John 8

John 8
← chapter 7 chapter 9 →
John 16:14-22 on the recto side of Papyrus 5, written about AD 250.
Book	Gospel of John
Bible part	New Testament
Order in the Bible part	4
Category	Gospel

John 8 is the eighth chapter in the Gospel of John in the New Testament of the Christian Bible. It continues the account of Jesus' debate with the Pharisees after the Feast of Tabernacles, which began in the previous chapter.

In verse 12, Jesus describes Himself as "the light of the world" and verse 32 contains the well-known teaching "ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free". In verses 56-58 Jesus claims to have pre-existed (or, according to non-Trinitarian interpretations, been foreordained) before Abraham. "Verily, verily, I say unto you, Before Abraham was, I AM".

The New King James Version organises this chapter as follows:

There is dispute over the authenticity of the passage between John 7:53 and 8:11, known as the Pericope adulterae or Pericope de Adultera. It appears in the King James Version but modern English translations note that it is not present in the most reliable early manuscripts of John, and therefore suggest that it is unlikely to have been part of the original text. Until recently, it was not thought that any Greek Church Father had taken note of the passage before the 12th century; but in 1941 a large collection of the writings of Didymus the Blind (ca. 313- 398) was discovered in Egypt, including a reference to the pericope adulterae as being found in "several copies", and it is now considered established that this passage was present in its usual place in some Greek manuscripts known in Alexandria and elsewhere from the 4th century onwards. In support of this it is noted that the 4th century Codex Vaticanus, which was written in Egypt, marks the end of John chapter 7 with an "umlaut", indicating that an alternative reading was known at this point.