Re: Codex Sinaiticus - the white parchment Friderico-Augusta
Posted: Sat Nov 01, 2014 4:36 am
Testing
Investigating the roots of western civilization (ye olde BC&H forum of IIDB lives on...)
https://earlywritings.com/forum/
New Testament Scholarship Worldwide. Also Society of Biblical Literature.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.
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.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.
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.
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: ... 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.
To clarify, papyri previous though to be 2nd-3rd C are really 4th C ones?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.
Steven Avery wrote: ... localized papyri are transmitted through the sieve of heavy gnosticism in Egypt, as noted by Kurt Aland ...
Cheers. the issues of when and how much they are edited/redacted is likely to be an issue for some papyri, too.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).
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.
Next, a reference likely based on Scrivener (who likely got his information from Tischendorf.)"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 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:"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
Later, I will plan to go more into how such a referenced "cleaning" affects our studies.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
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.)
The Codex Sinaiticus inks have never been chemically characterized, and the type and proportions of ingredients mixed together have never been determined.
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.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.