John's Rewritten Gospel: What Did Scribes Change? (vIDEO)

Welcome to the home of Episode 193 of the Misquoting Jesus Podcast with Bart Ehrman. Below, you can watch the entire episode, read its description, and see links to related resources.

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Visions of the End

episode description

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In this episode, Bart Ehrman and Megan Lewis explore how scribes altered the text of the Gospel of John over centuries of copying, revealing how even the smallest changes could significantly affect interpretation and theology. Bart explains that while many textual variants are insignificant, some reflect deliberate attempts by scribes to clarify—or reshape—beliefs about Jesus' identity.

The discussion examines several notable examples, including John 1:18, where a single-letter difference changes whether Jesus is described as the "unique Son" or the "unique God," and other passages where scribes appear to emphasize either Jesus' divinity or his humanity. Bart also explains how scholars use ancient manuscripts, early translations, and quotations from Church Fathers to reconstruct John's earliest attainable text despite the loss of the original manuscripts.

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The episode concludes with one of the New Testament's most famous textual additions: the story of the woman caught in adultery ("Let the one without sin cast the first stone"). Bart outlines the overwhelming evidence that this passage was not originally part of John's Gospel, discusses how it likely entered the text through a marginal note copied into later manuscripts, and considers the theological question of whether a passage can be regarded as Scripture despite not being part of the original Gospel.

Throughout the conversation, Bart highlights why textual criticism matters, showing that careful attention to even the smallest manuscript differences helps scholars better understand what the authors of the New Testament originally wrote—and how later generations of scribes influenced the text Christians read today.