John 7:53-8:11, the woman caught in adultery
Whether the woman caught in adultery belongs to John is disputed: the earliest witnesses omit the story, while the Byzantine tradition includes it. The APB keeps the passage in brackets.
The APB text at this verse
The manuscripts, editions, and versions
The committee record at this verse
The APB is translated by a committee of language models that works blind. The translators are never told they are translating the Bible, never given a book name or a verse number, and never shown the witnesses listed above. Where the manuscripts disagree, the choice between readings is made before translation by the same kind of translator working the same way: it sees the competing readings and the witnesses by age and class, but never a reference or a manuscript name. There are 14,877 such places. For APB 4.0 every one was decided again in October 2026. GPT-6.1 Sol decided every one first. Claude Fable 5.1, from another model family, decided 2,483 of them second, including every place where the first translator left the base text. A departure from the base text needs both translators to agree and the first to be at least 0.8 confident. There is no third translator, so the base text stands when the two disagree. APB 4.0 is translated over those decisions. Whatever was done at this verse was done on the language and the evidence alone, and the record is public.
John 7:53-8:11: set in brackets as a disputed passage, wording kept.
“The base text reads ἐγείρεται. The copies also carry ἐγηγέρται [later majority tradition], ἐγείρεται 7:53,8:11 : 53 καὶ ἐπορεύθη ἕκαστος εἰς τὸν οἶκον … οὖν τί λέγεις [later majority tradition], 6 τοῦτο δὲ ἔλεγον πειράζοντες αὐτόν, ἵνα ἔχωσιν κατηγορεῖν αὐτοῦ. … οἱ κατήγοροί σου [later majority tradition], Οὐδείς σε κατέκρινεν [later majority tradition], 11 ἡ δὲ εἶπεν· Οὐδείς, κύριε. εἶπεν δὲ ὁ Ἰησοῦς· Οὐδὲ ἐγώ σε κρίνω· πορεύου καὶ μηκέτι ἁμάρτανε. [later majority tradition]; the committee kept the base text. The present tense verb alone is the early wording. The long story that follows in the later copies is absent from every early witness listed here and is not part of the original text at this point.”
“The base text reads ἐγείρεται. The copies also carry the omission [greek papyrus; later majority tradition]; the committee kept the base text. The present tense verb in final position is original.”
“The base text reads ἐκ τῆς Γαλιλαίας προφήτης. The copies also carry προφήτης ἐκ τῆς Γαλιλαίας [greek majuscule; greek papyrus; later majority tradition]; the committee kept the base text. Retain the default provisionally on its additional early support.”
“This passage is not in the earliest copies of the text. The committee judged it a later addition and keeps it in brackets rather than removing it. The passage is absent from the earliest and most independent copies and is best read as a later insertion.”
The APB 4.0 committee set John 7:53-8:11 in brackets as a disputed passage and kept its wording. Its note states: "The committee judged it a later addition and keeps it in brackets rather than removing it." The translators were GPT-6.1 Sol (OpenAI) in the first seat and Claude Fable 5.1 (Anthropic) in the second seat. The printed text shows this treatment at John 7:53: "[And each went to his home.]"
The argument for each reading
If it is a later insertion
The case for reading A rests on the story’s absence from the earliest witnesses. Papyri 66 & 75, Sinaiticus, and Vaticanus do not have the passage. Nestle-Aland 28 likewise presents the text with the surrounding narrative joined directly, and the critical editions do not carry the story as original text. Its changing position in later manuscripts adds a further question about its place in John. Together, absence and movement support the case for a later insertion without settling the story’s historical value.
If the story belongs to John
The case for reading B rests on the story’s place in the Byzantine tradition. Robinson-Pierpont Byzantine Textform includes the passage as Scripture at the location familiar from English Bibles. This gives inclusion a concrete basis in the manuscript tradition represented by that edition. Keeping the story preserves the encounter with the accused woman, Jesus’ challenge to her accusers, and his closing instruction to her. That support establishes a tradition of inclusion, although it does not resolve the difficulty posed by the earliest witnesses’ absence of the passage.
The witnesses leave questions about how the story entered the textual tradition and why its position varies. Its absence from early copies and its inclusion in the Byzantine tradition bear on its place in John. Those facts do not establish whether the encounter happened. The variant changes whether this scene belongs to the continuous narrative; doctrines concerning mercy, sin, and judgment rest on many passages.
Related entries
Witness readings for critical editions are quoted from the SBLGNT apparatus (CC BY 4.0); Hebrew text from the Westminster Leningrad Codex (Open Scriptures Hebrew Bible). Readings of ancient manuscripts and versions are cited from the sources linked above.