Sinaiticus authenticity discussion Wed 11/30/2022 - James Snapp Jr. and Steven Avery

Discussion about the New Testament, apocrypha, gnostics, church fathers, Christian origins, historical Jesus or otherwise, etc.
Steven Avery
Posts: 987
Joined: Sun Oct 19, 2014 9:27 am

Sinaiticus authenticity discussion Wed 11/30/2022 - James Snapp Jr. and Steven Avery

Post by Steven Avery »

Sinaiticus authenticity discussion Wed 11/30/2022 - James Snapp Jr. and Steven Avery

Wednesday November 30, 2022 – TODAY 4:30 EST

Codex Sinaiticus Authenticity Discussion
James Snapp, Jr. and Steven Avery
..hosted by LJ. Thriepland
planned to be friendly, edifying and informative
Youtube
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9a_w0tYBRNw
Facebook
https://www.facebook.com/events/477735734451844

Steven Avery
www.linktr.ee/stevenavery
User avatar
Leucius Charinus
Posts: 2817
Joined: Fri Oct 04, 2013 4:23 pm
Location: memoriae damnatio

Re: Sinaiticus authenticity discussion Wed 11/30/2022 - James Snapp Jr. and Steven Avery

Post by Leucius Charinus »

Codex Sinaiticus was suddenly and unexpectedly "found in a rubbish bin".


Included among the aims and objectives of the Project Codex Sinaiticus Online was a provision: To undertake research into the history of the Codex . . . , to commission an objective historical narrative based on the results of the research which places the documents in their historical context ...."

-- www.codexsinaiticus.org (March 2005)

The professional recourse would be to take a sample fragment from blank space and send it to the scientific radiocarbon lab for a C14 test.

What C14 did for the Shroud (date range of 1260–1390 CE) it can do for the so-called earliest Greek Bible codex. Is anyone running a book? My money is on the 14th century.

The problem is that it is not appropriate to take a sample of a "Holy Relic". Dogma trumps science at the moment. Sooner or later someone will engineer a C14 test.
StephenGoranson
Posts: 2308
Joined: Thu Apr 02, 2015 2:10 am

Re: Sinaiticus authenticity discussion Wed 11/30/2022 - James Snapp Jr. and Steven Avery

Post by StephenGoranson »

I watched.
IMO, one weak argument, by SA, was using the word "scriptorium" as an indication of a medieval date, though scriptoria (and that word) existed long before the middle ages.
IMO, one strong argument, by JS, was that Simonides did not forge it, because he inaccurately described it, showing he did not have first-hand information.
Steven Avery
Posts: 987
Joined: Sun Oct 19, 2014 9:27 am

Re: Sinaiticus authenticity discussion Wed 11/30/2022 - James Snapp Jr. and Steven Avery

Post by Steven Avery »

Hi Stephen,

Thanks for watching.

I usually say scriptorium or monastery. Either can be early or late, when textual theorists talk about a 4th-century production, they call it a scriptorium..

However, Pantelemon on Athos, the production site for Sinaiticus was a monastery, not a scriptorium, so I use both words.

A new discovery, after the discussion, was Tischendorf talking in 1850 of leaves long destroyed.
viewtopic.php?p=146423#p146423

Creating additional problems for his narrative and integrity.

Steven
StephenGoranson
Posts: 2308
Joined: Thu Apr 02, 2015 2:10 am

Re: Sinaiticus authenticity discussion Wed 11/30/2022 - James Snapp Jr. and Steven Avery

Post by StephenGoranson »

Steven,
a) your post above is not clear about relevance to dating.
b) your post above did not address:
"IMO, one weak argument, by SA, was using the word "scriptorium" as an indication of a medieval date, though scriptoria (and that word) existed long before the middle ages."
[added:]
nor response to
"IMO, one strong argument, by JS, was that Simonides did not forge it, because he inaccurately described it, showing he did not have first-hand information."
Steven Avery
Posts: 987
Joined: Sun Oct 19, 2014 9:27 am

Re: Sinaiticus authenticity discussion Wed 11/30/2022 - James Snapp Jr. and Steven Avery

Post by Steven Avery »

Hi Stephen,

Often I prefer to take one question at a time, if the two questions are not related.

Can you indicate what I said that limited "scriptorium" to an indication of a medieval date? I surely never had that in mind, but if my words gave that impression, they can be corrected.

Now it is true that a monastery that does copying can in one sense be considered de facto a scriptorium, any date and place. However, if it is a singular project and not the express purpose of the monastery, the word can give a mistaken impression that the monastery exists for the scriptorium purpose. The Pantelemon monastery is, I believe, better described as a monastery than scriptorium, accepting their work on Sinaiticus. The project was so clumsy that it could never come out of a skilled scriptorium (thousands of omissions, pages duplicated, etc.)

From the point of view of Kallinikos, Simonides simply aborted the project, and there had been some consideration of using Sinaiticus as a proof-text starting point only.

Steven
Steven Avery
Posts: 987
Joined: Sun Oct 19, 2014 9:27 am

Re: Sinaiticus authenticity discussion Wed 11/30/2022 - James Snapp Jr. and Steven Avery

Post by Steven Avery »

As for what happened with Hermas, and Simonides possibly saying what was convenient for the moment rather than the historical facts, that is a minor issue. Emphasized as part of the "orange man bad" approach to determining the dating and authenticity of the manuscript.

First we have the incredible lies and thefts of Tischendorf, yet they do not ipso facto disqualify his possibly finding an ancient manuscript. He even transformed a brazen theft in 1844 into an absurd and laughable claim that he saved these stolen leaves from fire. Still repeated today by many Tischen-dupes.

And any consideration that Simonides shaded the truth on some secondary issues has to be weighed against the impossible knowledge and amazing coincidences :

The Simonides Greek Hermas ..
"The coincidence seems almost more singular than can be accounted for by chance" - James Anson Farrer Literary forgeries - p. 060

Very close to Sinaiticus and published before the 1859 Hermas was out of Sinai. Tischendorf was embarrassed by his accusation and pseudo-retraction against the Athous Hermas.

And that Hermas with often the same texts in Sinaiticus shows strong evidence of being much later retroversion from the Latin, as pointed out first by Constantine Tischendorf in 1856, and later by James Donaldson.

The fact that Kallinikos, Benedict and Simonides were confirmed working on manuscripts at Athos c. 1840 (confirmed in the 1900 catalog of Mt. Athos mss. by Spyridon Lambrou.)

The knowledge of the 1844 theft abstraction by Tischendorf. Stated clear as day by Kallinikos, only available by inside monastery knowledge, and confirmed today as 100% accurate (including his letter to his brother Julius in 1844, where he uses thief's jargon, they came into my possession.) That was why Tischendorf did not for years publicly identify the Codex Friderico-Augustanus as Sinaiticus, even after the 1859 theft.

The knowledge that the 1859 loan was bogus and would never be honored. Kallinikos actually compared that to some manuscripts borrowed from Athos by Uspensky.

The fact of knowing that Sinaiticus has no provenance. This would have shot down the claim in a day, but Simonides knew provenance before 1840 was not possible. Without that knowledge it would have been an absurd claim on his end.

The fact of knowing that there was no ancient catalogue at St. Catherine's showing the ms. (A false claim made in the debate.)

The fact of knowing about the colouring and staining of the manuscript. While efforts are made to throw sand, even the British Library has agreed that their section is yellow in comparison to Leipzig. Matching perfectly what was stated by Kallinikos. This would have been an absurd claim as well, and trivially easy to refute if not true, without the inside knowledge about the ms.

The fact of knowing about the excellent, light use condition of the parchment, that it could not be ancient, despite the false representations that it was yellow with age, moulded with time, etc. And the ridiculous claim that it was with torn and tattered fragments in the basket ready to be burned.

The issue about Simonides saying he wrote the whole ms. at one point is a total nothing-burger. He told about the many years of prep work by Benedict and wrote of specific others working on the ms. So if he highlighted at times his own efforts more than warranted 20 years later, in the context of getting a $$ challenge going about how fast he could write, that was just a little distraction from the wily Greek. He probably wrote about half the manuscript.

And I can go on and on, even the knowledge that Tischendorf could not really carry on Greek conversations was pointed out, something that came out later when Tischendorf wrote about how he could not really talk coherently to the native Greeks.

Oh, Simonides pointed out how the Zosimas Moscow Bible was one of the sources. Today we know that Sinaiticus and Alexandrinus are generally in agreement in the Greek Old Testament. Zosimas is an off-shoot of Alexandrinus through Grabe.

Ultimately, it comes down to the manuscript itself.

However, the defenders of authenticity do not want to discuss those elements.
Thus, they take the orange man bad approach.
StephenGoranson
Posts: 2308
Joined: Thu Apr 02, 2015 2:10 am

Re: Sinaiticus authenticity discussion Wed 11/30/2022 - James Snapp Jr. and Steven Avery

Post by StephenGoranson »

Irrelevancies and obscurantist deflections aside, is it fair to say that, in your, SA__, view, that of two people, who, in your view, are both liars, that you prefer--for some reason--one liar over the other?
Ulan
Posts: 1505
Joined: Sat Mar 29, 2014 3:58 am

Re: Sinaiticus authenticity discussion Wed 11/30/2022 - James Snapp Jr. and Steven Avery

Post by Ulan »

StephenGoranson wrote: Sun Dec 04, 2022 11:30 am Irrelevancies and obscurantist deflections aside, is it fair to say that, in your, SA__, view, that of two people, who, in your view, are both liars, that you prefer--for some reason--one liar over the other?
He prefers the proven liar over the person he tries to frame as a liar, because the opinions of the latter undermine his KJVOnlyist stance. That's all there is to it.

And yes, James Snapp just pointed out why Steven Avery's position is dead in the water - and has been for one and a half centuries. Simonides didn't know the Codex Sinaiticus manuscript. He had obviously never seen the original. Simonides basically hung himself by his tendency to invent elaborate fables. Too much detail.
Steven Avery
Posts: 987
Joined: Sun Oct 19, 2014 9:27 am

Re: Sinaiticus authenticity discussion Wed 11/30/2022 - James Snapp Jr. and Steven Avery

Post by Steven Avery »

StephenGoranson wrote: Sun Dec 04, 2022 11:30 am Irrelevancies and obscurantist deflections aside, is it fair to say that, in your, SA__, view, that of two people, who, in your view, are both liars, that you prefer--for some reason--one liar over the other?
Not really. In terms of Sinaiticus, the explanations of Simonides generally hold up well. He had nothing to gain financially by potentially claiming ownership of a 20 year old ms. Maybe there was a little value in a curiousity market, like Ripley's. ("Believe it or not, this parchment was accepted by experts as from AD 350.")

As I carefully explained above, there were many elements of his story and history, and corroborations and coincidences, that only make sense by at least accepting his involvement with the ms. Once his connection to the ms. is accepted, then we look at the authorship alternatives.

(A curious blindness is only to seek out one side. James Snapp related to none of the evidences for recent vintage, but I am familiar with his approach, I expect a higher quality of response here. Note: James has a certain integrity in the overall matter, he fought the Codex Sinaiticus Project about their bogus English translation and he exposed the James White boomerang absurdities about the trash-can fabrication. However, his ability to focus and understand the two sides of an issue has been quite limited.)

So I prefer Simonides as involved in the authorship of the manuscript, compared to the tissues of lies and thefts from Tischendorf about the ms.

However, overall, Tischendorf has some fine qualities. An indefatigable worker and writer. Sometimes he tried to play in the evangelical court, despite his papal/Jesuit connections.

The real issue is the manuscript, and the historical imperative, not comparing two flawed men. That might give some insight, but will never be the deciding factor.

That is why the "orange man bad" approach is a smokescreen.

(To be clear, I am a never-Trumper, but I do find the "orange man bad" approach to be a new syndrome, that applies here extremely well.)
Post Reply