<P> Almost all modern critical translations include the pericope adulterae at John 7: 53--8: 11 (exceptions being the New English Bible and Revised English Bible, which relocate it after the end of the Gospel); but most others enclose it in brackets, and / or add a footnote mentioning the absence of the passage in the oldest witnesses (NRSV, NJB, NIV, GNT, NASB). </P> <P> Bishop J.B. Lightfoot wrote that absence of the passage from the earliest manuscripts, combined with the occurrence of stylistic characteristics atypical of John, together implied that the passage was an interpolation . Nevertheless, he considered the story to be authentic history . As a result, based on Eusebius' mention that the writings of Papias contained a story "about a woman falsely accused before the Lord of many sins" (H.E. 3.39), he argued that this section originally was part of Papias' Interpretations of the Sayings of the Lord, and included it in his collection of Papias' fragments . Bart D. Ehrman concurs in Misquoting Jesus, adding that the passage contains many words and phrases otherwise alien to John's writing . </P> <P> However, Michael W. Holmes has pointed out that it is not certain "that Papias knew the story in precisely this form, inasmuch as it now appears that at least two independent stories about Jesus and a sinful woman circulated among Christians in the first two centuries of the church, so that the traditional form found in many New Testament manuscripts may well represent a conflation of two independent shorter, earlier versions of the incident ." Kyle R. Hughes has argued that one of these earlier versions is in fact very similar in style, form, and content to the Lukan special material (the so - called "L" source), suggesting that the core of this tradition is in fact rooted in very early Christian (though not Johannine) memory . </P> <P> There is clear reference to the pericope adulterae in the primitive Christian church in the Syriac Didascalia Apostolorum. (II, 24, 6; ed . Funk I, 93 .) Zane C. Hodges and Arthur L. Farstad argue for Johannine authorship of the pericope . They suggest there are points of similarity between the pericope's style and the style of the rest of the gospel . They claim that the details of the encounter fit very well into the context of the surrounding verses . They argue that the pericope's appearance in the majority of manuscripts, if not in the oldest ones, is evidence of its authenticity . </P>

Who is without sin cast the first stone