Did John 8:1-11 really happen?

[Jesus4Life]

In the Gospel of John, chapter 8, verses 1-11, it describes Jesus as letting a young adulteress go free without punishment, and he tells to to Go and sin no more. This scene is very well illustrated in the 1977 miniseries, Jesus of Nazareth. Most scholars, however, agree that this passage was not in the original manuscript, but rather, was added years later to John's gospel. Given these facts, is there any reason why we should take this story as historical?

[lapwing]

The gospels are not exhaustive accounts of Jesus' life or even his ministry.

Jesus did many other things as well. If every one of them were written down, I suppose that even the whole world would not have room for the books that would be written. Jn 21:25

So all one can say is that this pericope does not apppear in the Greek Sinaiticus and Vaticanus and appears first in the Gk/Latin codex Bezae. I don't think it is possible to say why that is but the pericope must have existed before being included in Bezae. The story certainly fits in with the gospel portrayal of Jesus.

[VictoryinChrist]

I see no reason to doubt it... Scholars will doubt anything that makes Jesus more than a man.

[Biep]

The language seems Lucan, and Luke has filled his gospel to the brim  - the maximum length of a scroll.
Quite possibly this was a bit left out by him, but not thrown away.  Some old manuscripts have it after Luke.
It definitely doesn't belong in its current place, where it breaks another story in two.

[jayceeii]

And his soul sicken'd! he curs'd
Both sons & daughters: for he saw
That no flesh nor spirit could keep
His iron laws one moment.

Adultery is a worse crime than it appears at first, because the individual who can engage in it exhibits severe limitations in perception and love power. It was not Jesus’ role to accuse man, but to uplift man where he stood—but also without offering any challenges.

In this case, a perfect race would never have a single divorce, since every individual would without fail find the exact right one for him or her, and be able to perceive that to be with the wrong one would be like trying to jam a size twelve foot into a size three shoe. The way to attempt this if you are not already perfect, is to plan on taking years to search for and identify the one beloved. If Jesus respected man He would have said this.