(53) The section which follows (John 7:53 to John 8:11) is one of the most striking instances of an undoubted addition to the original text of the Gospel narratives. We shall find reason to believe that it belongs to the Apostolic age, and preserves to us the record of an incident in the life of our Lord, but that it has not come to us from the pen of St. John. (Comp. Excursus B: Some Variations in the Text of St. John's Gospel.) While, therefore, it is printed in the text here, our text being a reprint of the Authorised version, without addition or alteration, the reader will observe that it is an insertion which breaks the order of the discourse, and in working out the line of thought will bear this in mind. And every man went unto his own house.--This is not to be taken, then, as marking the close of the discussion in the Sanhedrin. It joins the inserted section with something which has preceded, but we have no means of judging what this was. Verse 53. - They went every man to his own house. This clause belongs to the pericope of the woman taken in adultery, and is encumbered with the textual and other difficulties involved in that paragraph. The words apply most imperfectly to the preceding narrative, which terminates with a private conversation between Nicodemus and other members of the Sanhedrin, and, at the same time, rather suggest the scattering of the crowd or the return of the pilgrims to Galilee, both of which form a very improbable consequence of ver. 52. "the great sanhedrim sat from the time of the morning daily sacrifice, to the time of the evening daily sacrifice (b):'' and it is said (c), that "after the evening daily sacrifice, the sanhedrim went, "to their own houses";'' as they now did, and not to their booths, the feast of tabernacles being now over. (b) Maimon. Hilchot Sanhedrin, c. 3. sect. 1.((c) Piske Tosephot Sanhedrin, art. 35. |