Codex Sinaiticus - the white parchment Friderico-Augustanus

Discussion about the New Testament, apocrypha, gnostics, church fathers, Christian origins, historical Jesus or otherwise, etc.
Maestroh
Posts: 169
Joined: Mon Sep 05, 2016 10:03 am

Re: Codex Sinaiticus - the white parchment Friderico-Augusta

Post by Maestroh »

Steven Avery wrote: This shows you the level of Bill Brown's posting.
I said nothing inaccurate so thank you.
Steven Avery wrote: This is a reference to the fact that our group supplied the first known English translation, by employing a professional translator of the Old Slavonian text, of the Porfiry Uspensky words about the manuscript now called Codex Sinaiticus (or Simeonides). Dirk Jongkind thanked us for this translation, and would have liked to have that information when he wrote his book on Codex Sinaiticus. (If I remember, he wrote to me that he had actually made some efforts to find and read the text.)
Part Avery doesn't bother to mention - Uspensky, whom he cites here, dates the manuscript to the fifth century and Jongkind to the fourth. And he also doesn't mention he got called out for getting part of it WRONG on the TC Yahoo group.

Steven Avery wrote: Why was this critical information missing from English-language Sinaiticus scholarship until we did the translation? Good question. We seem to be in the forefront of important Sinaiticus studies these days, and it is becoming rather obvious that Sinaiticus is not a 4th century document. In fact, it is becoming rather obvious that it came forth only in the 1800s.
There's a reason you're posting all this on boards with non-experts and get banned from those who have actually studied this stuff. Hint: it isn't because you've made some great discovery.
Steven Avery wrote: These words from Uspensky, about his visits to St. Catherines, make a major contribution to destroying the Tischendorf conspiracy theory. Tischendorf obviously stole the leaves (see what he wrote his wife) and he craftily invented the "saved from fire" nonsense in 1859. Claiming that he saved the 43 leaves, and more, from fire in 1844. Bridge for sale. Yet the textual books often still quote this as the textual history. The Uspensky account helps dismantle the Tischendorf fabrications. (Uspensky saw the whole manuscript in 1845 and again in 1850.)
None of which proves anything about the date of the MSS.....
Steven Avery wrote: And Uspensky also wrote of seeing a "white parchment" manuscript. Reading this led, step by step, to our discovering that the actual colour and condition of the manuscript sections fully supports the colouring allegations of Kallinikos through Simonides. (One of the many coincidental "called shots".) We even have the BEFORE and AFTER visible today, since 2009. The excerpt of Uspensky in the Russian was originally placed on Wikipedia by an informed Ukrainian scholar. Ironically, without that little Russian section, we may have never searched out and discovered the colour anomalies and tampering.
All these words and still no disclosure of Uspensky seeing it as an ancient MSS. And for those who don't know the story: Avery is intentionally misleading you folks here on his alleged truth quest. At least he NOW admits by saying "Kallinikos through Simonides" that Kallinikos was, in fact, a phantom pen name Simonides used of someone at the monastery. Indeed, Kallinikos was like Zelig - speaking of conspiracy theories - and if we take his nonsense seriously (as Steven Avery Spencer does) then Kallinikos was there and actually SAW Tischendorf steal part of it in 1844, SAW him treat it with lemon juice to make it older, and SAW him steal the rest of it in 1859. Indeed, one wonders why Kallinikos didn't STOP him if his tale is true....

Steven Avery wrote: Bill Brown's writings are consistently on this level, harumph gazoo.
I'm not the one arguing a nonsensical conspiracy theory but REFUSING to come right out and say what I mean. I guess my bluntness is a problem for people who refuse to be honest about what they're saying. Here's what Avery is saying, folks: "I believe that Sinaiticus is a 19th century document foisted on the world by Constantine Simonides, that he used Codex Claromontanus as one of his exemplars, that Tischendorf stole it and was a really bad dude, and that Kallinikos saw every bit of it but didn't inform Simonides for 16 years or more. I also believe - despite Simonides, despite Farrer admitting he was a liar and forger, told the truth about this."

THIS is what he is saying but won't come out and say for the simple reason that the moment someone puts that nonsense together - they'll laugh at him. And he knows this. Hence, all the gyrations and moving here and there to plug up the holes with misleading verbiage.


Steven Avery wrote: So unless he makes a clear, salient argument, or an interesting relevant point, they will be bypassed.
Translation: I cannot answer what Maestroh has been pointing out to me for years so I will pretend (just like he's pretending to do Sinaiticus research, even though he cannot speak Greek, collate manuscripts - but he can tell us how easy it is, read Russian, and has never been in the same room with this manuscript) that nothing is wrong with my argument and blame the other guy.

Welcome to Trump's America, folks.


Steven Avery wrote: Time and energy are precious, and to be used in helpful and edifying research, iron sharpeneth. Think of Shakespeare "Told by ... full of sound and fury,. Signifying nothing."

This forum is generally very helpful, overall it has been the best open discussion spot on the net, so rabbit trails shall be gone. :P
If I had made the irresponsible arguments you have to make this claim, I'd not want to answer for them, either.

For those who do not know: the man is a KJV Onlyist with the motivational fallacy of WANTING this to be fake because he somehow thinks it will vindicate his "precious" KJV. And circular reasoning is the basis for KJV Onlyism anyway so it's not difficult to apply that same fallacy - as is done here - to researching other subjects. As he claims to be part of a research team, why has he continually refused to answer the following questions for two years now. Ask them yourself and you'll realize that there's NOTHING to this SART team but a bunch of guys who don't know what they're talking about.

1) Where did David Daniels train in paleography? (Not answered because Daniels has never trained in it)

2) How does the manuscript coming online in 2009 change Avery's 2011 strongly worded opinion about how if one is just familiar with the details, it's OBVIOUS that it is NOT a 19th century document? (Avery stated on November 20, 2011 - "However, personal I really do not see any mileage in the Simonides -->Sinaiticus position. The obstacles are just too huge. Sometimes issues are, in fact, clear cut."

3) How many of these scholars have ever come down on the side of saying Simonides told the truth and Sinaiticus dates to the 19th century? (Answer he won't give - zero).

4) Does ANY paleographer in the world date Sinaiticus to the 19th century?

Note: if the answer we get is that not every paleographer has ever seen it to make such a judgment, I remind the audience that Mr Avery has never seen it to make such a judgment, either.

5) Who made the accusation that the manuscript was darkened - and is there any evidence he: a) not only existed but; b) wrote the letter?

6) Where did Steven Avery study 'forensic history?' correct answer: nowhere.

7) How much study of paleography have you (note: Steven Avery) ever done? (correct answer: none)

8) Does your source Brent Nongbri have ANY papyri that he thinks are dated wrongly by 1500 years? (having emailed Dr Nongbri - who has stated he sees NO REASON to discount the 4th century date of Aleph - I humbly await the answer to this one).

9) How many Greek MSS has Steven Avery actually handled? (correct answer? zero)

10) How are they to be handled? as in 'what precautions are necessary?'

11) How many Greek MSS has Steven Avery read? (correct answer: zero, because he cannot read Greek)

12) How many Greek manuscripts has Steven Avery photographed? (answer: zero)

13) How is the lighting to be set? (Note: I worked with Dan Wallace at CSNTM as an intern for a year....hence, I know the right answer to this one, let's just see if the myth making apologists do).

14) How long did it take you to take the photographs?

15) Can you, Steven Avery, READ Sinaiticus? (correct answer - no).

16) Do you have ANY EXPERIENCE with photographing manuscripts?

17) Do any of the OTHER two members of the SART team have any REAL experience in linguistics? (neither Avery nor Michie does, and I seriously doubt Daniels does)

18) What are the published works of those in question 17?

19) Do the people at the CSP who host the manuscript online SAY it is an 1800s production? (correct answer: no, but remember that these folks are - according to this post to which I'm responding - dupes).

20) What date then do they give it? Fourth century is the right answer, this one should not be too tough even for you.

21) How does Steven Avery actually KNOW the manuscript at CSP is really Sinaiticus? (A reasonable question in light of you saying the rest of the textual world excluding yourself consists of dupes)

22) How much parchment has Steven Avery actually studied?

23) How many experiments have you ever done on parchment?

24) In 2011, you claimed there was a typewritten note ABOUT Sinaiticus with the following words: "St. Catherine's monastery still maintains the importance of a letter, typewritten in 1844 with an original signature of Tischendorf confirming that he borrowed those leaves."

In your no doubt epic research into this subject, were you unaware of the fact that the typewriter was not even commercially available? If you did know this, why did you make such an absurd claim? And if you didn't know this (as apparently you must not have), is it not FAIR to question any conclusion you might make about anything associated with history or the Bible text?

The rest of the questions ASSUME that the reader is familiar with the entire Simonides affair, particularly as Elliott related in depth in 1982. And yes - Simonides somehow wound up with four different birth dates.....

25) How did Simonides manage to collate the ENTIRE BIBLE PLUS HERMAS AND BARNABAS by himself from THREE sources in less than TWO MONTHS and then be writing this document in record time as witnessed by the phantom Kallinikos?

27) How did Simonides manage to write this ALL BY HIMSELF in record time when the great calligrapher who was on Mt Athos couldn't do it?

28) How did Simonides have no earthly idea when Uncle Benedict died?

29a) How did Simonides not know his own birthday and we have four different dates for it?

29b) If a guy like Simonides lies about so many things EASILY verifiable, why should he be believed regarding claims that can never be verified?

30) If Kallinikos REALLY told Simonides about this in 1860, why didn't Simonides mention it in his 1862 letter?

31) Why did Simonides claim to have witnesses that he wrote this but was unable to produce them?

32) Why would Simonides - who was supposedly writing this (his words) as 'gift' to Emporer Nicholas - go back through and create 23,000 textual variants in all different hands, blundering markings all over the place?

33) Why would Simonides claim 'any person learned in paleography ought to be able to tell at once that it is a MS of the present age' unless that were true?

34) If that is true, why has NO PALEOGRAPHER EVER dated it to the 'present age?'

35) Why would Kallinikos witness Tischendorf stealing a portion of the MSS in 1844 and then let him alone with the rest of it in 1859 to steal as well?


Incidentally, let me add another question after his recent bungling on this issue.

Mr Spencer informs us all:
http://bibleforums.org/showthread.php/2 ... ost3088227
By his own account, Simonides did not collate manuscripts. Any degree of preparation at that stage was Benedict.

The problem for Avery?
Simonides admitted he DID collate them. In a letter allegedly from 1860 we learn:
"Dionysus...declined...when he objected...we straightway inspected the oldest manuscripts preserved in Mt Athos...And the learned Benedict taking in his hands a copy of the Moscow edition of the OT and NT (published at the expense of the illustrious brothers Zosimas, and by them presented to the Greeks), collated it, with my assistance, with three only of the ancient copies, which he had long before annotated and corrected for another purpose and cleared their text by this collation from remarkable clerical errors, and again collated them with the edition of the Codex Alexandrinus, printed with uncial letters, and still further with another very old Syriac Codex and gave me...Genesis to copy."

When Avery states that Simonides did not collate manuscripts "by his own account," note that he only gave ONE of the accounts. There are more because Simonides was lying. Avery can explain to the rest of us why he either chose not to share this or didn't research it fully.
======

So....which is it? These types of sloppy research mark all of Steven Avery Spencer's inquiries. They are designed to propagandize and not to inform.

His research reached it's nadir in 2011, when we got perhaps the most insane comment he ever made:
https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/TC- ... sages/4748

St. Catherine's monastery still maintains the importance of a letter, typewritten in 1844 with an original signature of Tischendorf confirming that he borrowed those leaves

Yes, folks, in Steven Avery Spencer's world, typewriters not available until 1868 can be used to type letters in 1844.

This may be the most egregious research error, but it isn't the only one. For example, he's claimed Codex Colbertinus is an Old Latin witness to the Comma Johanneum which is fantastic...except it isn't.
http://forums.carm.org/vb5/forum/theolo ... -witnesses

Had he done even minimally competent research then he'd have known that Colbertinus is a VULGATE witness in the Catholic Epistles. And demonstrating the same ignorance of foreign languages that keep getting him in trouble....but only because he insists on working outside his skill set - he fully botched a French quote by not noticing....are you ready for this...that a page in his quotation was missing.

http://forums.carm.org/vb5/forum/theolo ... tles/page2

HIS QUOTATION
Quelques beaux esprits ont dit en plaisantant que Jésus-Christ et les apôtres avaient fait des miracles pour prouver que trois ne font qu'un. Ils ont seulement enseigné que les trois personnes divines en doute que ce prologue fut de saint Jérôme; niais nous n'ignorons pas non plus que leurs raisons sont si frivoles, qu'elles ne méritent pas d'être réfutées. - Genoud, Sainte Bible en latin et en français Vol 5, p. 682

THE ACTUAL QUOTATION
Quelques beaux esprits ont dit en plaisantant que Jésus-Christ et les apôtres avaient fait des miracles pour prouver que trois ne font qu'un. Ils ont seulement enseigné que les trois personnes divines avaient la meme nature et n'etaient qu'un seul Dieu, et ils l'ont enseigne non comme on prouve une verite mathematique mais comme un mystere impenetrable.


These types of major faux pas mark his research. He has repeatedly demonstrated the argumentum ad verecundiam, and these aren't the only examples. Hence, remember this when you're considering the notion that he suddenly thinks he has discovered something everyone else has missed about a fourth-century manuscript. (His homoioteleuton 'evidence' is flawed, too, but he refuses to listen so there's not much I can do to prevent him from embarrassing himself).
Steven Avery
Posts: 978
Joined: Sun Oct 19, 2014 9:27 am

Re: Codex Sinaiticus - the white parchment Friderico-Augusta

Post by Steven Avery »

Maestroh wrote:The reason you like to appeal to languages you cannot read (like Russian)
Interestingly, Bill Brown never does explain the dumb comment above. Or retract.

Anyway, I will go through this rambling mass and try to find what can be actually a contribution to our discussion.
Maestroh wrote:I said nothing inaccurate so thank you. Part Avery doesn't bother to mention - Uspensky, whom he cites here, dates the manuscript to the fifth century and Jongkind to the fourth. And he also doesn't mention he got called out for getting part of it WRONG on the TC Yahoo group. There's a reason you're posting all this on boards with non-experts and get banned from those who have actually studied this stuff. Hint: it isn't because you've made some great discovery.
None of which proves anything about the date of the MSS..... All these words and still no disclosure of Uspensky seeing it as an ancient MSS. And for those who don't know the story: Avery is intentionally misleading you folks here on his alleged truth quest. At least he NOW admits by saying "Kallinikos through Simonides" that Kallinikos was, in fact, a phantom pen name Simonides used of someone at the monastery. Indeed, Kallinikos was like Zelig - speaking of conspiracy theories - and if we take his nonsense seriously (as Steven Avery Spencer does) then Kallinikos was there and actually SAW Tischendorf steal part of it in 1844, SAW him treat it with lemon juice to make it older, and SAW him steal the rest of it in 1859. Indeed, one wonders why Kallinikos didn't STOP him if his tale is true.... I'm not the one arguing a nonsensical conspiracy theory but REFUSING to come right out and say what I mean. I guess my bluntness is a problem for people who refuse to be honest about what they're saying. Here's what Avery is saying, folks: "I believe that Sinaiticus is a 19th century document foisted on the world by Constantine Simonides, that he used Codex Claromontanus as one of his exemplars, that Tischendorf stole it and was a really bad dude, and that Kallinikos saw every bit of it but didn't inform Simonides for 16 years or more. I also believe - despite Simonides, despite Farrer admitting he was a liar and forger, told the truth about this." THIS is what he is saying but won't come out and say for the simple reason that the moment someone puts that nonsense together - they'll laugh at him. And he knows this. Hence, all the gyrations and moving here and there to plug up the holes with misleading verbiage. Translation: I cannot answer what Maestroh has been pointing out to me for years so I will pretend (just like he's pretending to do Sinaiticus research, even though he cannot speak Greek, collate manuscripts - but he can tell us how easy it is, read Russian, and has never been in the same room with this manuscript) that nothing is wrong with my argument and blame the other guy. Welcome to Trump's America, folks. If I had made the irresponsible arguments you have to make this claim, I'd not want to answer for them, either. For those who do not know: the man is a KJV Onlyist with the motivational fallacy of WANTING this to be fake because he somehow thinks it will vindicate his "precious" KJV. And circular reasoning is the basis for KJV Onlyism anyway so it's not difficult to apply that same fallacy - as is done here - to researching other subjects. As he claims to be part of a research team, why has he continually refused to answer the following questions for two years now. Ask them yourself and you'll realize that there's NOTHING to this SART team but a bunch of guys who don't know what they're talking about.
1) Where did David Daniels train in paleography? (Not answered because Daniels has never trained in it)
... ... (questions) Incidentally, let me add another question after his recent bungling on this issue. Mr Spencer informs us all: http://bibleforums.org/showthread.php/2 ... ost3088227 By his own account, Simonides did not collate manuscripts. Any degree of preparation at that stage was Benedict. The problem for Avery? Simonides admitted he DID collate them. In a letter allegedly from 1860 we learn: "Dionysus...declined...when he objected...we straightway inspected the oldest manuscripts preserved in Mt Athos...And the learned Benedict taking in his hands a copy of the Moscow edition of the OT and NT (published at the expense of the illustrious brothers Zosimas, and by them presented to the Greeks), collated it, with my assistance, with three only of the ancient copies, which he had long before annotated and corrected for another purpose and cleared their text by this collation from remarkable clerical errors, and again collated them with the edition of the Codex Alexandrinus, printed with uncial letters, and still further with another very old Syriac Codex and gave me...Genesis to copy." When Avery states that Simonides did not collate manuscripts "by his own account," note that he only gave ONE of the accounts. There are more because Simonides was lying. Avery can explain to the rest of us why he either chose not to share this or didn't research it fully.
======
So....which is it? These types of sloppy research mark all of Steven Avery Spencer's inquiries. They are designed to propagandize and not to inform. His research reached it's nadir in 2011, when we got perhaps the most insane comment he ever made: https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/TC- ... sages/4748 St. Catherine's monastery still maintains the importance of a letter, typewritten in 1844 with an original signature of Tischendorf confirming that he borrowed those leaves Yes, folks, in Steven Avery Spencer's world, typewriters not available until 1868 can be used to type letters in 1844. This may be the most egregious research error, but it isn't the only one. For example, he's claimed Codex Colbertinus is an Old Latin witness to the Comma Johanneum .... These types of major faux pas mark his research. He has repeatedly demonstrated the argumentum ad verecundiam, and these aren't the only examples. Hence, remember this when you're considering the notion that he suddenly thinks he has discovered something everyone else has missed about a fourth-century manuscript. (His homoioteleuton 'evidence' is flawed, too, but he refuses to listen so there's not much I can do to prevent him from embarrassing himself).
Most of this is simply typical Bill Brown rambling stuff, avoiding the actual Codex Sinaiticus issues, to go into his own delusions and rabbit-trails, ancient history which would take hours to unravel and has no relevance to this thread.

There are actually about three points of real interest, which I will go through below.

First, here is the main fabrication above:

===========================

> Steven Avery wrote:
> And Uspensky also wrote of seeing a "white parchment" manuscript. Reading this led, step by step, to our discovering that the actual colour and condition of the manuscript sections fully supports the colouring allegations of Kallinikos through > Simonides. (One of the many coincidental "called shots".) We even have the BEFORE and AFTER visible today, since 2009. The excerpt of Uspensky in the Russian was originally placed on Wikipedia by an informed Ukrainian scholar. Ironically, > without that little Russian section, we may have never searched out and discovered the colour anomalies and tampering.

> Bill Brown
> At least he NOW admits by saying "Kallinikos through Simonides" that Kallinikos was, in fact, a phantom pen name Simonides used of someone at the monastery. "

Not at all. Please do not fabricate. "Kallinikos through Simonides" is simply an accurate way to describe the writing with a conservative tinge, since it was brought forth in England by Simonides. Kallinikos made many "called shots" that could only be made by familiarity with the ms and the monastery. Simonides could never know these facts without close connection to the two, Sinaiticus and Kallinikos.

The actual existence of Kallinikos (which was denied at the time of the public controversy in England) was confirmed when the Lambros catalogues of Mount Athos was published in 1895 and 1900. Kallinikos was working on mss at Athos with Simonides and Benedict. By writing "Kallinikos through Simonides" I show the salient facts on the ground without getting into the secondary debate of whether Simonides had any hand in the Kallinikos writings. Anyone who studies the history can see that Kallinikos was at Sinai, and was no "phantom".

==============================

The fact that Uspensky dates the ms. to the 5th century is of minor significance. And is perfectly proper to point out when relevant. Uspensky did not explain why he thought a white parchment ms with so much of it in "phenomenally good condition" could be that early. And he did not offer the type of linguistic analysis of James Donaldson that would make the ms much later. And he did not have to deal with two very different ms sections, one white parchment, the other stained and coloured. The script of the ms. was in fact designed to look similar to what are thought to be the early known mss (Vaticanus, Claromontanus) so he put the ms as early.

In fact the actual reason given by Uspensky does not really make sense.
"Such a formulation of letters without grammatical prosody (versification), and the way of the writing of the sacred text, invented by the Alexandrian deacon Euthalius about 446 AD, and soon abandoned due to the many gaps between the columns on the expensive parchment, prove that this manuscript was published in the fifth century."
Even if the style was invented by Euthalius, quite obviously that is obviously only a terminus a pro. and tells you nothing about the terminus ad quem. Writing styles are not time-symmetrical, and any style can be copied centuries later, or a millennium later. This is a simple truth that is often missed by our textual experts.

===========================

Let's go back to the Bill Brown statement of my overall position.

"I believe that Sinaiticus is a 19th century document foisted on the world by Constantine Simonides, that he used Codex Claromontanus as one of his exemplars, that Tischendorf stole it and was a really bad dude, and that Kallinikos saw every bit of it but didn't inform Simonides for 16 years or more. I also believe - despite Simonides, despite Farrer admitting he was a liar and forger, told the truth about this."

Close. However, every time I refer to the question of the veracity of Simonides, I point out that he has to be looked at carefully, and confirmation is helpful. As we can see that Simonides would embellish stories, and say what is convenient. Thus, there can be distortions and lies in his accounts. Nothing should be accepted blindly. There are even indications of less visible connections with Tischendorf. An example, after his death was faked, he went to work at the Russian Archives in St. Petersburg, right where his supposed arch-enemy was sitting with the coloured part of Sinaiticus.

The key point is above, that the essentials of what Simonides said is confirmed by the "facts on the ground", while the essentials of what Tischendorf said about the discovery of Sinaiticus are obviously transparent lies. Nobody who knows the history can explain the many coincidences. Amd Simonides could never make such a claim, if he was not aware of the actual history of the ms. To give one of many examples, if there was any real provenance for the ms. (a visitor account, a catalog at the library) that would have been pulled out. Simonides did not have to be concerned about that, since he knew from his own time at the monastery that there was no such catalog. (Despite bogus claims made in the early 1860s.)

===========================

Here is a list of major Sinaiticus "coincidences":
"Coincidences" abound, everywhere :) e.g.

The colour of the 1844 and 1859 sections just happens to coincidentally match the colouring-tampering attributed to Tischendorf in the 1850s by Kallinikos. A perfect BEFORE and AFTER match. In addition, Kallinikos just coincidentally knew other various details of the ms. (e.g. the 1844 theft, the 1859 bogus-loan would never be returned, the bumbling Greek of Tischendorf) elements that simply were not known at the time.

The Sinaiticus ms. just coincidentally is in "phenomenally good condition" (Helen Shenton, BL) with easy-peasy page turning. While ancient heavily-used mss. from 1500+ years ago have to be handled with super-caution.

Simonides, Benedict and Kallinikos are just coincidentally shown in the Lambros catalogs of 1895-1900 to be working together in Athos c. 1840. Exactly the time stated for the collaborative efforts on the Sinaiticus ms.

Hermas just happens to coincidentally have been published by Simonides in Greek in 1856 before the 1859 Sinaiticus publication by Tischendorf.
(The ending of Hermas, which became very problematic to Tischendorf after the 1856 Simonides publication, is the one large section thrown into the back room, and is in the 1975 New Finds.)
Tischendorf even retracted allegations against the 1856 Hermas of Simonides because, as James Donaldson points out, the accusations had validity, and show the Sinaiticus Hermas (also applies to Barnabas) to be long after the 4th century.

Barnabas just happens to coincidentally have been published in Greek by Simonides in 1843, before the 1859 Sinaiticus publication by Tischendorf. There are solid links between the 1843 Simonides text and the 1859 text, the discovery of the supposed first Greek Barnabas by Tischendorf.

Simonides in England, 2,000+ miles away, was confident that Sinaiticus had no actual pre-1840 provenance, and "coincidentally" there was none, the ms.only has "poof provenance". (The claim of an "ancient catalog" affirming the ms. was simply bogus.)

The homoeoteleutons just coincidentally show Sinaiticus being made using a ms. from hundreds of years after its own supposed creation, Claromontanus And that manuscript, and its curious and unusual daughter mss. were located in our prime locales, Paris, Athos and St. Petersburg in the period right before Sinaiticus poofed into being in 1844.
I would like any of our Sinaiticus-Tischendorf (saved-from-fire) conspiracy theorists to begin to actually work with the history, the ms and the evidences. Including the multiple homoeoteleutons recently discovered from Claromontanus to Sinaiticus.

Steven
Maestroh
Posts: 169
Joined: Mon Sep 05, 2016 10:03 am

Re: Codex Sinaiticus - the white parchment Friderico-Augusta

Post by Maestroh »

For those of you who missed it - it's over, not that it ever had any strengths in the first place.

Dr Tommy Wasserman - an ACTUAL scholar with an ACTUAL PhD who has done ACTUAL work with Sinaiticus (as opposed to Steven Avery, who cannot read Greek OR Russian but insists upon posting snipe hunts all over the Internet, including here) - has refuted this whole line of nonsense. It is over, and Avery needs to spend the next couple of years going to all the sites he's posted such nonsense and concede he is wrong. Arrogance will not permit this, but he is still wrong.

In responding to the convoluted nonsense posted here, Wasserman states:


I hope it is clear enough to you by now that the *one* example of a homeoteleuton (Heb 1:8) in Sinaiticus that I cited makes it apparent that the exemplar of Sinaiticus had a different word order there than what is found in Claromontanus. I will not spend more time on that issue, you can check all the rest of the places if you want (see previous message). The whole idea that Sinaiticus is a copy of Claromontanus, which has a very different text in general, not only in these few places where scribal leaps occur, will make it apparent how absurd the claim is.

As for the equally crazy idea that Simonides copied Sinaiticus, I don’t know where to start… but let me just also mention that another fragment of Sinaiticus has rather recently been found in the binding of Sinai Greek 2289. The binding of the book is dated to the early 18th century. You can read about it in detail in Nikolas Sarris’ thesis Classification of finishing tools in Greek bookbinding: establishing links from the Library of St Catherine's Monastery, Sinai, Egypt. PhD thesis, University of the Arts London, 2010, in section 3.6 (group 57), pp. 202-233 (esp. 224-26; and image on p. 215). The thesis is made avaialble here (the pertinent section is found in vol. 2): http://ualresearchonline.arts.ac.uk/6143/

Perhaps Simonides, who lived a century later, also managed to forge Sinai Greek 2289 and incorporate a page from Sinaiticus inside the binding and hide it to make this mystery even greater. . . .We will see what clever explanation is offered.

=============

In other words, these scholars Avery has dismissed as "dupes" because of something he thinks was significant in 2009 was refuted in 2010, and Avery in all his incompetent research never bothered to read the data published, pushing ahead instead with his wishful thinking.

Folks, THIS is why EXPERTISE matters in these issues. Anyone with a copy of NT Abstracts was aware of these publication data years ago. Why wasn't Avery aware of this? Very simple: he doesn't the first thing about HOW to do competent BIBLICAL research. He is a 67-year old computer programmer, whom I don't think even finished college at Cal and who CANNOT even read the NT in its original language - and yet he thinks he should be taken seriously as a biblical researcher.

And spare me the notion that pointing out an individual does NOT possess relevant scholarly acumen constitutes a 'personal attack.' It does not. In fact, not possessing scholarly means itself is a logical fallacy (ad verecundiam). Pointing this TRUTH out about Avery merely demonstrates the incompetence of the person making the argument - and his lack of knowledge of the subject is WHY he makes the egregious errors he makes (along with his KJV Onlyism serving as a motivational fallacy for his research in the first place).

So instead of a long, flowery filibuster or red herrings that don't answer the evidence as it exists - simply answer the rebuttal.

It's over, Avery. Of course, the rest of us knew it was over, and kudos to Wasserman for having the patience to at least be nice enough to not rip you the way he should have. He very gently pointed out your lack of knowledge.

I think you have some boards to go apologize to for your nonsense now - not that it will happen as such requires character.
Steven Avery
Posts: 978
Joined: Sun Oct 19, 2014 9:27 am

Re: Codex Sinaiticus - the white parchment Friderico-Augusta

Post by Steven Avery »

Hi Folks,

Noticing that Bill Brown, as usual, bypasses any real scholarly discussion (his style is rambling diversions, which is one type of misdirection argumentation) .. let's discuss the 2289 fragment.

First, would you show me any paper (peer-reviewed or not) that identifies this fascinating fragment as Codex Sinaiticus? (Putting aside the ultra-enthusiastic Nikolas Sarris, who makes a number of presumptions and errors, even a double chapter misidentification in the dissertation. *)

And can you even find a high-res picture? How about one that is iPad quality?

Where can we find the physical and textual details, including a solid transcription reconstruction?

Have you read the literature on the fragment?

What do you think of the ultra-conservative comments in the 2015 Codex Sinaiticus: New Perspectives on the Ancient Biblical Manuscript by Archimandrite Justin Sinaites, the librarian at St. Catherines? Including his discussion of the Brugsch fragments.

Thanks!

Steven

*
"It is not a coincidence that among the “New Finds” there are only a few complete volumes. Several fragments of the Codex Sinaiticus were also found there, including a fragment from the same chapter (Joshua 10:12) as the fragment of S.2289." - p. 226

Sarris may have meant the same book, yet he also got the chapter and verse number wrong within Joshua. The other fragmen has material from chapters 12 to 14, not 1 or 10. Here is the other fragment, the verso side.
http://codexsinaiticus.org/en/manuscrip ... omSlider=0
Maestroh
Posts: 169
Joined: Mon Sep 05, 2016 10:03 am

Re: Codex Sinaiticus - the white parchment Friderico-Augusta

Post by Maestroh »

Steven Avery wrote: Noticing that Bill Brown, as usual, bypasses any real scholarly discussion (his style is rambling diversions, which is one type of misdirection argumentation) .. let's discuss the 2289 fragment.
Ok. First of all, did you actually read it? No? Then there's nothing to discuss now, is there? (Folks, he CAN'T read it, but he thinks he make judgments about it).
Steven Avery wrote: First, would you show me any paper (peer-reviewed or not) that identifies this fascinating fragment as Codex Sinaiticus? (Putting aside the ultra-enthusiastic Nikolas Sarris, who makes a number of presumptions and errors, even a double chapter misidentification in the dissertation. *)

And can you even find a high-res picture? How about one that is iPad quality?

Where can we find the physical and textual details, including a solid transcription reconstruction?

Have you read the literature on the fragment?

What do you think of the ultra-conservative comments in the 2015 Codex Sinaiticus: New Perspectives on the Ancient Biblical Manuscript by Archimandrite Justin Sinaites, the librarian at St. Catherines? Including his discussion of the Brugsch fragments.
Not my problem.

Can you show me peer reviewed literature that identifies Simonides as the author of Sinaiticus? What about identifies it as a 19th century document?
Maestroh
Posts: 169
Joined: Mon Sep 05, 2016 10:03 am

Re: Codex Sinaiticus - the white parchment Friderico-Augusta

Post by Maestroh »

As I said - your arrogance is never going to permit you to admit error on this. I realize this.

But you're as wrong as wrong has ever been.
Steven Avery
Posts: 978
Joined: Sun Oct 19, 2014 9:27 am

Re: Codex Sinaiticus - the white parchment Friderico-Augusta

Post by Steven Avery »

Bill Brown, please do not waste the forum time with posture posting. This forum is a bit too savvy for that stuff.

The response to Tommy Wasserman was sent in to the textualcriticism forum days ago. They have a style of waiting and then placing in a lot of posts at once. We will see if he engages in discussion, or takes his marbles home.

Just enjoyed my time at the conference in Dallas last weekend, Hear the Watchmen, followed by Granbury, Waco-Elm Mott, and then a discussion with the author of The God of Two Testaments in Conroe. Texas was good, now pulling into New Orleans!

Steven
Steven Avery
Posts: 978
Joined: Sun Oct 19, 2014 9:27 am

Re: Codex Sinaiticus - the white parchment Friderico-Augusta

Post by Steven Avery »

The questions raised about the Nicholas Sarris fragment are at least a reasonable inquiry.
Here is a summary of the discussion to date, that I placed on another forum.

[textualcriticism] Claromontanus --> Sinaiticus homoeoteleuton #3 - 2 Cor 4:17
Tommy Wasserman - April 2
https://beta.groups.yahoo.com/neo/group ... sages/8675

This is as far as Bill Brown got.
And the response points out that Tommy Wasserman was misrepresenting the actual scholarship.

[textualcriticism] S.2289 fragment - coincidences abound!
Steven Avery - April 6
https://beta.groups.yahoo.com/neo/group ... sages/8676

In his next post, you can see Tommy Wasserman running backwards. As he acknowledges there is no real published scholarship (peer-review or not) on the fragment.

[textualcriticism] S.2289 fragment - coincidences abound!
Tommy Wasserman - April 11
https://beta.groups.yahoo.com/neo/group ... sages/8681

You can not find even a transcription, much less yet an overlay. Visually, it does not look very convincing, but who can tell? Justin, in the book on the 2009 Conference, makes a very clear, scholarly and proper point about also looking closely at the Brugsch fragments. Fragments which were at one time thought to be Sinaiticus. Wasserman says that it will be hard to do much more with the parchment, in a non-destructive manner, which is understandable.

However, we do not even have any real scholarship even on what is visible! Simply a very conservative report written by Justin and an enthusiastic report by Nikolas Sarris. Which is ironic because this disharmonious approach is in the same article in the 2009 book. Wasserman had craftily omitted the actual ultra-conservative report. And Bill Brown was duped, apparently he forgot to actually look up the one article that at least has some decent information.

Without a transcription, without the letter count that you could see with a transcription, without measurements, without an overlay, without a comparison with the Brugsch fragments (see Justin's paragraph), there simply is not much there.

And I would definitely allow that this is a potential evidence. Since the evidence that Sinaiticus is 1800s is multifold, corroborative and definite, it could make an interesting puzzle of "dueling impossibilities" (or improbabilities). If this did actually seem to be Sinaiticus. However, right now that is neither here nor there.

========================

The trick of the Sinaiticus authenticity position is the art of misdirection. This was begun by Tischendorf by essentially ignoring and misrepresenting the physical condition of the two sections in Leipzig and St. Petersburg. And then pointing scholars and readers to his facsmile edition, which hides salient facts. This misdirection was continued even in the 2011 Hendrickson edition. The Codex Sinaiticus Project ironically blew this whole charade wide open. It also confirmed the Kallinikos charge of colour-tampering of the 1859 section (while Leipzig remains white parchment.)

If you research the:

colour tampering
white parchment
super-ink
phenomenally good condition
lack of provenance
homoeoteleutons,
historical imperative with the amazing coincidences
historical elements confirming Simonides that could not be changed or planted (more amazing coincidences)
'called shots' from Sinai of Kallinikos
Tischendorf thefts and deceptions around the ms, and other ms manglings
Simonides publishing Barnabas 1843 and Hermas 1855
linguistic issues in Barnabas and Hermas including the Tischendorf retraction on Hermas

You can easily and clearly understand that Sinaiticus is a recent production.

Steven
Steven Avery
Posts: 978
Joined: Sun Oct 19, 2014 9:27 am

Re: Codex Sinaiticus - the white parchment Friderico-Augustanus

Post by Steven Avery »

David W. Daniels put out an excellent 20-minute vlog today on the 1844 Tischendorf heist of the five full quires (80 pages) and then 6 more pages from the intact codex.

Tischendorf's Big Mistake
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xe_ZzKym5X8

Discussion welcome here, and in the Youtube comments section and on the Facebook PureBible forum.
https://www.facebook.com/groups/purebib ... 461247803/



Steven Avery
Charles Wilson
Posts: 2093
Joined: Thu Apr 03, 2014 8:13 am

Re: Codex Sinaiticus - the white parchment Friderico-Augustanus

Post by Charles Wilson »

You two don't fool me. This is an elaborate April Fool's Joke and I, for one, don't like it.
This is a serious Forum and we don't have time for petty, made-up squabbles. We have an important Post by Joe Wallack and we need to focus on that instead of the PhD Trolling that you two engage in.

Get serious, will you?

CW
Post Reply