5 questions for those who accept Sinaiticus as 4th century

[Steven Avery]

As the evidence has tipped more an more ...
And including two threads for catching up on previous discussions:

Codex Sinaiticus - the white parchment Friderico-Augustanus
viewtopic.php?f=3&t=1017

Sinaiticus - Hermas, Barnabas linguistic, history anomalies
viewtopic.php?f=3&t=1025

Here is a short series of 5 questions for those who know a little of the history, the white parchment Tale of Two Manuscripts, and yet claim to be sure that Sinaiticus is a 1750 years old ancient ms.

These are meant for all of our forensic historians.

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1) Why are the Sinaiticus 1859 St. Petersburg pages (later to England) coloured and stained in a manner that points directly to darkening the ms. in the period 1850-1862? *

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2) Why are the Codex Friderico-Augustanus 1844 Leipzig pages in the condition of a pristine, fine snow-white parchment that belies any idea that the manuscript could have had 1000+ years of heavy use in a 1500 year conjectured movement, use and storage period? **

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3) If the claims of Simonides to have been involved in the manuscript were simply an ad hoc retribution attempt against Tischendorf, for the Simonides-Tischendorf-Hermas battle:

.. how did Simonides arrange history so successfully to confirm the elements of the story? ***

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4) How did Simonides manage to publish not only the Hermas "coincidence"? ****
Also the 1843 "Sinaitic" Barnabas.

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5) Why do Barnabas and Hermas have linguistic elements inconsistent with a fourth-century Greek text? *****

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* Exactly as stated as occurred at the monastery in the 1850s, and as related in the note from Kallinikos to Simonides.
The auxiliary question is: who had the means, motive and opportunity to darken the ms?


** A condition easily seen today and clear confirmed by Uspensky (1845) and Ernst von Dobschütz (1910).
And why did Tischendorf take some years before acknowledging the obvious connection (continuous text) of the two mss?
Why was he omitting the connection in the major 1862 publication Bibliorum Codex Sinaiticus Petropolitanus, printed in Leipzig, where the CFA was housed?



*** 3) How did Simonides know that the Sinaiticus manuscript has no provenance? (no ancient catalog, no earlier report before 1844, no provenance authenticity possible)

How did Simonides pre-arrange so many elements that support his story, such as being in Athos with Kallinikos and Benedict in the ms development years?
-- as later confirmed in the 1895 and 1900 Lambrou Catalog of Athos

And being closely connected to the Sinai monastery, knowledgeable of it structures and foibles

In that context, how did Kallinikos at the monastery, and Simonides for #6, know factual elements that were not known throughout the world?
a) 1844 theft of the leaves
b) 1853 "loan" that would never be returned
c) bungled Greek of Tischendorf (later acknowledged in his own writings)
d) artificial colouring of the ms. after 1850, as can even be seen today
e) mangling of the ms. The codex seen by Uspensky dissolved. Taken apart, ripped, cut, stained and parts hidden away.
f) there could be no ancient catalog that supported the existence of the manuscript

Why did Tischendorf make up a group of self-serving fabrications about the manuscript discoveries in 1844 and 1859?
Why was Tischendorf concerned about the Simonides stories even en route to the manuscript, with the major leaves with New Testament capture of 1859?

How could Simonides be talking about a manuscript that he supposedly did not know even existed?



**** "The coincidence seems almost more singular than can be accounted for by chance" - Literary forgeries, James Anson Farrer - p. 060
In both cases conflicting with the claims of Sinaiticus to be the earliest Greek editions of these texts.
Why are the texts of the earlier Simonides Hermas and Barnabas editions so similar to those of Sinaiticus?
And isn't the Ockham explanation that Simonides was involved in both the private editions and the 1844 Sinaiticus discovery edition?

Tischendorf even retracted the linguistic and dating accusation (deemed to be accurate by James Donaldson) against the authenticity of the Hermas text, as those accusations are adducible to the Sinaiticus text.



***** As carefully shown by Scottish scholar James Donaldson in articles from 1864 to 1877.
Ironically, he pointed out that Tischendorf had been correct in his retracted linguistic arguments against the 1856 Hermas, Codex Athos, or Lipsiensis, and showed:

a) that these arguments were true against Sinaiticus Hermas
b) that they also applied to Barnabas

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[Steven Avery]

Sherlock Holmes states an important principle that has to be considered by every forensic historian.

Quote:
"How often have I said to you that when you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth"
Sherlock Holmes in The Sign of the Four (Doubleday p. 111), Arthur Conan Doyle.

[andrewcriddle]

IF the argument about the Shepherd of Hermas is that Simonides composed the text of Hermas in Sinaiticus on the basis of his access to Codex Athous then this seems highly unlikely on textual grounds.

There are too many places where Sinaiticus has a better text of Hermas than Codex Athous.
Just one example: From vision one Roberts-Donaldson reads

I answered her, "Lady, have I sinned against you? How? or when spoke I an unseemly word to you? Did I not always think of you as a lady? Did I not always respect you as a sister? Why do you falsely accuse me of this wickedness and impurity?"

lady here follows the Ethiopic. Lightfoot reads

I answered her and said, "Sin against thee? In what way? Did I ever speak an unseemly word unto thee? Did I not always regard thee as a goddess? Did I not always respect thee as a sister? How couldst thou falsely charge me, lady, with such villainy and uncleanness?

goddess here follows Sinaiticus and (part of) the Latin. Codex Athous reads θυγατέρα daughter. Goddess is almost certainly correct as lectio difficilior and is confirmed by Bodmer Papyrus 38 (c 400 CE).

More generally the argument that the Greek of Hermas in Sinaiticus is late seems undermined by Bodmer Papyrus 38 (published 1991) which dates from about 400 CE covers about 2/3 of the text of Hermas in Sinaiticus and has a (broadly) similar text.

Andrew Criddle

[Steven Avery]

Hi Andrew,

Thanks for the input!

The issue is not really Codex Athous alone (Simonides had two distinct Hermas publications in the wild times from 1856-1859) having full affinity to Sinaiticus due to possibly identical source documents. Although the SImonides texts are often considered similar in text to Sinaiticus. Nor is it a specific variant or two. The issue is too complex for that, 15+ years were involved from 1840 to 1856, and Simonides seemed to have a variety of sources, Greek and Latin. (The Barnabas situation, however, has major qualitative differences, especially since the time period for the production would be very similar. This was listed as a 'Sinait. Text' Barnabas in the Ante-Nicene Father editions.) Farrer, in the "coincidence" quote above was talking about the more general puzzle of Simonides having the first Greek Hermas text published right in that period before the Sinaiticus NT and Hermas was being "discovered".

There are three publications which have linguistic review, James Donaldson covered the Sinaiticus Hermas (which, interestingly, appears to have been an add-on to the original SInaiticus, contra the idea that there were books in between Barnabas and Hermas) and Barnabas. Then we can add the New Finds Hermas. For which the evidence points to it being a discard made due to the Hermas embarrassments.

(This data includes the Hermas brouhaha of 1856-1857 followed by the awkward Tischendorf retraction of his linguistic accusation, clearly because of boomerang concerns. Also the Uspensky description of the manuscript from his 1845 visit which supports a complete Hermas at that time. And the fact that there is New Finds leaf material that overlaps, same leaf, with off-to-Russia material, supporting it as a storage discard spot vis a vis Sinaiticus.)

Your emphasis on Papyrus Bodmer 38 is an excellent suggestion, as it is the key papyrus fragment in terms of size and Sinaiticus Hermas overlap. The linguistic research part of our team will plan on giving our report on how Bodmer 38 fits into the Hermas-Donaldson linguistic question in the coming week.

Steven Avery