Codex Sinaiticus - the white parchment Friderico-Augustanus

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yalla
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Re: Codex Sinaiticus - the white parchment Friderico-Augusta

Post by yalla »

Testing
yalla
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Re: Codex Sinaiticus - the white parchment Friderico-Augusta

Post by yalla »

http://www.reltech.org/TC/v16/Bagnall2011rev.pdf

http://press.princeton.edu/chapters/s9059.pdf

Roger Bagnall has written a book on palaeography and Egyptian papyri which includes p52.
He is highly critical of Christian dating of such.
Above is a review of his book and below that an extract from the book.
Steven Avery
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white parchment - Facebook discussions

Post by Steven Avery »

Hi,
perseusomega9 wrote:Hey Steven, saw you posted this in the NT scholarship FB page, waiting to see what kind of response you get there as well.
New Testament Scholarship Worldwide. Also Society of Biblical Literature.
A few days. A few likes. No responses. :)

White parchment, and two radically different parchments in one ms, is brand new. It is not an easy digestion for New Testament scholars to rap their head around. Especially if it might call for reconsideration of what happened with this manuscript in the 1850s and what that might mean in the bigger picture.

Steven
Last edited by Steven Avery on Mon Nov 03, 2014 4:44 am, edited 1 time in total.
ficino
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Re: Codex Sinaiticus - the white parchment Friderico-Augusta

Post by ficino »

yalla wrote:http://www.reltech.org/TC/v16/Bagnall2011rev.pdf

http://press.princeton.edu/chapters/s9059.pdf

Roger Bagnall has written a book on palaeography and Egyptian papyri which includes p52.
He is highly critical of Christian dating of such.
Above is a review of his book and below that an extract from the book.
Good link, thanks. Interesting argument by Bagnall that the number of Christian papyri dated to late 1st or to the 2nd century is too great for the likely number of Christians in Egypt in those centuries.
Steven Avery
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Re: Codex Sinaiticus - the white parchment Friderico-Augusta

Post by Steven Avery »

ficino wrote: Interesting argument by Bagnall that the number of Christian papyri dated to late 1st or to the 2nd century is too great for the likely number of Christians in Egypt in those centuries.
yalla wrote:Roger Bagnall has written a book on palaeography and Egyptian papyri which includes p52. He is highly critical of Christian dating of such.

Peter Head critiqued some aspects of the book, and I think he makes some good points.
http://evangelicaltextualcriticism.blog ... ks-in.html

And I found the statistical modeling in the chapter online to be full of statistically wobbly conjectural extrapolation, and unimpressive. However, I agree with the basic conclusion anyway, following the Brent Nongbri type of argumentation on specific well-known examples. The difference between a 150 AD date or a 250 AD/300 AD date is quite significant in terms of time for textual wildness and corruption, even for an early c. 50 AD NT date of writing person like myself. It does seem that many of the papyri may have been optimistically dated as much as a century or more than warranted and that the range period was excessively thin, that often there is no real fix for more like 200 years rather than the 50-100 year range that has become common in the NT branch of palaeography. That was a big point from Nongbri, in addition to specific associations that push 2nd-3rd century papyri to more likely 4th. And the simple fact that the localized papyri are transmitted through the sieve of heavy gnosticism in Egypt, as noted by Kurt Aland, should not be overlooked. The papyri end up being used as support for all sorts of contradictory textual theories, Burgonites and Hortians both claim vindication. Even the P75-Vaticanus alignment loses much of its cachet if P75 is dated around the same time as Vaticanus.

Steven
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MrMacSon
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Re: Codex Sinaiticus - the white parchment Friderico-Augusta

Post by MrMacSon »

Steven Avery wrote: ... It does seem that many of the papyri may have been optimistically dated as much as a century or more than warranted and that the range period was excessively thin, that often there is no real fix for more like 200 years rather than the 50-100 year range that has become common in the NT branch of palaeography.
Hi. To clarify, you mean "many of the papyri may have been optimistically dated as much as a century or more *earlier* than warranted"? (or later?)
Steven Avery wrote:That was a big point from Nongbri, in addition to specific associations that push 2nd-3rd century papyri to more likely 4th.
To clarify, papyri previous though to be 2nd-3rd C are really 4th C ones?

This is a pertinent point -
Steven Avery wrote: ... localized papyri are transmitted through the sieve of heavy gnosticism in Egypt, as noted by Kurt Aland ...
Steven Avery
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dating of papyri - Aland warning on gnosticism, localized fi

Post by Steven Avery »

Yes, the papyri were dated a century or more earlier - e.g. (made up numbers) 225 AD (range of 200-250 or 175-275, range as little as 50 years given at times) when they they should have been 3rd-4th c., even possibly 5th. (225-425, range of 200 years, maybe even more, 250, 300 years). They were dated fringe early and the date range was far too small. There were two distinct problems. Nongbri's emphasis is more visibly on the date range, however he is making both points. His P66 paper looked to my untrained eye like a technical masterpiece.

e.g. Let us conjecture that P75 would be more accurately 225-425. That would mean that all theories that are built around P75 being before Vaticanus are only probablity theories. And textual theorists like Gordon Fee and Daniel Wallace were, meanwhile, building fanciful theories around the date spread between P75 and Vaticanus of about 150 years. Fee was de facto using it as a new method to justify Vaticanus primacy and a nouveau Hortian approach, since Hort's own theories had crumbled (beyond that, Fee and Wallace were weak on logic in their "common ancestor" assertions.) Thus, this it was not just an academic, stodgy matter of a few years, it is a primary theoretical matter. Wallace would use dubious dates, combined with the large numbers of small papyri fragments for fanciful claims both contra Ehrman's position and contra the Byzantine text positions. He would make charts that would have a papyri fragment of 5 verses == to a manuscript of a full Bible. Many of the gentlemen in the realms of New Testament "textual criticism" are clearly not the brighest light bulbs, and they often get a free pass in the public arena from their compatriots when they divvy up mishegas.

===========

Here is the Aland warning about the papyri:

The Text of the New Testament (1995)
Kurt and Barbara Aland
http://books.google.com/books?id=2pYDsAhUOxAC&pg=PA59

We should not forget that apart from 0212 (found at Dura Europus) all the early witnesses listed above on p. 57 are from Egypt, where the hot, dry sands preserved the papyri through the centuries (similar climatic conditions are found in the Judaean desert where papyri have also been discovered). From other major centers of the early Christian church nothing has survived. This raises the question whether and to what extent we can generalize from the Egyptian situation. Egypt was distinguished from other provinces of the Church, so far as we can judge, by the early dominance of gnosticism; this was not broken until about A.D. 200. when Bishop Demetrius succeeded in reorganizing the diocese and establishing communications with the other churches. Not until then do we have documentary evidence of the church in Egypt ...

(the Dura Europus fragment is a Diatessaron, gospel harmony, text)
Last edited by Steven Avery on Mon Nov 03, 2014 4:45 am, edited 1 time in total.
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MrMacSon
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Re: Codex Sinaiticus - the white parchment Friderico-Augusta

Post by MrMacSon »

Steven Avery wrote:Yes, the papyri were dated a century or more earlier - e.g. (made up numbers) 225 AD (range of 200-250 or 175-275, range as little as 50 years given at times) when they they should have been 3rd-4th c., even possibly 5th. (225-425, range of 200 years, maybe even more, 250, 300 years).
Cheers. the issues of when and how much they are edited/redacted is likely to be an issue for some papyri, too.
Steven Avery
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descriptions of Sinaiticus and Friderico-Augustanus

Post by Steven Avery »

Hi,

It is interesting to try to find descriptions of the manuscript(s) from 1845 (Uspensky in his 1856 book), 1846 (Tischendorf on the Codex Friderico-Augustanus) through the Simonides controversies and other debates of the 1860s (e.g. Hilgenfeld contended the ms. was later)and on through to today.

Those fluent in Russian and German might find additional helpful materials.

This post will be used as a place to hold such descriptions, especially new ones.
I'll plan on bringing over the ones already on the thread.

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

Here is one new that is special because, as with Uspensky, the emphasis is on white parchment.

Ernst von Dobschütz (1870-1934)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ernst_von_Dobsch%C3%BCtz

Encyclopædia of Religion and Ethics: Arthur-Bunyan (1910)
edited by James Hastings, John Alexander Selbie, Louis Herbert Gray
http://books.google.com/books?id=oEATAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA583
Bible in the Church
E. Von Dobschutz
http://books.google.com/books?id=oEATAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA583

The wonderfully fine snow-white parchment of the Sinaitic MS seems to be of antelope skin.

Antelope skin is an error of Tischendorf. I thought it was quickly corrected, but here it shows up in 1910.

So why the snow-white parchment? Wasn't Sinaiticus supposed to be yellow with age? Simple. As professor at the University of Halle, he would see the Codex Friderico-Augustanus in nearby Leipzig. And the CFA is a fine snow-white parchment.

Why was this glaring physical hard-evidence anomaly missed for 150 years?

Even when the ms. was purportedly being studied carefully and books were being written specifically on the Codex Sinaiticus?


(Remember, too that one of the possible arguments thrown out to explain the discrepancy was a "cleaning" of the CFA in Leipzig. However with clear reports of the ms being white parchment in 1845 and 1910, would a cleaning make it "whiter than white").

Steven Avery

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

Early descriptions 1860s-1870s

From the previous page:
"the vellum leaves, now almost yellow in colour"

A Full Collation of the Codex Sinaiticus, p. xxx, 1864,
Scrivener
http://books.google.com/books?id=v-JUmBD5zIcC&pg=PP38
Next, a reference likely based on Scrivener (who likely got his information from Tischendorf.)
"vellum sheets, are now yellow in age"
The Saturday Review of Politics, Literature, Science and Art, Volume 17
http://books.google.com/books?id=eHJAAQAAMAAJ&pg=PA358
Next, a reference to the Sinaiticus manuscript being yellow in a book about the discovery of the Syriac Sinaitic palimpsest. The book looks back at the Sinaiticus manuscript:
I translate the following description of the Convent of St. Catherine from a Greek book entitled—"The Holy Monastery of Sinai," by Perikles Gregoriados, Professor in the Theological School of the Holy Sepulchre (Jerusalem, 1875). p.82

"Of this venerable relic of so many ages, written on fine yellow vellum, the overjoyed finder (Tischendorf) p. 87

How the Codex Was Found: A Narrative of Two Visits to Sinai (1893, 1st ed)
Agnes Smith Lewis and Margaret Dunlop Gibson
http://books.google.com/books?id=AgCmFGN-E0IC&pg=PA82
Later, I will plan to go more into how such a referenced "cleaning" affects our studies.

Steven Avery
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Re: Codex Sinaiticus - the white parchment Friderico-Augusta

Post by Steven Avery »

Hi,
Steven Avery wrote:You might wonder if the vellum or ink or stains of Codex Sinaiticus have ever been subject to chemical tests. Apparently, even though the ms. has been heavily studied, and conjectural and even convoluted theories around inks, parchment, retracing and rebindings abound, no such testing has ever been done. (Note: I mention chemical testing because that has been very helpful in looking at issues like the Voynich ms and the Viking map, and is relatively inexpensive and relatively controversy-free.)


Here I want to show you how the complete lack of chemical tests has left theory to simply be unverified conjecture (emphasis added).

Report on the different inks used in Codex Sinaiticus and assessment of their condition
Sara Mazzarino
http://codexsinaiticus.org/en/project/c ... n_ink.aspx
The Codex Sinaiticus inks have never been chemically characterized, and the type and proportions of ingredients mixed together have never been determined.
The recent investigation, carried out as part of the Codex Sinaiticus Digitization Project, has identified a retracing of the fore-edge squiggle, never noticed before. A darker, rougher and heavier ink covers the original medium that was probably used to draw it for the first time.

This layer of ink is thicker than the medium previously used and tends to display a craquelure effect on the surface and other mechanical damage, such as minor ink loss. The appearance of the medium used for the retracing of the squiggle resembles the ink used for the secondary quire numbering.

However, the appearance of the ink underneath the retracing, although difficult to see undisturbed, is similar to ink used for some small notes that are visible, for example, on Q68-f5r. These last observations are only based on a visual examination and ought to be verified by means of scientific analysis.

An observation of the squiggle marks raises more questions in regard to their appearance and use. What is the relation between the squiggle and the secondary quire numbering? Is the ink used for the retracing of the text similar to either of these two inks?

According to Dirk Jongkind,[37] the squiggles were made at the same time as some corrections dated between the 5th and the 8th century. Milne and Skeat[38] date the secondary quire numbering is to the 8th century. Therefore, there could be a correlation between the retracing of the squiggles, the retracing of some areas of text, some corrections and the secondary quire numbering. However, no certain conclusion can be reached without a chemical characterization of the writing media.

Was the squiggle done in the scriptorium? Was it done in the bindery? Was it done in the scriptorium but at the binder’s request?

Answers to these other questions may give hints concerning how the work was organized and if the scriptorium and bindery were independent (possibly in different areas of the monastery) or if they were more closely connected. Observations in this regard could help us to better understand the production of the book and to identify different periods in the history of the Codex. Furthermore it may also uncover more information about the place of origin of the Codex Sinaiticus.
So with all the extensive analysis and conjectures, no testing at all of parchment, ink or stains. Notice how looking at retraced ink can be especially informative, as the upper and lower areas are both identified with specific aspects of the text, which can be correlated with proposed writing chronologies.
.
Oh, they also have hemp threads for the convoluted double binding (before the 1933 Douglas Cockerell binding that was destructive to some evidence) theories that could be tested. Those theories are a bit meshuganah, since they are still taking seriously some of the tisseudorfs about how he found the ms.
.
Now there could be an underlying concern that such tests would produce results extremely incompatible with current Sinaiticus theories. Is this ink a 4th century chemical? 8th century? 19th century? Those are natural questions for chemical and spectrographic studies.

Steven Avery
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