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

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mlinssen
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Re: connecting the Shem-tob Hebrew Matthew and Sinaiticus

Post by mlinssen »

Steven Avery wrote: Tue Dec 27, 2022 3:59 pm Just putting the fascinating abbreviations aside for a bit, I will share one of the more quirky scribal connections.

George Eulan Howard (1935-2018) showed nine spots where he thought the Shem-tob Hebrew Matthew had agreements with Sinaiticus singular readings (all were singular in Greek, five had some support in Egyptian versions.) One involved simply a kai, so really is of little use, five were agreement in omission and three were agreement in text, when the Hebrew text is brought to Greek and compared.

The theory of George Howard was that the 4th-century Sinaiticus was agreeing with an ancient Hebrew text that was a precursor to the extant Hebrew Matthew. However, an alternate theory would be that the Athos producers of Sinaiticus had the Hebrew Matthew in hand and it was used for a number of variants.

Now, we are looking at a number of fascinating Greek-on-Greek manuscript connections for the Athos Sinaiticus manuscript production. Each one takes some time to prepare the data :). As well as the scribal features, like looking at the abbreviations. As well as the Sinaiticus conflations, linguistic issues, and much more.

And I would not push this Hebrew Matthew one up, except in a corroborative, and research, role.

Since this forum is up on many of the outlier theories of the New Testament text, I thought I would share this one, as we have been checking some of the data and groundwork.
Granted, but the assumption of a Hebrew Matthew is similar if not identical to a Hebrew Mein Kampf: the entire text testifies to a complete ignorance and rejection of it being native in that language

Sinaiticus completely adheres to the scribal patterns of the Chrestians-Christian tradition, and comparing its transcription with that of Bezae would take only a few hours to demonstrate that
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Song of Songs - "elaborate and highly artificial" formatting and rubrications

Post by Steven Avery »

Ok, now I have abbreviations, Bezae and the western text (and Claromontanus) and Shem-Tob from right above that can use follow-up.

However, watch Benjamin Harris Cowper (1822-1904) discussing the Song of Songs formatting and rubrications and sense-lines in Sinaiticus.

==========

Journal of Sacred Literature (1863)
Benjamin Harris Cowper
https://books.google.com/books?id=vvgDAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA10
https://archive.org/details/journalsacr ... 0/mode/2up

Before speaking of the amazing number of the corrections, which are best seen in the notices of Dr. Tischendorf, we have another word or two to say about the phenomena exhibited by the printed text. The Psalms have rubricated titles. Not only so, the Song of Solomon has a twofold division, a greater and a lesser one. The larger divisions are indicated by the capital letters A, B, Γ, Δ. They are these,—
A. Chap. i. 1 to i. 14. Γ. Chap. iii. 6 to vi. 3.
B. Chap. i. 15 to iii. 5. Δ. Chap. vi. 4 to viii, 14.
With regard to the minor divisions, they break up the book into numerous fragments, to each of which an explanatory rubric is prefixed. These inscriptions distribute the dialogue among is prefixed. These inscriptions distribute the dialogue among the interlocutors, stating who they are, and often adding other details. They are of undoubted Christian origin, and belong to a period when the allegorical interpretation was established. That they are Christian will be seen in a moment from the following examples:—
I. 2. The bride.
I. 4. To the damsels the bride tells what concerns the bridegroom, what he has vouchsafed to her.
I. 4. The bride discoursing to the damsels. And they said.
I. 4. The damsels to the bridegroom proclaim the name of the bride :—Uprightness loved thee.-
I. 4. The bride.
I. 7. To the bridegroom, Christ.
I. 10. The bridegroom to the bride.
I. 12. The bride to herself and to the bridegroom.

In this way the book is divided throughout, and we hope to print at an early date the whole of the Song, according to this arrangement, in an English version. Meanwhile, we invite to the subject the attention of critics, and hope they will be able to say what bearing, if any, these rubrics have upon the question of the date of the Codex.

==========

Then in 1865:

Journal of Sacred Literature (1865)
Benjamin Harris Cowper
https://books.google.com/books?id=NyE2AAAAMAAJ&pg=PA166
p. 166
In the somewhat particular account of the Codex, which we gave in April, 1863, we called attention to the peculiar arrangement and features of the Song of Solomon, and we expressed the hope that we should give a version of it. On reconsideration, it has seemed unnecessary to translate the whole of the text. In lieu of this, therefore, we will insert on this occasion a version of the rubrics, which divide the text into parts, indicate the speakers, and explain a variety of circumstances. We only render so much of the Greek text as is necessary to shew the precise position of the headings, and the arrangement of the whole. The portions in italics are in the original in red ink, and occupy a place in the columns of the MS.

p. 166-169 detail of formatting

p. 169
We shall not justify or explain any of the previous renderings, because our object is less a precise translation, than an exhibition of the plan and structure of the Canticles. The arrangement will strike every one as elaborate and highly artificial, wrought out with care, and probably due to some eminent divine or expositor. Was this in the copy of the Scriptures used by the scribe? Did he himself draw it out in accordance with recognized principles of expounding the book ? Has he borrowed it from some commentary on the Song of Songs, now lost? To these questions an answer may not be easy. But it may be possible to ascertain, what stage in the growth of Christian exegesis and interpretation is represented by this epitome. We have too little of the undoubted commentaries upon Canticles written by Origen, to compare it with them. We may say that other early commentaries on the same book are lost. But towards the latter part of the fourth century we come upon Gregory of Nyssa, and in the fifth century we have Theodoret. From all we are able to gather out of these two, and especially the latter, we are strongly tempted to suspect that the anatomy of Canticles here shewn, belongs to the period between the two. To the same period, or some part of it, we naturally enough refer the MS., because it may he supposed to represent the latest or the most generally accepted arrangement and explanation of the Canticles. An analysis so minute and circumstantial scarcely belongs to the times before Constantine; it reminds us rather of an age which had realized the labours of great expositors like Chrysostom or a Jerome. It required a firm and practised hand to allot the Song of Solomon as it is here allotted; and we know of nothing which should lead us to think that such a process finds any parallel so early as the date to which Dr. Tischendorf assigns the Codex. We would not insist so much on the negative side,—that we have no similar example, as upon the positive one,—that it savours of an age when labours like those of Chrysostom had been accomplished. Here again, however, we are open to correction, and rather intend to lay down a problem than definitely to solve it. We only add that we suspect the scribe was not the author of these divisions and subdivisions, but a simple copyist of them for the reason we are about to mention.

==========

When you look at the modern scholarship, the situation is even more striking. The sophisticated formatting and rubrications are grouped with much later medieval Latin Vulgate manuscriprts.

Why?
Best answer:
Simply because medieval manuscripts were among the exemplars for the 1840’s Mount Athos creation.
Last edited by Steven Avery on Wed Dec 28, 2022 6:18 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Song of Songs - (continued) - every word of the NT undamaged!, coincidences abound

Post by Steven Avery »

The Athenaeum said the same about the Song of Songs, possibly also from Cowper.

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

Athenaeum - Jan 31, 1863
https://books.google.com/books?id=_LxUF1HCyoIC&pg=PA147

Review of Bibliorum Codex Sinaiticus Petropolitanus - 4 Vols

... we should mention that, in the Song of Solomon, the speakers are marked, the bride, the bridegroom, &c., with red ink, and apparently from the hand of the writer himself, because the letters are like the rest in shape and character, and fit into the spaces where they are inserted. This peculiarity is somewhat adverse to the alleged antiquity of the MS. It creates a doubt, at least, in our mind.

It is also singular that the New Testament is complete. Not a word is wanting. Here the MS. stands alone, as far as we know. None other is perfect.

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

The last paragraph is one of the amazing "coincidences" of Sinaiticus. Supposedly 1500 years of heavy use. The Old Testament torn up (but no ink-acid loss).

Yet not one word in the NT damaged in ink and parchment!

Easy to understand if it was 25 years old. And the NT was the focus of design.
Quite unbelievable as part of the normal vulgate fantasy story of the manuscript.

In the real manuscript world, you would expect some pages to be ripped or lost, some edges worn off, some ink to destroy letters, etc.
Last edited by Steven Avery on Thu Dec 29, 2022 7:41 am, edited 2 times in total.
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Re: LXX version of Song of Songs - a Christian product, of course

Post by mlinssen »

Steven Avery wrote: Wed Dec 28, 2022 9:40 am Ok, now I have abbreviations, Bezae and the western text (and Claromontanus) and Shem-Tob from right above that can use follow-up.

However, watch Benjamin Harris Cowper (1822-1904) discussing the Song of Songs formatting and rubrications and sense-lines in Sinaiticus.

==========

Journal of Sacred Literature (1863)
Benjamin Harris Cowper
https://books.google.com/books?id=vvgDAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA10
https://archive.org/details/journalsacr ... 0/mode/2up

Before speaking of the amazing number of the corrections, which are best seen in the notices of Dr. Tischendorf, we have another word or two to say about the phenomena exhibited by the printed text. The Psalms have rubricated titles. Not only so, the Song of Solomon has a twofold division, a greater and a lesser one. The larger divisions are indicated by the capital letters A, B, Γ, Δ. They are these,—
A. Chap. i. 1 to i. 14. Γ. Chap. iii. 6 to vi. 3.
B. Chap. i. 15 to iii. 5. Δ. Chap. vi. 4 to viii, 14.
With regard to the minor divisions, they break up the book into numerous fragments, to each of which an explanatory rubric is prefixed. These inscriptions distribute the dialogue among is prefixed. These inscriptions distribute the dialogue among the interlocutors, stating who they are, and often adding other details. They are of undoubted Christian origin, and belong to a period when the allegorical interpretation was established. That they are Christian will be seen in a moment from the following examples:—
I. 2. The bride.
I. 4. To the damsels the bride tells what concerns the bridegroom, what he has vouchsafed to her.
I. 4. The bride discoursing to the damsels. And they said.
I. 4. The damsels to the bridegroom proclaim the name of the bride :—Uprightness loved thee.-
I. 4. The bride.
I. 7. To the bridegroom, Christ.
I. 10. The bridegroom to the bride.
I. 12. The bride to herself and to the bridegroom.


In this way the book is divided throughout, and we hope to print at an early date the whole of the Song, according to this arrangement, in an English version. Meanwhile, we invite to the subject the attention of critics, and hope they will be able to say what bearing, if any, these rubrics have upon the question of the date of the Codex.

==========

Then in 1865:

Journal of Sacred Literature (1865)
Benjamin Harris Cowper
https://books.google.com/books?id=NyE2AAAAMAAJ&pg=PA166
p. 166
In the somewhat particular account of the Codex, which we gave in April, 1863, we called attention to the peculiar arrangement and features of the Song of Solomon, and we expressed the hope that we should give a version of it. On reconsideration, it has seemed unnecessary to translate the whole of the text. In lieu of this, therefore, we will insert on this occasion a version of the rubrics, which divide the text into parts, indicate the speakers, and explain a variety of circumstances. We only render so much of the Greek text as is necessary to shew the precise position of the headings, and the arrangement of the whole. The portions in italics are in the original in red ink, and occupy a place in the columns of the MS.

p. 166-169 detail of formatting

p. 169
We shall not justify or explain any of the previous renderings, because our object is less a precise translation, than an exhibition of the plan and structure of the Canticles. The arrangement will strike every one as elaborate and highly artificial, wrought out with care, and probably due to some eminent divine or expositor. Was this in the copy of the Scriptures used by the scribe? Did he himself draw it out in accordance with recognized principles of expounding the book ? Has he borrowed it from some commentary on the Song of Songs, now lost? To these questions an answer may not be easy. But it may be possible to ascertain, what stage in the growth of Christian exegesis and interpretation is represented by this epitome. We have too little of the undoubted commentaries upon Canticles written by Origen, to compare it with them. We may say that other early commentaries on the same book are lost. But towards the latter part of the fourth century we come upon Gregory of Nyssa, and in the fifth century we have Theodoret. From all we are able to gather out of these two, and especially the latter, we are strongly tempted to suspect that the anatomy of Canticles here shewn, belongs to the period between the two. To the same period, or some part of it, we naturally enough refer the MS., because it may he supposed to represent the latest or the most generally accepted arrangement and explanation of the Canticles. An analysis so minute and circumstantial scarcely belongs to the times before Constantine; it reminds us rather of an age which had realized the labours of great expositors like Chrysostom or a Jerome. It required a firm and practised hand to allot the Song of Solomon as it is here allotted; and we know of nothing which should lead us to think that such a process finds any parallel so early as the date to which Dr. Tischendorf assigns the Codex. We would not insist so much on the negative side,—that we have no similar example, as upon the positive one,—that it savours of an age when labours like those of Chrysostom had been accomplished. Here again, however, we are open to correction, and rather intend to lay down a problem than definitely to solve it. We only add that we suspect the scribe was not the author of these divisions and subdivisions, but a simple copyist of them for the reason we are about to mention.

==========

When you look at the modern scholarship, the situation is even more striking. The sophisticated formatting and rubrications are grouped with much later medieval Latin Vulgate manuscriprts.

Why?
Best answer:
Simply because medieval manuscripts were among the exemplars for the 1840’s Mount Athos creation.
Indeed, the LXX was not merely copied by Christians, but composed by Christians - everything attests to that. Yet this is no proof of falisfication in a document purportedly from the 4/5th CE, or is it?
Presupposing that there was an LXX before 3rd CE is thoroughly baseless. We have scraps of a book here and there, sometimes two together, but none of them are anything like an "OT", and none of them ever contain the typical Chrestian-Christian scribal habits - and we can observe a first try-out in Rahlfs 963
Ockham's Razor. Simply because the entire LXX is a product of Churchian making

The evidence that you are providing attests to the fact that Christians authored the LXX, not that Sinaiticus was produced at a much later date than 4th/5th CE - at least that appears to be the case when looking at these last posts
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Direction of dependence: Masoretic Text, Matthew, LXX

Post by mlinssen »

Steven Avery wrote: Wed Dec 28, 2022 6:17 pm The Athenaeum said the same about the Song of Songs, possibly also from Cowper.

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

Athenaeum - Jan 31, 1863
https://books.google.com/books?id=_LxUF1HCyoIC&pg=PA147

Review of Bibliorum Codex Sinaiticus Petropolitanus - 4 Vols
... we should mention that, in the Song of Solomon, the speakers are marked, the bride, the bridegroom, &c., with red ink, and apparently from the hand of the writer himself, because the letters are like the rest in shape and character, and fit into the spaces where they are inserted. This peculiarity is somewhat adverse to the alleged antiquity of the MS. It creates a doubt, at least, in our mind.

It is also singular that the New Testament is complete. Not a word is wanting. Here the MS. stands alone, as far as we know. None other is perfect.

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

The last paragraph is one of the amazing "coincidences" of Sinaiticus. Supposedly 1500 years of heavy use. The Old Testament torn up (but no ink-acid loss).

Yet not one word in the NT damaged in ink and parchment!

Easy to understand if it was 25 years old. And the NT was the focus of design.
Quite unbelievable as part of the normal vulgate fantasy story of the manuscript.
The only purpose of the LXX was to support the NT, as for instance Matthew attests:

The Bethlehem massacre, Matthew chapter 2: (BLB)

17 Then was fulfilled what was spoken through the prophet Jeremiah, saying: 18 “A voice was heard in Ramah, weeping and great mourning, Rachel weeping for her children; and she would not be comforted, because they are not.”

Poor Rachel, weeping for her children, "who are not" (ὅτι (because) οὐκ (no more) εἰσίν (are they)). This is a quote from Jeremiah 31: (BSB)

15 Thus says the LORD: "A voice is heard in Ramah, lamentation and bitter weeping. Rachel is weeping for her children; she refuses to be comforted for her children, because they are no more. (ότι ουκ εισίν)"

That's pretty verbatim, isn't it? What a true prophecy, and how irrefutable that it is fulfilled this way - right?
Wrong, as this is not the whole story in Jeremiah, which continues as follows:

16 Thus says the LORD: "Keep your voice from weeping, and your eyes from tears, for there is a reward for your work, declares the LORD, and they shall come back from the land of the enemy.
17 There is hope for your future, declares the LORD, and your children shall come back to their own country.


Behold Matthew, the falsifier of all: he selectively quotes from a narrative and then sells that as prophecy, and while the direction of dependence between NT and LXX cannot be directly established at this point, the entire story is right here, complete with interactive Greek and English: hoover with the mouse over words and enjoy yourself

https://www.stepbible.org/?q=version=BS ... NTERLEAVED

Do note that the LXX has υιούς, sons, which obviously is the wrong word, as the MT has children:

https://www.sefaria.org/Jeremiah.31.15?lang=bi

But Matthew 2:18 quotes τὰ (the) τέκνα (children) whereas he uses τοὺς (the) παῖδας (boys) in 2:16 himself, and παῖς is one of those words that is ambiguous as a child has no gender by default, yet the Greek word (and every other language, really) defaults to masculine - but fortunately we have the definite article here, which is τούς: masculine accusative plural, whereas the feminine variant of that would be τάς.
So Herod indeed has all male childs massacred, or perhaps just genderless children, but certainly not female children.
Check out bible hub: https://biblehub.com/matthew/2-16.htm - every translation explicitly has male children or boys

And we can see how the Masoretic Text gets adjusted from mere children to saying sons, υιούς, in the LXX.
Which is extremely odd, of course, as Matthew 2:18 uses τὰ τέκνα, a perfectly neutral neuter (sic) for 'the children'.
And every translation of Jeremiah 31:15 says 'children': https://biblehub.com/jeremiah/31-15.htm

Whereas every LXX says "sons" - because the LXX had to be the correct basis to the NT:

https://biblehub.com/interlinear/aposto ... iah/31.htm

https://www.academic-bible.com/en/onlin ... 17ca40fa3/

https://www.blueletterbible.org/lxx/jer/31/1/s_776001

The Vulgate also has 'filios suos', https://www.academic-bible.com/en/onlin ... 8d0279ac6/

And what we are witnessing here is most miraculous: Matthew is attesting, in front of our very eyes, across the boundaries of time and space, to what truly was and still is in the Hebrew Tanakh: genderless children, τέκνα. And he turns that into male children, παῖδας. And Nestle-Aland 28 as usual has no variants for Matthew whatsoever, because Matthew not only is the poster child of the NT, but also the last and latest addition and redactor, and everything gets harmonised with Matthew but never the other way around

And indeed, later on, when the LXX got created, they went by the NT in order to see which verses "needed fixing" - and they looked at Matthew 2:16 but not at Matthew 2:18.
So the MT got "fixed" into the LXX saying what is in Matthew 2:16, and it couldn't have existed at the time of Matthew because his 2:18 shows verbatim agreement with the MT from which he quotes

The only possible order of precedence here is Masoretic Text, Matthew, LXX
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Romans 3 section placed into Psalm 14

Post by Steven Avery »

Hi mlinsse,

To a large extent I do agree that the so-called "LXX" is a tampered text, often reflecting the New Testament. The simplest and largest example is how a section from Romans 3 was placed into Psalm 14. And this blunder includes the original scribe in Sinaiticus, and it is in Vaticanus.

So far, I have not seen how this may be evidence for an early or late Sinaiticus, but that may change :).

Steven
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Sinaiticus utilizing medieval Latin manuscripts for Song of Songs formatting

Post by Steven Avery »

A bit more on the sophisticated formatting in Codex Sinaiticus:

Lost Keys: Text and Interpretation in Old Greek "Song of Songs” and Its Earliest Manuscript Witnesses (1996)
Rubrics in Codex Sinaiticus
Jay Curry Treat
https://repository.upenn.edu/cgi/viewco ... sertations

p. 439

In 1926, Donatien de Bruyne called attention to a family of manuscripts that contained “a very remarkable” tradition of rubrics, to be found in both Latin and Greek manuscripts.1 De Bruyne described these rubrics as “the finest and the most nuanced of the interpretations of the Canticles conceived as a drama.”2 We will refer to this as the Sinaiticus rubric-tradition, because the oldest manuscript to preserve it is Codex Sinaiticus.

De Bruyne found the same tradition of rubrics in a family of Latin manuscripts. The oldest and purest Latin representative is an eighth-century manuscript, Stuttgart 35. A thirteenth-century manuscript, Fribourg L 75 is another valuable representative of this tradition of rubrics. De Bruyne found the same tradition mixed with other traditions in six Italian, Anglo-Saxon, and French manuscripts dating from the ninth through the fourteenth century.3

1 Donatien De Bruyne, “Les Anciennes versions latines du Cantique des cantiques,” Revue Benedictine 38 (1926): 118-122.

2 De Bruyne, “Anciennes versions,” 121.

3 De Bruyne, “Anciennes versions,” 118.

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

Why is Sinaiticus in the group with late Medieval manscripts, and no other Greek manuscripts?

Sinaiticus was a blunderama manuscript, so did they really pick up this sophistication from an unknown 3rd-century examplar, against the whole tradition of Greek commentary on the Song of Songs?

Simple Ockham explanation, when Sinaiticus was written c. 1840, the more advanced exemplars were available.

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

Post by mlinssen »

Have you come across Peter Malik?

https://www.academia.edu/5675974/The_Ea ... el_of_Mark

A solid analysis of the earliest corrections in Sinaiticus' Mark, of which this one is most interesting of course:

Mark 1:1 (Q.76-f.2v-c.1-l.2)28
ぐ*: αρχη του ευαγγελιου ιυヌ χυヌ (Θ 28 l2211 sams Or)29
ぐ1: αρχη του ευαγγελιου ιυヌ χυヌ υυヌ θυヌ (B D L W Γ latt sy co Irlat)

Pardon the copy paste, but Mark omits "of God" here. And the most likely explanation is that the Vorlage said so too
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Re: Sinaiticus authenticity discussion Wed 11/30/2022 - James Snapp Jr. and Steven Avery

Post by Maestroh »

Anyone having the misfortune of coming across Steven Avery (aka Insane Dolt, the world’s fastest sprinter away from what he just said), this is how his brain dead Adderall overdose posts sound like in real time:

https://youtu.be/Pi93ng0uGaQ
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Re: Sinaiticus authenticity discussion Wed 11/30/2022 - James Snapp Jr. and Steven Avery

Post by Leucius Charinus »

Maestroh wrote: Sun Feb 12, 2023 12:11 pmoverdose posts
His infrequent posts contain questions. While some are answered many are not. Radiocarbon C14 dating will provide the final answer. I understand you are critical of the claims of discoloration. You may have a point. IDK. What about the claims related to the editorial additions to the Song of Songs?
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