Textual Criticism: The Experts and the Lay Person
I'm sorry if you really like the story of the woman caught in adultery. My suggestion to you is to instead immerse yourself in Jesus and the woman at the well in John 4. Like it was said, one reason the story has been seen as able to be included is because it contradicts no doctrine and fits alongside Jesus's nature.
You see, when I read the book, Wallace's statement that I have remembered, for many months since whenever I last saw it, really sunk in. "The remarkable thing is you go through his whole book and you say, Where did he actually prove anything? Ehrman didn't prove that any doctrine is jeopardized." (1) (To be fair to Ehrman, I don't think that was his intention, it was more to accurately assess this part of scholarship so important to him than criticize Christianity. And to be fair to you, reader, I have included everything I have recorded which I think could look like they attack core doctrines.)
Wallace said, "Readers end up having far more doubts about what the Bible says than any textual critic today would ever have." (2)
As one might expect, because the story just amazes the reader with how merciful, powerful, and loving Jesus is, there was a significant number of people that "seemed to take the loss personally--and they began to ask what else in their Bible can't be trusted." (3) While most translations, like my 2011 NIV, explicitly say it's not in the earliest manuscripts, this still has flown over people's headers (one reason could be because we humans are capable of hearing what we want to hear). Wallace says what the lack of appearance in our earliest manuscripts suggests should be explicitly stated: the Bible translators don't believe it's authentic. Humorously, he says along with Strobel that we've gotten "a Chicken Little mentality that says, 'Oh my gosh, I never knew that these precious twelve verses aren't authentic--and what else are you not telling me?'" (4)
Strobel brought up the bestselling Holy Blood, Holy Grail, which claims that there is no NT manuscripts dating before the fourth century, and subsequently this played a roll in allowing Jesus to evolve into being called God. After pointing out there are significant examples of copies of the NT dating A.D.299 and back, he points out the early church father Ignatius writing about AD 110 calls Jesus God, then there is "a steady march from Ignatius right through the rest of the patristic writers[.]" (5) For a paragraph on that you can see the last one on the "Textual Criticism: Some Changes in Misquoting Jesus."
Wallace said it is "disturbing" that within the walls of Christian church buildings there is not even a significant majority of those who can, or even are willing to, study the evidence. Pastors need to ensure their congregation is aware and has some knowledge of how we got our Bible(6). The Bible is the word of God, where He reveals to us who He is, who Jesus is -- forgive the redundancy, please, because we are also supposed to forgive because of what Jesus did for us! It didn't fall straight from Heaven into our laps; God's real way of supplying us with it is more than a few small steps from that. We don't even have the original manuscripts! Textual critics have to work hard sifting through all the evidence God has supplied us with.
You see, when I read Misquoting Jesus, my faith was actually strengthened! I think this is because I already had knowledge of the Christian side, and have cultivated a mind attune to critically analyzing books about the Bible. Many Christians I'm sure would have difficulty just finding the time to sit down, slowly read his 200+ page book, and copy over a full piece of paper of page citations and sometimes how they will be used in the post. (That's opposed to just being there to "prime" my memory; that means one thing triggers another thought already in my head).
I am by no means an expert, and could be going too far when I say this, but I doubt I am: I wish where certainty cannot be raised among scholars, the variant was just plainly thrown out instead of copied into English translations. Did Jesus die, as Hebrews 2:9 says, by God's grace or apart from Him? Don't include either, just that He "suffered death, so that He might taste death for everyone." Is Jesus explicitly called angry in Mark 1 or compassionate? I think evidence is strong that he was angry, but there is still considerable debate for the latter. Who really knows, or cares? Leave it out.
The exceptions to this would be things like the insufficiently-evidenced Mark 9:29, where either a certain demon is cast out by prayer alone of fasting has to happen too. While most Christians won't perform an exorcism of any kind, and both activities are ways of showing devotion to God encouraged in the Bible (prayer is necessitated, in places like 1 Thess. 5:17; fasting can be done with pleasures other than food, but remember God wants you to take care of your body), it is best to be on the safe side. Even then, being on the safe side should be explained along with the uncertainty if God inspired this actual teaching or not. This is better than risking elevating inappropriate words with the word of God! I wish the "ending of Mark" and story of the adulterous woman were never copied in the first place, so no one would ever have heard of them (unless they came across someone talking about textual criticism or something, which I cited this this post that it doesn't happen that often), and then God's people wouldn't feel letdown. Even with a 1 Corinthians passage on women (which Evans and a large number of scholars think is original to Paul even if it was a marginalized note[7]), we have the 1 Timothy parallel to deal with(8). What does the great apostasy of young people from the church partly because of the loss of apologetics and the two long stories found in our translations have in common? Both show that God has allowed people to make big errors, and moreover let them slip into the American church body on a wide range.
Will you choose to be a reasonable-minded Christian, acknowledging uncertainty but finding security with all the evidence God has given us?
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