Do I understand correctly that this description first 
appears in a Greek
mss?

-- Yes, and Jerome translated it into the Vulgate.  It is 
in the Codex Bezae (5th Cent.), which contains both Greek 
and Latin texts (i.e. the pericope is rather closely tied 
to Latin texts, despite early authors and texts referring 
to it as present in Greek mss.).

[It is not in the other two great authorities, Codices 
Vaticanus and Sinaiticus.  (More complexly, some texts 
seem to have somewhat standardized diacritical marks 
showing it as having been part of some text or authority 
at this point (ca. Jn. 8:1) but not copied into the 
present ones; Codex Vaticanus is I guess the most 
important of these.  In my RSV, 1948, the passage is in 
printed at the bottom of the page in italics.  The 3rd 
edn. of the New Oxford Annotated Bible [2001], with NRSV, 
keeps it in the text, but cautions the reader in the note: 
"This episode is not found in the most authoritative 
manuscripts."  To which it could perhaps be safely added, 
"And yet the story of such an encounter seems to be known 
to and referred to, in some version or another, by some 
Christian authors contemporary with early mss.") 
 Augustine (writing about conjugal adultery) believes it 
belongs to scripture.]

On Sat, 14 Apr 2012 00:44:00 +0300
  Julia Staykova <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> Dear James,
> 
> Jesus writing with his finger on the ground reminds me 
>of the ancient Greek
> symposium, with its distinctly oral method of 
>instruction. Do I understand
> correctly that this description first appears in a Greek 
>mss?
> 
> J
> 
> On 13 April 2012 22:17, James C. Nohrnberg 
><[log in to unmask]>wrote:
> 
>> On double reading (or silent vs. aural-vocal) I forgot 
>>to mention John
>> 7:53-8:11, the pericope of the woman taken in adultery 
>>(the canonicity of
>> which has proved debatable--the incident is known to 
>>early tradition, but
>> not to the earliest mss.).  Jesus on occasion speaks in 
>>parables that are
>> also riddles, but this seems to be the one case in which 
>>he resorts to
>> writing--writing what may be a riddle:
>>
>> Jesus bent down and wrote with his finger on the ground 
>>[AV adds: "as
>> though he heard them not"--his questioners' and their 
>>enquiry].  And as
>> they continued to ask him [about how to judge & dispose 
>>of the sinful woman
>> under Mosaic criminal law], he stood up and said to 
>>them, "let him who is
>> without sin among you be the first to throw a stone at 
>>her."  And once more
>> he bent down and wrote with his finger on the ground. 
>> But when they heard
>> it [akouo], [AV adds: "being convicted by their own 
>>conscience"], they went
>> away, ...  (RSV Jn. 8:6-9)
>>
>> Neither dumb nor illiterate, the scribes and Pharisees 
>>here nonetheless
>> seem at first neither to readily comprehend what Jesus 
>>has written, nor to
>> really hear what he has said or is saying.  After he 
>>re-writes his message,
>> they then appear to get their hearing back, as if they 
>>now heard his
>> handwriting, or as if they heard what he said only after 
>>they had read it,
>> or--more to the point in view of the present 
>>discussion--read it aloud, or
>> given it audition.
>>
>>    On Fri, 13 Apr 2012 08:11:59 -0400
>>  Hannibal Hamlin <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>>
>>> Wonderful and useful responses from everyone. Thank you. 
>>>Clearly, silent
>>> reading was known and practiced long before the 18th c., 
>>>though, as some
>>> of
>>> you point out, many of these anecdotes indicate the 
>>>exceptionality of the
>>> practice. Probably one can't go much further in 
>>>determining the general
>>> practice, given the anecdotal nature of the evidence. I 
>>>wonder about the
>>> arguments based on the nature of early mss. It's 
>>>difficult to say
>>> conclusively how certain textual phenomena were 
>>>perceived by those who
>>> were
>>> used only to them, rather than to our own conventions 
>>>(caps, spaces,
>>> etc.).
>>> I think of arguments about Roman versus Black Letter 
>>>type, for instance.
>>> There used to be an assumption that the Roman type 
>>>Geneva Bibles were an
>>> advanced in terms of accessibility, since that font was 
>>>so much easier to
>>> read. But this is only our own bias. It seems, in fact, 
>>>that in
>>> sixteenth-century England it was actually the Black 
>>>Letter that was
>>> familiar and more accessible.
>>>
>>> As for Julia's suggestions, I'm not sure about the 
>>>argument re. devotional
>>> reading. In the Book of Common Prayer, any prayers, 
>>>responses, and such to
>>> be read by the congregation would have been read aloud, 
>>>and boldly (or at
>>> least not muttered). There were prayers and other 
>>>liturgical bits read by
>>> the priest, and anyone with a copy of the BCP could 
>>>follow along, and
>>> perhaps mutter to him- or herself, but did they? I'm 
>>>guessing not, based
>>> on
>>> practice today. Back then, too, many (most?) in the 
>>>congregation would not
>>> have had a copy to follow, since churches did not 
>>>provide service books
>>> for
>>> congregants to the extent they do today. For many, the 
>>>liturgy must have
>>> been a purely oral/aural experience.
>>>
>>> I love Jim's suggestion of double-reading. Food for 
>>>thought.
>>>
>>> Perhaps the better question than, "when did silent 
>>>reading begin?", is
>>> when
>>> did reading aloud stop? Never, of course. I have a 
>>>friend, a senior
>>> scholar, who regularly reads novels of an evening 
>>>together with his wife,
>>> aloud. I remember a friend from earlier years telling me 
>>>of his family
>>> reading Dickens together, a practice that must have been 
>>>a hangover from
>>> the nineteenth century. But these are once again 
>>>anecdotes of exceptional
>>> behaviour. Modern reading rooms are, as you say, silent 
>>>(except for the
>>> clacking of laptop keyboards, the contemporary version 
>>>of Jim's
>>> typewriters). Does anyone read aloud from a computer 
>>>screen?
>>>
>>> Thanks again.
>>>
>>> Hannibal
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> On Thu, Apr 12, 2012 at 6:17 AM, Julia Staykova 
>>><[log in to unmask]
>>> >**wrote:
>>>
>>>  In *The House of Fame*, the eagle describes Chaucer as 
>>>a silent reader:
>>>>
>>>> Thou goost home to thy house anoon,
>>>> And, also dombe as any stoon,
>>>> Thou sittest at another booke (II: 655-7)
>>>>
>>>> The caricature spirit of the larger passage implies that 
>>>>'sitting dumb as
>>>> a stone' at a book was unusual. When Augustine describes 
>>>>in the
>>>> Confessions
>>>> VI, 3 that Ambrose was reading without moving his lips, 
>>>>he views it as
>>>> highly peculiar. He conjectures that Amrbose was trying 
>>>>to avoid
>>>> intrusions
>>>> from students, always hovering around his room, asking 
>>>>him to interpret
>>>> what he was reading. He was the imperial rhetorician of 
>>>>Milan at the time
>>>> (384 AD), and himself a practiced reader.
>>>>
>>>> Another anecdote from Plutarch is about Alexander, who 
>>>>read a letter from
>>>> his mother silently, to the bewilderment of his 
>>>>soldiers. However, this,
>>>> like Caesar reading a letter from Cato's sister, are in 
>>>>the context of
>>>> exception. Perhaps those few who could read silently did 
>>>>it to avoid
>>>> being
>>>> overheard?
>>>>
>>>> In the Middle Ages, for as long as the practice of 
>>>>*scriptura continua
>>>> *lasted,
>>>> silent reading must have been unusual: imagine reading 
>>>>aloud when all the
>>>> words are collapsed into one... In early modernity, the 
>>>>statistical
>>>> majority of reading must have been devotional. Intoning 
>>>>the words from
>>>> the
>>>> page, or at least muttering to oneself, makes better 
>>>>sense than reading
>>>> psalms and prayers in complete silence as a gesture of 
>>>>devotion.
>>>>
>>>> Julia
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>
>>> --
>>> Hannibal Hamlin
>>> Associate Professor of English
>>> Editor, *Reformation*
>>> Co-curator, *Manifold Greatness: The Creation and 
>>>Afterlife of the King
>>> James Bible*
>>> http://www.manifoldgreatness.**org/ 
>>><http://www.manifoldgreatness.org/>
>>> The Ohio State University
>>> 164 West 17th Ave., 421 Denney Hall
>>> Columbus, OH 43210-1340
>>> [log in to unmask]
>>> [log in to unmask]
>>>
>>
>> [log in to unmask]
>> James Nohrnberg
>> Dept. of English, Bryan Hall 219
>> Univ. of Virginia
>> P.O Box 400121
>> Charlottesville, VA 22904-4121
>>

[log in to unmask]
James Nohrnberg
Dept. of English, Bryan Hall 219
Univ. of Virginia
P.O Box 400121
Charlottesville, VA 22904-4121