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.
Ulan
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Re: Sinaiticus - features that point to a late production

Post by Ulan »

Steven Avery wrote: Sat Feb 18, 2023 6:01 am I've seen you object to certain evidences, and use wacky language like "terrible yellow", and some strange arguments and lots of liar refrains. And I will plan on returning to those issues, at least anything that looks like it might be substantive.
Oh, come on. Me making fun of your "coloring the truth" nonsense that has been debunked years ago isn't anything special. You just pretend all of that didn't happen.

The whole debate has been had already in that other thread. If you want a refresher, read there. I just want to remind the more observant readers that whenever you start again about "a manuscript without blemishes" when talking about the Leipzig leaves, stuff you have already admitted to be wrong, it's in order to post a reminder that you are wrong. Or, like in this thread, you conveniently "forget" what scholarship has to say about stuff like the three crosses note, in order to cause the false impression anyone had missed anything relevant about the manuscript.

Really, you always wait a few weeks or months and then start with the same old nonsense over and over. Not sure why you need to be reminded of why your thesis is dead over and over. Even the debate you linked in your first post explains why your thesis is obviously wrong.
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Leucius Charinus
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Re: Sinaiticus - features that point to a late production

Post by Leucius Charinus »

Ulan wrote: Sat Feb 18, 2023 6:12 am Just a comment regarding this:
The whole codex consists of quires of eight leaves (with a few exceptions), a format which came to be popular throughout the Middle Ages
That doesn't mean what you probably want to stress here: The start of the Middle Ages is usually set in the 5th century, and the common dating of the manuscript is just shy of that date, which fits the quoted statement.
And the end of the middle ages is usually set in the 15th century.
Leucius Charinus wrote: Sat Feb 18, 2023 3:46 am What if it's from (say for example) the 14th century? C14 can provide the approximate century. Confirming and knowing when the codex was produced would be important.
Here we come to the point why the interest in doing these tests is rather mild: The manuscript doesn't make sense as being from the 14th century.
But that's the whole point. We have our chronological frameworks of what makes sense and what doesn't and these frameworks might be way off historical reality. The whole point in engaging with a scientific dating is to bypass what we think we know, what we think makes sense, and allow the scientists to tell us what the age of the codex actually is.
Steven Avery's hypothesis at least makes sense from a point of possible motivation: personal posturing by a forger. Steven's hypothesis is just dead in the water, because the surrounding facts disprove his thesis.
What I can't get over is the statement by Constantin von Tischendorf that the manuscript was "found in a rubbish bin" in a church monastery in the 19th century. Can you really believe that?
On the other hand, what would be the reasoning behind forging something like this in the 14th century?
The question becomes not one of forgery but rather what has motivated the church to try and pass off a 14th century manuscript as a 4th century manuscript. I have the same basic problem with Codex Alexandrinus which was donated to Britain by Constantine Lukaris, the Patriarch of the Church of Constantinople in the 17th century, nd is being passed off as another codex from late antiquity. YES it may be that old. But NO it could be a product of a much later century. C14 will tell us which is true and which is not.
Pointing at the certainly existing and very productive clerical forgery workshops is moot, as those forged only documents that resulted in monetary gains, like land deeds, social standing or royal privileges. Nobody doubted the age of the church, and old manuscripts were copied and thrown away. Forging a huge and expensive manuscript in the style of the 4th to 5th century would only make sense when interest in real historical knowledge awoke, together with actual knowledge of the times for which it was forged (clerical forgeries most of the time lacked that historical knowledge, which makes them easy to identify as forgeries, like with the Donation of Constantine). This leaves us with only a few windows in time in which such a document makes sense as having been produced.
Again what makes sense and what doesn't make sense is irrelevant to C14 dating. If you give me a room full of theological professors and a C14 radiocarbon lab, and ask me who to believe in regard to the date of these 4 great and early codices, I will take the opinion of the scientists over the theologians every time.
As far as I understood it, this doesn't make any difference at all for your own hypothesis, anyway, right? Nobody claims this manuscript is pre-Constantine. Whether it's from the 4th, 5th or 6th century isn't really such a big deal. It would be one of the few oldest manuscripts in all of these cases.
My own hypothesis involves the claim that we have been utterly mislead by the church [industry] from the very beginning. Both in regard to the history of the NT and Christian orthodoxy and also in regard to the history of the heretics - the authors of the NT apocrypha. I maintain that is is a reasonable position to hold that fraud and forgery were part of their business model from the rise of the Nicene church in the 4th century. C14 dating can expose any misrepresentation of chronology of manuscripts that has occurred prior to c.1950 CE.
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Re: Sinaiticus authenticity discussion Wed 11/30/2022 - James Snapp Jr. and Steven Avery

Post by Maestroh »

Leucius Charinus wrote: Sun Feb 12, 2023 5:45 pm His infrequent posts contain questions.
You misspelled "assertions," and he has "questions" about all the moon landings he dismisses as fake, too.
And the inside job that took down Building 7 on 9/11.
And the idea maybe atomic bombs don't exist.

Leucius Charinus wrote: Sun Feb 12, 2023 5:45 pm While some are answered many are not. Radiocarbon C14 dating will provide the final answer.
Not for him it won't. Carbon dating is part of unbelieving science like evolution to that fundy lint licker. He's PRETENDING RIGHT NOW, but he'll change his mind the second it comes back older than he wants. Bear in mind he keeps misrepresenting scholars even on his quotes. This imbecile left a bunch on for public viewing and when he got caught LYING about what they said, had the gall to gaslight the rest of us who pointed it out as being "unethical."


Leucius Charinus wrote: Sun Feb 12, 2023 5:45 pm I understand you are critical of the claims of discoloration.
Made by a guy who has never seen the manuscript and who has a history of lying longer than Donald Trump does and who also is a KJVO nut who pretends to be some open-minded Jesus follower? You're right, I am.
Leucius Charinus wrote: Sun Feb 12, 2023 5:45 pm You may have a point. IDK. What about the claims related to the editorial additions to the Song of Songs?
Who cares?

This douche bag is trying to argue this is a 19th century work for one reason ONLY - because he is a fundamentalist KJVO nutbag with security issues - but he's a pretentious phony like he's actually interested in interaction. The ONLY reason he likes information is he's a bed-wetting narcissistic prick who then throws out what he thinks he knows like a child copying a page out of the encyclopedia and turning it in as an original.
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Re: Sinaiticus - features that point to a late production

Post by Maestroh »

Steven Avery wrote: Thu Feb 16, 2023 12:01 pm Hi Leucius, I took a little break from posting, more involved in textual studies, especially where the Sinaiticus text or corrections have connections to specific manuscripts.
This guy who cannot even read Greek wants you to think he was doing some "textual studies." What this unaccomplished wannabe was doing is finding quotes he can cherry pick.
Steven Avery wrote: Thu Feb 16, 2023 12:01 pm And we have the silly season childish insult stuff like Bill Brown above,
Steven Avery Spencer, who hides his REAL name in embarrassment and is a lily-livered coward, is the most pretentious poster online, which is saying a lot.

I've not said anything untrue about him - at all.

He's a through and through phony.


Steven Avery wrote: Thu Feb 16, 2023 12:01 pm and the nonsense of "terrible yellow" from Ulan. However, I do hope to give some more attention in the weeks ahead, using the body of substantial posting on this forum.
He's lying.

He's had plenty of time to post on other boards.

Every single time he opens his mouth a lie escapes. And when he's telling you something, he's HIDING THINGS FROM YOU, too.
Steven Avery wrote: Thu Feb 16, 2023 12:01 pm Thanks for noticing the Song of Songs study. Nobody can really explain the advanced, sophisticated formatting and rubrications of the dialog of the Song of Songs, which only matches the style of later Latin manuscripts. They can only offer extremely low probability (impossible) conjectures of how that occurs in Sinaiticus if it is 4th century. An honest approach would say that the advanced formatting points to Sinaiticus being c. AD 1000 or later.
He's lying about this, too.


Steven Avery wrote: Thu Feb 16, 2023 12:01 pm A similar example of a feature that is impossible to explain under current theories is the three crosses note. Clearly, this is a scriptorium note, made to spur either correction or egg-on-face acknowledgement. Tischendorf understood it that way. The idea that it was composed centuries after production is essentially absurd. However, the Sinaiticus palaeography insists on this absurdity. Everything falls apart if the note is placed as part of the 4th century production. No difficulty at all in the 1800s production theory.
He is making zero sense - yet again.

ALL OF THIS has been explained to him - and he got his ass kicked in that debate with Snapp, apparently suffering serious brain damage that makes him forget things like, you know, being refuted.
Steven Avery wrote: Thu Feb 16, 2023 12:01 pm A third example of impossibility nonsense in current theories is the attempt to connect Sinaiticus text and/or corrections with the Andreas and Oecumenius Revelation commentaries. As a type of precursor. This makes zero sense, and really makes for a terminus post quem of c. AD 650.
Bear in mind this bozo apparently thinks Simonides had every manuscript in the world on Mt Athos with him.
And those he didn't - he pretends there are others.

Seriously - this guy makes Sidney Powell look coherent.

Steven Avery wrote: Thu Feb 16, 2023 12:01 pm A fourth example of a highlight that should raise enormous suspicions is the simple fact of every verse, letter and word being neat and readable in the New Testament. While the Old Testament is said to be in tatters and wear from 1500 years of supposed hot, dry climate use before the Tischendorf extractions. This is a "too good to be true" aspect, as if it was planned for special New Testament use. This combines with the amazing youthful flexibility of the parchment to bewray any claims of 4th century production.

Once it is admitted that the 4th century push makes no sense, it is very difficult to start arguing for c. AD 700 or 1000. You are discarding all of Sinaiticus palaeographic "science" and the 1840s production starts becoming the most sensible.

Steven
It's funny to watch a fundamentalist arguing in circles point fingers and not remember three are pointing back.
Ulan
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Re: Sinaiticus - features that point to a late production

Post by Ulan »

Leucius Charinus wrote: Sat Feb 18, 2023 7:18 pm
Ulan wrote: Sat Feb 18, 2023 6:12 am Here we come to the point why the interest in doing these tests is rather mild: The manuscript doesn't make sense as being from the 14th century.
But that's the whole point. We have our chronological frameworks of what makes sense and what doesn't and these frameworks might be way off historical reality. The whole point in engaging with a scientific dating is to bypass what we think we know, what we think makes sense, and allow the scientists to tell us what the age of the codex actually is.
If you don't understand why a manuscript like that wouldn't be written in the 14th century, I cannot help you. Books are either made to be read - a task at which Codex Sinaiticus would have been considered a failure already in the 10th century - or to deceive. There was no market for such a deception at that time.
Leucius Charinus wrote: Sat Feb 18, 2023 7:18 pmWhat I can't get over is the statement by Constantin von Tischendorf that the manuscript was "found in a rubbish bin" in a church monastery in the 19th century. Can you really believe that?
Yes, and we know that Tischendorf's statement was, at least at its core (I think the part of the leaves designated to be burned was exaggerated), true. We know this because parts of the book - which wasn't bound anymore at that time - had already been used to repair the bindings of other books more than a hundred years before Tischendorf was born. Codex Sinaiticus wasn't useful for reading and had been put "out of service".

This whole forgery thesis forgets that this was an Orthodox monastery in an independent Islamic country. Orthodox monks weren't well educated and had no historical interest whatsoever. They were there to read the Bible, pray and work. You forget how incredibly cumbersome reading scriptio continua is. A monk who wanted to read the Bible could use a printed version with proper spaces between words and punctuation in the 19th century. Those loose leaves were in the repair bin, because the monks had no use for them as reading material and didn't understand the value of what they had. Not sure what is so hard to understand about this.
Leucius Charinus wrote: Sat Feb 18, 2023 7:18 pm The question becomes not one of forgery but rather what has motivated the church to try and pass off a 14th century manuscript as a 4th century manuscript.
I cannot imagine a single scenario in which such a question would come up. This is even more true as "the church" isn't involved in this whole story.
Leucius Charinus wrote: Sat Feb 18, 2023 7:18 pmYES it may be that old. But NO it could be a product of a much later century.
Sorry, writing changed over the centuries. Books became more and more readable. Uncials started getting varied in size to mark sentences and then words, punctuation crept in to mark where a sentence ended, then minuscules were used, etc. The time window you want to consider simply didn't produce any books like this anymore, because nobody wanted to put up with that old-fashioned nonsense.
Leucius Charinus wrote: Sat Feb 18, 2023 7:18 pm Again what makes sense and what doesn't make sense is irrelevant to C14 dating.
While that statement is a truism, there are still certain suggestions that can be ruled out for other reasons. It should be obvious that the environment for certain types of forgery was very different at different times in the past. Be my guest when it's about speculations about Christian origins in pre-Constantine times. However, as time moves on, that wriggle room for speculation gets narrower and narrower. 14th century? Forget about it.
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Leucius Charinus
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Re: Sinaiticus - features that point to a late production

Post by Leucius Charinus »

Ulan wrote: Sat Feb 18, 2023 8:36 pm
Leucius Charinus wrote: Sat Feb 18, 2023 7:18 pm What I can't get over is the statement by Constantin von Tischendorf that the manuscript was "found in a rubbish bin" in a church monastery in the 19th century. Can you really believe that?
Yes, and we know that Tischendorf's statement was, at least at its core (I think the part of the leaves designated to be burned was exaggerated), true. We know this because parts of the book - which wasn't bound anymore at that time - had already been used to repair the bindings of other books more than a hundred years before Tischendorf was born. Codex Sinaiticus wasn't useful for reading and had been put "out of service".

This whole forgery thesis forgets that this was an Orthodox monastery in an independent Islamic country. Orthodox monks weren't well educated and had no historical interest whatsoever. They were there to read the Bible, pray and work. You forget how incredibly cumbersome reading scriptio continua is. A monk who wanted to read the Bible could use a printed version with proper spaces between words and punctuation in the 19th century. Those loose leaves were in the repair bin, because the monks had no use for them as reading material and didn't understand the value of what they had. Not sure what is so hard to understand about this.
Maybe the monks were zombie scribes and nobody at the monastery was aware they were in possession of (if legit) a very important ancient MS. But maybe someone in the admin side of the organisation was aware it was a very important ancient MS. Maybe it was arranged that Tischendorf' would "discover" the MS in a rubbish bin?

Let's just say IDK but I am skeptical of all church MSS.
Leucius Charinus wrote: Sat Feb 18, 2023 7:18 pm Again what makes sense and what doesn't make sense is irrelevant to C14 dating.
While that statement is a truism, there are still certain suggestions that can be ruled out for other reasons. It should be obvious that the environment for certain types of forgery was very different at different times in the past. Be my guest when it's about speculations about Christian origins in pre-Constantine times. However, as time moves on, that wriggle room for speculation gets narrower and narrower. 14th century? Forget about it.
I just used the 14th century as an example after declaring IDK and nobody knows the century of the codex. OTOH a C14 test will provide an objective independent scientific estimate of chronology. My main point here is to express dissatisfaction at the BL's policy of non-destruction when the scale of destruction (via C14) of a BLANK SPACE in any given page of vellum is completely and utterly miniscule.
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Re: Sinaiticus - features that point to a late production

Post by Ulan »

Leucius Charinus wrote: Sat Feb 18, 2023 11:35 pm Maybe the monks were zombie scribes and nobody at the monastery was aware they were in possession of (if legit) a very important ancient MS. But maybe someone in the admin side of the organisation was aware it was a very important ancient MS. Maybe it was arranged that Tischendorf' would "discover" the MS in a rubbish bin?
"Monks" isn't the same as "scribes". I wouldn't be surprised if half of them couldn't read. The way the leaves from this manuscript were spread over the whole place and, although they were searching for those pages, it took them more than 150 years to find most of it, suggests that the monks didn't care much about their books. (SA posted pics of that place - it wasn't pretty.) They started caring when scholars showed up and took manuscripts with them that later turned out to be of value, because they had financing issues. Things got complicated when the patriarch in Jerusalem got wind of the issue and the Russian government got involved (the history of Egypt of that time is quite interesting, btw). But that's to be expected when someone found "gold".

The issue with these conspiracy theories that don't involve personal profit but institutional history falsification is that you impose your own modern mindset on people of that time frame. If people talk about "the church", they usually mean the Catholic Church and the Pope, both of which have exactly zero involvement in this whole story. Then there is the implied need for "the Church" to prove they were that old as they claimed they were. While you personally (and of course quite a few people nowadays) see the need for such a proof, because you don't believe that, there is no reason that anyone in the Orthodox Church of the mid 19th century saw any reason whatsoever why anyone would doubt the official church history. You look from the point of view of polemics between Protestants and Catholics in Western Europe, which had no contact with Orthodox affairs.
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Re: Sinaiticus - features that point to a late production

Post by Leucius Charinus »

Ulan wrote: Sun Feb 19, 2023 3:12 am
Leucius Charinus wrote: Sat Feb 18, 2023 11:35 pm Maybe the monks were zombie scribes and nobody at the monastery was aware they were in possession of (if legit) a very important ancient MS. But maybe someone in the admin side of the organisation was aware it was a very important ancient MS. Maybe it was arranged that Tischendorf' would "discover" the MS in a rubbish bin?
"Monks" isn't the same as "scribes". I wouldn't be surprised if half of them couldn't read. The way the leaves from this manuscript were spread over the whole place and, although they were searching for those pages, it took them more than 150 years to find most of it, suggests that the monks didn't care much about their books. (SA posted pics of that place - it wasn't pretty.) They started caring when scholars showed up and took manuscripts with them that later turned out to be of value, because they had financing issues. Things got complicated when the patriarch in Jerusalem got wind of the issue and the Russian government got involved (the history of Egypt of that time is quite interesting, btw). But that's to be expected when someone found "gold".
At any rate I'd still like to send this "gold" to a scientific assayist.
The issue with these conspiracy theories that don't involve personal profit but institutional history falsification is that you impose your own modern mindset on people of that time frame. If people talk about "the church", they usually mean the Catholic Church and the Pope, both of which have exactly zero involvement in this whole story. Then there is the implied need for "the Church" to prove they were that old as they claimed they were. While you personally (and of course quite a few people nowadays) see the need for such a proof, because you don't believe that, there is no reason that anyone in the Orthodox Church of the mid 19th century saw any reason whatsoever why anyone would doubt the official church history. You look from the point of view of polemics between Protestants and Catholics in Western Europe, which had no contact with Orthodox affairs.
I look at the church as an industry which has evolved century by century since the 4th when it first appeared above ground on the political stage. The "Index Librorum Prohibitorum" would be an important feature of this church industry. By the 19th century, further attributes of the church industry had altered: the heresy laws were outdated and the blasphemy laws were slowly relaxing. The industry presided over the cult of the saints and martyrs and the holy relic trade for well over a thousand long dark years. Codex Sinaiticus if it existed back then was stashed in the "Back Office" of the organisation. Relics were on show. Codices were not. I have no problem in accepting that the traditional manuscript transmission hypothesis may be true. That's where the C14 fits in. Proof of the hypothesis.

IDK too much about the 19th century black market industry but I'd guess the 19th century church industry would. IDK whether Codex Sinaiticus is the product of the 4th century, or the 5th, or any other century to the 19th. And neither does anyone else.

At that time in Rome Pope Pius IX's archeologist Giovanni de Rossi published between 1857 and 1861 the first volume of "Inscriptiones christianae urbis Romae". These included forgeries. So I remain skeptical about the historical integrity of Sinaiticus until it is radio-carbon dated, or some other non-destructive dating technology is invented.
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Re: Sinaiticus authenticity discussion Wed 11/30/2022 - James Snapp Jr. and Steven Avery

Post by Ulan »

You are still talking about the Catholic Church, which has absolutely no role in this whole story. The RKK had been excommunicated by the Orthodox Church (and vice versa), and both parts of Christianity didn't speak to each other. This reference to "the Church" is just deflection at this point. How the Catholic Church treated those old manuscripts that arrived in the West after the fall of Constantinople 1453 is visible in how they treated Codex Vaticanus, which was known to scholarship from around 1500 on. They didn't like that manuscript, and it's safe to assume they didn't like Codex Sinaiticus when this one surfaced, either. Or do you really want to suggest the Catholic Church had a big interest to prove that the long ending of gMark is fake? And no, Codex Sinaiticus being from the 19th century is not an option. We know at least that much.

Most of this is projection. Just because Protestants had an interest in textual history ("sola scriptura"), the Catholic Church is supposed to have such an interest, too. They didn't and still for the most part don't. In a way, they are a bit like a milder version of Steven Avery: they simply declared the Vulgata as the inspired text, case closed. What any Greek text says doesn't interest them very much. Catholic doctrine is based on tradition, not on intricacies of the Bible text. I chose "milder version", because the RKK always tolerated all kinds of Latin Bible manuscripts, with little regard to whether it was based on the Vulgata or some other Latin text. The priest told you what the text had to mean, which means the exact wording of the text was not important.

Your position makes only sense if we assume that you put a bit too much importance into your own hypotheses. Of course, everyone loves their own hypotheses, but that's not the point. It's the implicit assumption that anyone else would care about your hypotheses. In reality, most people, whether it's within the churches or in the general populace, think it's crazy and doesn't deserve any consideration or answer. As a consequence, there goes any incentive for the forgery you propose. Who was this supposed to be meant for? You? Ask yourself that question.
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Re: Sinaiticus authenticity discussion Wed 11/30/2022 - James Snapp Jr. and Steven Avery

Post by Maestroh »

In substantiating my point, Steven Avery (Spencer) posted on the Bible Versions Discussion Board on August 18, 2020 the following claim:
https://www.tapatalk.com/groups/bibleve ... 3-s70.html

And I am very confident that the Sinaticus obvious and clear inauthenticity will be commonly understood and accepted.

Dr. Ira Rabin, on the Brent Nongbri Zoom study, explained the panicked reaction at Leipzig when they came to do the scientific studies in 2015. They know.


Someone reading this, of course, would think that Nongbri and Rabin ALL THE WAY BACK in 2015 and CONTINUING to 2020 think that Sinaiticus is a 19th century document. This is a lie that Avery KNOWS is a lie when he said and knows now is a lie, too.

The problem is that Avery had his settings on his Pure Bible Forum wrong, maybe because he's old or perhaps because he's stupid or perhaps some combination of both. Nevertheless, several of us discovered THE ENTIRE EMAIL CONTENTS that Avery was cherry picking and clipping to suggest scholars agree with him.

This is a portion of Rabin that Avery DID NOT SHARE (I can't imagine why - oh, I'm lying myself, we all know why):

But I must assure you that the decision NOT to study was not dictated by fear of unpleasant discoveries. I was present at the main discussion. The fellow who knows nothing of this ms but happens to be simply the head of conservation was mad that the testing was decided without his knowledge but with blessing of the conservator of the ms. He made a dramatic speech that the name could be damaged by analysis and that HE doesn't need to know anything about the materials to preserve it.



Rabin DOES NOT hold to the 19th century date even though Avery suggested it - but in typical fashion left himself an out because he's a lying little weasel who will lie about anything to believe his own nonsense.

NONE of the scholars Avery cites holds to a 19th century date.
Not.One.


But he won't say it that way because that's the kind of morally bankrupt, lacking in ability to research, diabolical slimeball he is.

And bear in mind - he'd claim to be born again and acts this way.
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