Ulan wrote: ↑Thu Apr 12, 2018 7:27 amI was looking at the claims made in the "white parchment" thread, and I came to the conclusion that these claims are simply baseless for the time being. This includes claims about the color differences between manuscript parts, depending on the location where they are kept. Particularly since KK brought a comparison of the color bars that accompany some of the online manuscript pages (see
here), it is clear that any color comparison of online images is beyond useless. The Leipzig images have been color-corrected with high contrast and low color saturation, to make the background (the parchment) look whiter and the text darker, which increases the readability of even faint letters. The London images were taken with high color saturation and lower contrast, which shows the colors of the parchment and that of the written letters in all their glory, but makes reading much more difficult. Any side-by-side comparison of images, therefore, is an apples to oranges comparison and makes that whole thread kind of pointless.
And I see this as a rather absurd conclusion based on the minor differences on the colour bar.
The Codex Sinaiticus Project folks had a special committee for photography accuracy and standardization and oversight, and there is ZERO indication that anything was
"color-corrected...to make the parchment look whiter".
Gavin Moorhead of the British Library shared to us, through the correspondence with Cillian O'Hogan (who is now at Waterloo in Toronto):
""the Leipzig folios are notable for their whiteness."
And the British Library even sent us an example of the major difference between Leipzig and the British Libary pages.
We can easily see this "notable ... whiteness" on the CSP, yet so
many want to deny the obvious.
Similarly we communicated with the Leipzig photographer, and there was an affirming of the accuracy, and NO indication of any color-correcting to make them more white.
Testing? The Leipzig University Library tests scheduled for 2015 were .. cancelled. And they are very uncommunicative. The Brits, to their credit, were quite forthright in acknowledging the colour anomaly.
Those who use the minor colour bar variance as an excuse for the
major colour (and staining and streaking) disparity between Leipzig 1844 and British Library 1859 should, at least, try to explain why the British Library and Leipzig are involved in this massive tampering and cover-up to make it look like an artificially stained manuscript!
Similarly, James Snapp does not blame color-correction, he simply blames the lighting, and when confronted with the British Library perspective, and the professional photography standards .. simply goes silent, changing the topic, or blocking or dropping the conversation.
The David Parker approach is actually totally different. Some unknown combination of factors turned the Leipzig pages white. Or turned the Brit pages yellow, stained and streaky. With no evidence at all to support either idea. It is at least worthy of consideration (unlike the other two approaches which are basically absurd.)
Parker doe uses the throway of seeing the British Library pages in "artificial light". Did Leipzig take the ms. outside for him? Or use some super-full-spectrum lighting? The CSP got confused? If you can unravel that, share away
.
And the white pages have major problems as supposed 1650 year folia. You have to overhaul parchment science to fit the new paradigm of parchment that does not yellow and age and lose flexibility.
Ironically, the 2011-2012 printed Sinaiticus edition from Hendrickson has zero distinction between the colour of Leipzig and the British Library. And hints at what happened, in the Preface, where they talk of "sensitive adjustments". Here you do have "color-correction". I tried to track down who was involved in these adjustments, and everything was mist and vapours.
Remember, the colouring of the manuscript in the 1850s was specifically reported in the 1862-1864 controversies. Thus,
historical forensics comes to play. The report was combined with other super-accurate reports, like the quiet theft by Tischendorf in 1844 and the bogus loan in 1859, which was said would never be returned. However, our textual folks are generally clueless on the history. If you know the historical details, it is trivially obvious that the 1844 heist of the five quires and a bit more was a brazen theft. And was so reported by Simonides and Kallinikos.
Why would someone (who supposedly had never even seen the ms.) make a seemingly absurd claim that the ms. was coloured that could be easily refuted? The answer. He actually observed the colouring crime.
The timing was the 1850s, the person was Tischendorf (and that could include some of his allies in Sinai and Cairo), the means was stated to be lemon juice and herbs.
You can SEE the
BEFORE and AFTER today, both in the colour and the streaking.
And all the Lepizig and BL sections are in "phenomenally good condition", with nice easy-peasy page turning, and sans the grime and dirt from monk and scribal corrector handling, as is supposed.
Steven