the great whore herself is drunk on the blood of the faithful saints she martyred, who spoke out against her harlotries down through history. Abstain from drinking that slippery lubrication that enables the Mother of Harlot’s daughter churches to fornicate with the prince of this world and get plowed with his seed of lawlessness and self-justification.
Proverbs 30:20 Such is the way of an adulterous woman; she eateth(literally: takes it in), and wipeth her mouth(literally: opening, e.g. the “mouth” of a cave), and saith, I have done no wickedness.
Whores are shameless because they self-justify their wickedness as love or as a community service.
Ezekiel 16:32 You unfaithful wife! You desire strangers instead of your husband.
God’s betrothed church is largely unfaithful, whoring/fornicating, because they desire licentiousness and the many things of this world instead of desiring to obey God’s commands and follow in God’s righteous way. That is why the great whore and her lawless daughter churches will wipe themselves with the Pericope Adulterae and then claim they have done no wickedness.
First, great take on that text. I knew it wasn’t in the originals and is often used to prop up bad theology, but never researched how it got in there.
I’ve been in two churches that exercised church discipline, and it is a beautiful thing. One victim of an umbilical divorce really appreciated the elders standing up for her. Another guy seemed pleased that the church was going to kick his wife out if she didn’t stop with her plans for an unbiblical divorce.
My current church fired the women’s director for an affair that occurred many years prior (she was employed there at the time). The Churchians would have wanted complete absolution, especially given the timing, but the pastor said that going a long time without getting caught doesn’t absolve someone. Good for him! If only more churches did this. It turns out that doing what Jesus commanded in Matthew 18 actually works. Who knew?!
LOL just saw that typo — obviously meant unbiblical and not umbilical! Stupid autocorrect [said in a Homer Simpson voice]
This scholar claims Augustine said the story was left out because of concerns similar to yours: That wives may take it as permission.
https://purelypresbyterian.com/2016/12/01/defense-of-the-pericope-adulterae/
Jasper,
After reading through that lengthy defense of the “Pericope Adulterae”(John 7:53–8:11) I am even more certain that the passage is not original, but an apocryphal addition to the Gospel of John. The author’s oft repeated argument seems to be that the absence of something proves nothing. e.g. it proves nothing that:
it wasn’t ever in any early manuscript nor was there any space left for it to have ever been there.
it wasn’t ever addressed in any early complete commentary of the Gospel some of which went verse by verse.
It wasn’t ever mentioned in any existing early writing, of which we have quite a lot of writings covering everything else.
It was omitted in all early liturgies taken directly from the gospel.
Having read so much solid proof that the “Pericope Adulterae” is an apocryphal addition, reading such a feeble defense that grasps at straws, and depends on fallible church traditions, served to assure me that there really is no reason to doubt the many early manuscripts that are now readily available to easily be examined on the internet. Back before the “information age” it may have been difficult for anyone to examine all the early manuscripts locked away at various locations, and so it was quite possible for this error of the church to have gone uncorrected. But to keep up this argument that the “Pericope Adulterae” was original, now requires one to ignore all the early Gospels that we do have available to us, and instead to stick with the opinions of later church fathers with far more limited resources available to them.
When the “Pericope Adulterae” did first appear, it appeared as a note added onto the margins of Latin gospels which had not been included in their original text. It wasn’t until even a few hundred years after that, when it first began to be added into Greek manuscripts. Also when the text was first added it was added in at various different spots and the added text itself was quite varied, as though there was no true original text nor location. Its authenticity was debated by the church from the moment it appeared, which is another clear sign of its illegitimacy.
The author’s favored medieval church theory that the “Pericope Adulterae” was once original but was taken back out by later church fathers who didn’t like the passage, is now clearly able to be seen as false by viewing the many early manuscripts which have been found written as a continuous scroll without the passage anywhere, nor any place where it could have been.
At this point to continue to claim that the “Pericope Adulterae” was original, is only a testament to how badly some people want that apocryphal story to be true. Their religion of lawlessness doesn’t work as well without such easy grace for whores and a Christ who will assist them in cuckolding their husbands. Their neo-ancient religion of placing the free exercise of female sexuality (fertility goddess cultism) above the absolute law of God, is hindered by their only scriptural justification being shown to be a fraudulent addition to the original Gospel. If the church has ever had a consistent motive to change the Bible, it has usually been to allow sin, to sell indulgences, to hit the “easy” button, and to ignore Christ’s requirement of denying ourselves and picking back up our cross and bearing it daily.(Luke 9:23)
And humorously the very first possible mention of the “Pericope Adulterae” which was most likely referring to an entirely different story, which is given by so many people as “proof”, was when a somewhat unreliable Eusebius wrote that Papias (whom Eusebius claimed was stupid, foolish, lacking discernment, and was a collector of fables) had “expounded another story about a woman who was accused before the Lord of many sins, which the Gospel according to the Hebrews contains.” That woman was accused of many sins, not solely adultery, we don’t know how that story went, and the “Gospel according to the Hebrews” was likely referring to an apocryphal gospel. That’s their proof! Ignore all the early Greek Gospel manuscripts, and instead go with that as “proof” of the inspired accuracy of this belated story of Christian cuckoldry that originated first as a marginal addition in later Latin manuscripts. /S
Anyhow, It would be extremely foolish to allow any Christian teaching derived from such a questionable tale of lawlessness. Where else in the Bible did Christ the Son break His Father’s law, which He came to fulfill? When the Jews accused Jesus of breaking the Sabbath Christ showed that the Jews were wrong not that God’s law was wrong. Jesus healed on the Sabbath and the disciples plucked some grain and ate it on the Sabbath to point out the Jews hypocrisy of denying good things to God’s people on God’s day of rest and celebration. God’s Sabbath wasn’t to be a day of imprisonment. Nor will our eternal rest be a time of denial for the righteous. Christ came to do/accomplish His Father’s law not to overturn His Father’s holy Law. Repentant Zacchaeus vowed to pay back fourfold in accordance with the Father’s law. Did Jesus gyp him by following the father’s law in his case while letting a whore (who was never recorded as indicating either repentance or faith) off scot-free, in violation of His Father’s law, who would have been due a far greater penalty if that apocryphal story was authentic?
That’s what the apocryphal story teaches, That Jesus arbitrarily sidestepped His Father’s seventh commandment to help a faithless adulteress cuckold her husband with no consequence while other suckers will get burnt eternally in hell for lesser sins. I wonder what she told her husband when she got home? “Sloppy seconds for you sucker! Jesus let me have a freebie! Wanna jam your dick into my real lover’s gunk, Cuckold, or should we wait a few weeks so we can know for certain whose baby it is?” Or did Jesus “miraculously” clean the other man’s semen out? Just askin’? And if Jesus was all-knowing why didn’t he mention the man guilty of adultery with her. Did he get forgiven too? It’d be kind of sexist if Jesus only forgave the adulteress, don’t you think? That story doesn’t answer questions it just brings God’s holy law into question which brings God and His whole religion into question. The story never set right with me, and it was a great burden lifted when I first heard it was fake and that God who said “He will by no means leave the guilty unpunished” wasn’t just lying to keep the righteous fearful. That one false passage hugely changes the whole religion and violates Christ’s stated purpose of coming to accomplish/fulfill all of God’s law.
For what it’s worth the snake handling baloney in the longer ending of Mark (Mark 16:9-20) was introduced earlier than the “Pericope Adulterae”. I don’t think men should add to the scriptures. Why should we leave their now obvious additions in there polluting the word of God?
What translation of the Bible should we use then? The conclusion is inescapable that our Bibles can’t be trusted. An internet search yields many examples of Scriptures that aren’t in all the original documents.
Jasper,
God inspired the books of the New Testament as they were originally written. No English translation is an inspired substitute for the original inspired words of God. If you take what the earliest manuscripts say in agreement, you can be assured that is what God said through the apostles. The later added passages, which are now quite obvious, should not be allowed to remain polluting God’s inspired words. The inescapable conclusion as I see it is that the canonical Bible, including the New Testament, can be trusted, unless you allow known additions to be interjected into the original text. We just need to remove and disregard the few little bits that men have later added contrary to God’s own instructions.
For what it is worth, a few hundred years ago there were even more apocryphal additions in English New Testament translations, but some of the most obvious additions have already been removed from our current English translations. No doubt there were once folks that foolishly wanted to retain those apocryphal additions too.
As far as translations, there are many good ones, and many not so good ones. The King James Bible is excellent, but no translation is inspired, as some seem to think. The King James seems to do a great job of keeping gendered words gendered the same way as they were in the original Biblical languages, which is especially necessary to keep God’s intentions straight when battling the incursion of Feminism into church beliefs.