The Patmos Family of New Testament MSS and Its Allies in the Pericope of the Adulteress and Beyond

In English This article examines the genetic relationships among 34 MSS suspected of being related because of a peculiar shared reading in John 8:8b-9a: "he wrote on the ground the sins of each..." A quantitative analysis detected several independent families, including new family P members and a dozen MSS forming "family Patmos/M;" this family, in turn, includes the original Patmos family discovered by Silva New in 1932. The results show that whereas there may be overlap, the history of readings is not synonymous with the history of MSS. The more genetically significant a reading, the more potential it has to affect unrelated MSS.