<P> On the other hand, a number of scholars have strongly defended the Johannine authorship of these verses . This group of critics is typified by such scholars as Nolan (1865), and Burgon (1886), and Hoskier (1920). More recently it has been defended by O.T. Fuller (1978), and is included in the Greek New Testaments compiled by Wilbur Pickering (1980 / 2014), Hodges & Farstad (1982 / 1985), and Robinson & Pierpont (2005). Rather than endorsing Augustine's theory that some men had removed the passage due to a concern that it would be used by their wives as a pretense to commit adultery, Burgon proposed (but did not develop in detail) a theory that the passage had been lost due to a misunderstanding of a feature in the lection - system of the early church . </P> <P> The theory that the passage was original, but was lost due to its treatment in an early lection - cycle, explains not only its absence from some manuscripts, but also its appearance in the f - 1 (Caesarean) group of manuscripts at the end of John, and its appearance in the f - 13 group after Luke 21: 38 . The same mechanism accounts for the movement of the passage, in a smattering of manuscripts, to precede John 7: 37, and (in a few others) to follow John 8: 12 . </P> <P> One form of this theory is that at a very early date, an annual lection - cycle was developed for the major feast - days; in this lection - cycle, a specific segment of the Gospel of John was assigned to be read at Pentecost (which was celebrated by the Christian church from its beginning, having been adopted from Judaism): John 7: 37 - 52, plus 8: 12 (in order to close the reading on a positive note). This is still the form of the lection for Pentecost in the Byzantine lectionary - cycle, attested in hundreds of copies . In an early copy used by a lector (the person designated to read Scripture in early church - services), marks were added to signify that the reader was to stop at the end of 7: 52, and skip to the beginning of 8: 12 . When a professional copyist, unfamiliar with the lection - cycle, used such a copy as his exemplar, he misunderstood the marks as if they meant that he, the copyist, should skip from the end of 7: 52 to the beginning of 8: 12, and thus the passage was dutifully skipped, and was lost, in a very influential transmission - line . </P> <P> Another form of this theory is that a very early copyist, preparing a Gospels - codex for liturgical use, transplanted the section to the end of John as a practical step, so as to simplify the lector's task on Pentecost (so that the lector would not have to pause to find the final portion of the lection), and after the section was thus transplanted, it dropped out altogether from the Alexandrian transmission - line which is represented by the oldest manuscripts, and from related branches (including one which later yielded, or influenced, the Syriac Peshitta). </P>

The woman caught in the act of adultery in the bible