Coloring the Truth: Sinaiticus

[Steven Avery]

You never quote me.

I challenge you to find a false statement, uncorrected, from me anywhere.
Without one, you are simply lying again.

(Any time I say something factually wrong, I am very happy to have it corrected, on any topic.)

We know you are arrogant and simply make up quotes, like "terrible yellow", so you can accuse me falsely.
Classic straw man argumentation.

A reminder for Ulan that he is challenged to find these supposed false statements, uncorrected.

If there was one, I would definitely want to make the needed correction.

[StephenGoranson]

There are different kinds of ink. Different compositions. Not all inks are corrosive. Qumran mss evidently include some with ink-caused corrosion (e.g. 1QGenesis Apocryphon) and many with none.

[Steven Avery]

There are different kinds of ink. Different compositions. Not all inks are corrosive. Qumran mss evidently include some with ink-caused corrosion (e.g. 1QGenesis Apocryphon) and many with none.

2018 correspondence

Gregory Heyworth​
Associate Professor of English and Textual Science; Director, Lazarus Project​
PhD, Princeton University​
“I can ask my friend Michael Phelps (ccd here) who imaged the Sinaiticus. As I remember, the ink greyed out in the infra-red, which is a sure sign of its being iron gall. I will refer you to Mike for more detailed information about the Sinaiticus.”

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

Michal Phelps

Subject: RE: iron gall ink in Sinaiticus - glaring anomalies
Date: Sun, 01 Apr 2018 23:07:21 -0700

Dear Steven,

The British Library applied multi-spectral imaging with the MuSIS camera to selected folios of its majority part of the Codex. It reports that the spectral curves of the black ink are consistent with those of iron gall ink, but it admits that the identification of the ink as simply iron gall ink is inconclusive: http://www.codexsinaiticus.org/en/proje ... n_msi.aspx

Visually, the ink of Codex Sinaiticus does look like iron gall to me. The spectral imaging undertaken by the British Library is the only source of quantified data about Codex Sinaiticus of which I am aware. But this is not a question I have pursued.

Mike

Michael Phelps
Executive Director
Early Manuscripts Electronic Library

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

[Steven Avery]

A question I have is the church sez that the only complete copy of the Didache is in Codex Hierosolymitanus, which worries me because Tischendorf visited the library where it was "found" not long before it was "found". Yet there seems to be a complete Didache in Whiston's AC as book 7.
What text was Whiston translating, and how does its Didache differ from the Codex Hierosolymitanus one?

I don't think his early speculations about the Greek players pushing a western liberal NWO agenda are accurate. I wouldn't want to underplay the fact that Tischendorf was given a private audience with the Pope *before* he found Sinaiticus, that Ste. Catherines was silent about - or participated in the fraud - and that the Jerusalem Patriach gave Tichendendorf access to its library just before they "discovered" the Codex Hierosolymitanus. That's as large an eccumenical scale as it gets.

There have often been concerns raised about the Codex Hierosolymitanus.
The Bryennios fortuitous discovery has been questioned.

One example of concern discuses the Codex and also Sinaiticus.
The James Donaldson section is here:
viewtopic.php?p=21644#p21644

I think the possible connection of Tischendorf and Codex Hierosolymitanus is a new one, raised by you.

As to the Whiston Didache, and raising the question whether that could be a source for the Codex Hierosolymitanus, that would take some checking.

[ebion]

A question I have is the church sez that the only complete copy of the Didache is in Codex Hierosolymitanus, which worries me because Tischendorf visited the library where it was "found" not long before it was "found". Yet there seems to be a complete Didache in Whiston's AC as book 7.
What text was Whiston translating, and how does its Didache differ from the Codex Hierosolymitanus one?

As to the Whiston Didache, and raising the question whether that could be a source for the Codex Hierosolymitanus, that would take some checking.

The question I have is slightly different. Why is it that the "experts" said Codex Hierosolymitanus (H) was the first full copy of the Didache, a writing that many Early Christian writers had mentioned, yet Whiston had a complete copy of it in book 7 of his Apostolic Constitutions?

Looking at his translation of the Apostolic Constitutions, it has the Didache buried in Book 7:

• http://ldsfocuschrist2.files.wordpress. ... histon.pdf
• http://books.google.com/books?id=xQ8aAAAAYAAJ
• https://archive.org/download/workclaimi ... isuoft.pdf

Was it considered spurious? What did he use as the basis for his translation of the AC? I'll try to do a comparison with the version in H, which I, and Donalson, are suspicious of.

The version of the AC on the net:

The Apostolic Constitutions (or Constitutions of the Holy, Apostles, lat. Constitutiones Apostolorum),
By Clement, Bishop And Citizen Of Rome (Pseudonym), The Work Claiming To Be The
Constitutions Of The Holy Apostles, Including The Canons;
William Whiston's Version, Revised From The Greek; Irah Chase, Otto Krabbe
D. Appleton and company, 1848

has an unsigned preface, I presume by Irah Chase, where it says:

In revising the version here presented, regard has been had chiefly to the Greek text of the Constitutions, as published with notes in the Amsterdam edition of the Apostolical Fathers, and to the Greek text of the canons, as recently edited by Bruns in his Bibliotheca Ecclesias-
tica, under the supervision of Neander. The Septuagint translation of the Old Testament being the one used by the author and his contemporaries, the references in the margin are made to the books, chapters, and verses, as they stand in that Greek translation. Some of its pecu-
liarities which receive no countenance from the Hebrew original, may here be traced, as having had a decided influence on the theology and reasoning of the early fathers.

So I assume it's a revision of Whiston's work consulting the greek text listed above. But what was Whiston working from, a hundred years earlier?

[DCHindley]

If I have untangled things correctly, William Whiston of Josephus' Works fame, translated the Greek Apostolic Constitutions in 1711 as The Constitutions of the Holy Apostles by Clement (sic) in Greek and English, with the Various Readings from all the Manuscripts.

Whiston's English translation was at an unknown later date translated into German by an anonymous writer, who apparently claimed to have revised the translation on the basis of Whiston's own Greek text.

Later, in 1848, Irah Chase (DD) translated this German revised translation back into English, as The Work Claiming to be the Constitutions of the Holy Apostles - Including The Canons.

Finally, Whiston's original English translation was re-published (without mention of Whiston's name) in the Ante-Nicene Christian Library (UK, ANCL) series (vol. 17, Edinburgh: 1870, edited by Alexander Roberts and James Donaldson, the latter being the one who was responsible for updated comments). This is most commonly reprinted in the (US) ANF series vol 7 (1886).

DCH

[ebion]

There is an old but serviceable English translation of the Apostolic Constitutions by Wm Whiston, The Constitutions of the Holy Apostles by Clement (sic) in Greek and English (Primitive Christianity Reviv'd, Vol 2, 1711).

Thanks DCjH; it's on the Internet at
https://archive.org/download/primitivec ... 02whis.pdf
But it's a horrible scan that can't be OCRed for a number of reasons.

Later, IIUC, Irah Chase re-translated the German translation into English (1847).

Why would he do that - it was written in English!

Irah Chase's English translation I think may have served as the base for J Donaldson's revised translation of Whiston's translation, and published as Constitutions of the Holy Apostles (ANCL vol 17, 1870 = ANF vol 7, 1887).

It's on the net at http://ccel.org/ccel/s/schaff/anf07.xml How sure are you that Donaldson worked off of Chase and not only Whiston's?

In Donaldson's version we unfortunately find:

But this series is enriched beyond its original by the Bryennios Manuscript.

The Bryennios Manuscript = Codex Hierosolymitanus so we're further away from Whiston's 1711.

The original 1711 has no preface, and no introductory notes, so my question is still: what greek text was Whiston working off in 1711? It puts to a lie that "consensus" / Wickedpaedia slogan that Codex Hierosolymitanus was the first complete copy of the Didache. What am I missing here?

Has anyone compared Whiston's text with the Codex Hierosolymitanus/Donaldson Didache?

[Steven Avery]

The original 1711 has no preface, and no introductory notes, so my question is still: what greek text was Whiston working off in 1711? It puts to a lie that "consensus" / Wickedpaedia slogan that Codex Hierosolymitanus was the first complete copy of the Didache. What am I missing here? ….
Has anyone compared Whiston's text with the Codex Hierosolymitanus/Donaldson Didache?

Whiston based his work on Arabic manuscripts, with the help of an Orientalist scholar. It was somewhat controversial but essentially sound.

If you search books with:

“Didache” “Whiston” “1711”

You get about five good history discussions.
I will plan on collating them here and on the PBF.

[andrewcriddle]

Book 7 of the Apostolic Constitutions (late 4th century CE) is partly based on the Didache (2nd century CE)

(The text of the Didache is more primitive than Book 7 of AC e.g. less clear allusion to the NT it is most unlikely that the Didachr text is derived from AC.)

Andrew Criddle

[DCHindley]

The original 1711 has no preface, and no introductory notes, so my question is still: what greek text was Whiston working off in 1711? It puts to a lie that "consensus" / Wickedpaedia slogan that Codex Hierosolymitanus was the first complete copy of the Didache. What am I missing here? ….
Has anyone compared Whiston's text with the Codex Hierosolymitanus/Donaldson Didache?

Whiston based his work on Arabic manuscripts, with the help of an Orientalist scholar. It was somewhat controversial but essentially sound.

If you search books with:

“Didache” “Whiston” “1711”

You get about five good history discussions.
I will plan on collating them here and on the PBF.

From what I can gather from Wikipedia (search made in 2019), the Apostolic Constitutions drew from the following five main sources:

• Books 1 to 6 are a free re-wording of the Didascalia Apostolorum
• Book 7 is partially based on the Didache.
• Book 8 is composed as follows:
o chapters 1-2 contain an extract of a lost treatise on the charismata
o chapters 3-46 are based on the Apostolic Tradition, greatly expanded, along with other material
o chapter 47 is known as the Canons of the Apostles and it had a wider circulation than the rest of the book.
• Books 7 & 8, besides that which derives from the sources indicated above, are interspersed with 16 prayers that bear striking similarity to Jewish Synagogal prayers: Book 7.26.1-3 (1); 33.2-7 (2); 34.1-8 (3); 35.1-10 (4); 36.1-7 (5); 37.1-5 (6); 38.1-8 (7); 39.2-4 (8); Book 8.5.1-4 (9); 6.5-8 (10); 9.8f (11); 12.6-27 (12); 15.7-9 (13); 16.3 (14); 40.2-4 (15) and 41.2-5 (16).

Unfortunately, like all things Wiki, there is confusion.
• When I [at that time, went] to to the Wiki pages for the Didascalia Apostolorum and the Apostolic Canons, they were both said to derive from the Didache in some way.
• The Apostolic Tradition seems to have not survived in Greek, only Syriac and Ethiopic.
• What passes for the Ethiopic of the Didascalia may be a "Readers' Digest" version of the Greek Apostolic Constitutions. [Some of this has been reformatted since original BC&H post in 2019]

DCH