16. Many changes to the Bible were made before it was the Bible
Whether one believes that CERN is supernaturally changing the text of the Bible is immaterial when considering the changes made to the ancient source documents. Studies of the Greek documents from the first millennia demonstrate that numerous changes were made over the centuries. When documents were copied laboriously by hand changes of punctuation and errors of omission were all but inevitable. But changes of addition – the insertion of entirely new verses – were not. They were instead placed in the existing text as editorial or creative additions by unknown authors, forever changing the content of the Bible, many of them centuries before the first editions in the English language. An example of one such addition is present in the Gospel of John.
Copies of the Gospel of John, in Greek, reveal that for its first three centuries in existence there was no mention of the tale of Jesus confronting a crowd about to exact justice upon an adulteress by stoning her. In the story Jesus challenges the crowd, telling them for the one among them, if any, initiating the punishment by casting the first stone. When the crowd disperses Jesus too tells the woman that he will not condemn her. The story is among the most famous verses of the Bible. But it wasn’t in the earliest copies of John’s gospel, appearing more than three hundred years afterward, an insertion by a later copyist. In subsequent ancient texts in Greek, the story appears in a variety of places other than that where it can be currently found, John 7:53 – 8:11.