Sinaiticus - Hermas, Barnabas linguistic, history anomalies

[Steven Avery]

Interestingly, Sinaiticus also has a very curious situation in the apocyrphal books of Tobit and Judith.

"...in the Old Testament, for example, the text of Tobit and Judith is of an entirely different recension, which is still preserved, particularly in old Latin and old Syriac documents." - Constantine Tischendorf, quoted in the Journal of Sacred Literatureand Biblical Record, Volume 3, 1863, p. 234

Later, I will plan on giving a little summary of the Tobit information. Sinaiticus has created an awkward situation for the textual theorists, who are not able to consider the possibility that Sinaiticus came forth influenced by the medieval Latin traditions. (Which we see from James Donaldson is a sensible theory for Hermas and Barnabas, so if two, then more is surely a reasonable textual theory.)

Ironically, Tobit ch. 2 is one of the places where the pristine white parchment of 1844 abruptly shifts to the yellow with age and stains 1859 Sinaiticus.

Steven Avery

[Steven Avery]

Hi,

For our German experts I want to show the location of a couple of places where Donaldson and the 1843 Barnabas edition from Simonides were being discussed.

The first one has Hilgenfeld on Hermas and Barnabas.

Zeitschrift für wissenschaftliche Theologie, Volume 30 (1887)
Die Hermas-Gefahr
Adolf Hilgenfeld
http://books.google.com/books?id=ilM4AAAAMAAJ&pg=PA336

Next we go to Harnack.

Theologische Literaturzeitung, Volume 12 (1887)
edited by Emil Schürer, Adolf von Harnack
http://books.google.com/books?id=HrgfAA ... pg=RA1-PT3
Ueber eine in Deutschland bisher unbekannte Falschung des Simonides -
Adolph Harnack - p. 147-152 - referenced by Lampros, collation of the Athos codex, 1888

Within the midst of the contra-Simonides argumentation, note that the 1843 Barnabas is referenced in column 148. Where it looks on a quick check like he is accepting the Athenaeum explanation.

Although I had it referenced before, this page in 1875 is by Gebhardt, and Harnack and Zahn:

Patrum apostolicorum opera. Textum recens., notis illustr., versione Lat. instruxit A.R.M. Dressel. Ed. post Dresselianam alteram 3a. Recens. O. de Gebhardt, A. Harnack, T. Zahn (1875)
http://books.google.com/books?id=iNkCAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA212

And it has an unusual reference around the 1843 area involving Supernatural Religion and Franz Overbeck. Have not taken the time to see if it has any relevance to our studies. Plus the Latin in the footnote involving Donaldson could be easily translated.

Feel free to help out with explaining the positions.

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

In 1867-1868 Theodor Zahn (1838-1933) had offered some creative ideas to try to explain the Hermas enigma. We would have to see the Zahn material to see if he directly worked with the Donaldson (and earlier Dindorf and Tischendorf) linguistic arguments. And if his goal was to salvage the early date of Sinaiticus.

The Theodor Zahn material should be in one of these:

Hermae Pastor E Novo Testamento Illustratus (1867)
http://books.google.com/books?id=5UlQAAAAcAAJ
https://archive.org/details/hermaepastorenov00zahn

Der Hirt des Hermas (1868)
Theodor Zahn
http://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/001925664
http://reader.digitale-sammlungen.de/en ... 00002.html

Hirt des Hermas I believe had been mentioned above, however I want it to be clear for researching that the most interesting goal would be to see if the Donaldson linguistic arguments were addressed. In 1874, pages given above, Donaldson did reference the Zahn position.

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

Next, maybe we can go to the question of the Barnabas 1843 today.

First, planned, discuss the significance, if there is such an edition (i.e. if the Athenaeum was winging it.)

Steven Avery

[Steven Avery]

Hi,

A bit more on Hermas before Barnabas.

Tischendorf only had the first section of Hermas published, about 1/4 of the text. We discussed some of the similarities with the Simonides Hermas publication, and the concerns from James Donaldson about the section that was published, above, where he felt there was medieval Latin influence.

========

The New Finds, discovered in 1975, has two sections that particularly interest us:
Fragments from leaves from two parts of Sinaiticus:

a) fragments of Genesis 21 to 23, clearly connected to the cut-up machinations of Tischendorf and Uspensky, based on their having neighboring fragments. (To add to the mystery, Simonides had made specific acrostic claims on the Genesis 24 section, a chapter from which a fragment remains in Russia.)

==

Genesis New Finds folio, two pages.
http://codexsinaiticus.org/en/manuscrip ... omSlider=0
Move forward for parts earlier brought to Russia.

For extra perplexity, try to relate this Uspenksy section
http://www.nlr.ru/eng/exib/CodexSinaiticus/cs1.html#2

========

Hermas from New Finds

b) one leaf toward the ending of Hermas, 4 pages, with about half the text on those pages.
Quire 95 - Folio 1r&v
Quire 95 - Folio 8r&v
Move forward from:
http://codexsinaiticus.org/en/manuscrip ... omSlider=0

(I have not identified the partial leaf mentioned below, Hermas, Similitudes 6.5.5-66.6 on the site.)

Thus, we have very strong circumstantial evidence that more of Hermas had been there when Tischendorf first started to work with the ms. The Genesis fragments that got to the New Finds are closely linked to Tischendorf and Uspensky manuscript "takes". It is a solid supposition that the Hermas sections got there at the same time, in the 1844-1859 mystery period. (And I've asked my Russian scholar friend to look at the Uspensky reference to see exactly what he said about Barnabas and Hermas.)

Why would the rest of Hermas have been dumped?

One possibility: Remember, the Simonides Hermas was accused of being a medieval Latinized text, by Tischendorf. If the rest of Hermas had been more clearly Latinized, and close to the Simonides published Hermas, then it would have been impossible to maintain that the Athos-Lipsiensis text published by Simonides was all a great coincidence. This would be very embarrassing to the Tischendorf antiquity authenticity claims.

Anyway, there is enough text there at the end of Hermas that it could be studied linguistically, and in comparison to the Simondes published text. Afawk, no such research has been done.

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

New Finds
http://codexsinaiticus.org/en/project/t ... cting.aspx

The careful study of all the new fragments reveals that there are nineteen leaves wholly or partially extant, along with a few tiny fragments in which the text cannot be identified. They contain portions of Genesis (a leaf consisting of parts of eight columns containing 21.26-22.17 and 22.21-23.16), a whole leaf (Leviticus 20.27-22.30), a sequence of complete leaves from Numbers (16.7-26.2), a mutilated leaf which has parts of Deuteronomy 3.8-4.21 and a complete leaf with Deuteronomy 28.68-30.16; another mutilated leaf with Joshua 12.2-13.16, a tiny fragment with Judges 2.20 on one side and 4.6 on the other, and then a sequence of five complete leaves containing Judges 4.7-11.2; Finally in the Old Testament, there are scraps of a leaf which contains parts of 1 Chronicles 17.14-18.11. There are fragments of a leaf containing parts of Hermas, Similitudes 6.5.5-66.6, and a complete leaf with IX.14.4-18.5.

There are other fragments found in the nineteenth century and now in St Petersburg. The ones which concern us here consist of a part of a leaf now preserving Genesis 23.19-24.19 and 24.20-24.46; another partial leaf now with Numbers 5.26-6.18, 22-7.20.

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

11/19/2014 - additional post on this topic
Hermas in the New Finds - Uspensky reference
viewtopic.php?p=23263#p23263

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

Here is the last page of the New Finds Sinaiticus
http://codexsinaiticus.org/en/manuscrip ... omSlider=0

Hermas last page.jpg (53.77 KiB) Viewed 13710 times

Steven Avery

[Steven Avery]

The New Finds is important. Tobit as well.

Hermas is a key piece, historically with the 1856 edition "The coincidence seems almost more singular than can be accounted for by chance", Farrer. Linguistically with the Donaldson analysis. And in modern times with the New Finds showing that most of the ms had been lost .. or discarded.

However, let's go back to Barnabas, our 1843 edition referenced by James Donaldson, and shorten the Athenaeum quote from this post:

Athenaeum magazine "explains" Simonides 1843 Barnabas
viewtopic.php?p=21748#p21748

The Athenaeum, Issues 2514-2539 - Jan, 1876
http://books.google.com/books?id=kJw3AQAAMAAJ&pg=PA53

Dr. Donaldson mentions an edition of the Epistle of Barnabas, printed by Simonides, and containing the text as found in the Sinaitic Codex, but bearing the date 1843, and the place of publication Smyrna ....one of the most curious of the many fabrications which Simonides devised. That Greek went to the trouble of printing at his own expense an edition of the entire Epistle of Barnabas, for the very purpose of putting the date 1843 upon it. ... title-page of the strange document states that the text of the Epistle of Barnabas is based on seven manuscripts.... . Simonides had taken the trouble to fabricate his newspaper as well as the date of his edition .p. 53-54

Now this is a rather amazing situation. Simonides was supposed to have published a full edition of Barnabas, fabricated the intro explaining the ms situation and added a significant newspaper review as well! All to try to buttress the claim of having written Sinaiticus by back-dating the ms. ( Simonides had been accused of creating manuscripts, but never anything like this involving modern publications.)

The evidence for the Athenaeum accusations and explanations was anecdotal, a simple ad hoc claim that the newspaper over in Smyrna never existed. And that they did not like the ink. Yet the Athenaeum had a lot invested in the pro-Tischendorf pro-Sinaiticus positioning over the years. And the British bibliographies continued to list the 1843 Sinaitic Barnabas from Simonides into the 1900s.

What if the Athenaeum was wrong? What if a "Sinaitic" Greek Barnabas was published in 1843, before Tischendorf saw any of the Sinaiticus ms? And 16 years before he claimed to see Barnabas? (Uspensky saw Barnabas as part of the white parchment ms in 1845.).

Let's put it bluntly.
The Hermas situation was very strange, and very difficult for Sinaiticus authenticity.

This Barnabas problem would be far more damaging. How could it be explained? There is a limit to coincidental explanations. If the ms. holds up, it most assuredly means that the Sinaiticus ms is not authentic antiquity. That it got to Sinai from Mt. Athos in recent 1800s years.

We can go over some possible scenarios later. Let's go back to the 1800s and see if this manuscript was published in 1843, and was conveniently hand-waved and then forgotten in our jaundiced, yellow parchment Sinaiticus modern scholarship.

Steven Avery

[Steven Avery]

There has been one modern reference to the 1843 Barnabas edition.

THE EPISTLE OF BARNABAS: ITS QUOTATIONS AND THEIR SOURCES
by Robert Alan Kraft
PhD Thesis (Harvard University) April 1961
---
SUMMARY
http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/rak/publics/b ... diss01.htm

BIBLIOGRAPHY ...

Rhodokanakis, Georgios D.

ed. of Barn, Smyrna (privately published, ca 100 copies) 1843
text established by Constantinos Simonides [info. from martin Guy
[France] 9/23/87) [see Geb-Harnack XXIII n 3 citing Athenaeum (8
Jan 1876) 53f exposing this as a forged date to upstage Tischendorf]}

This was before the internet availability of research information. And Professor Robert Alan Kraft (b. 1934) updated the 1961 paper with bibliographic information, possibly from the French author Guy Martin (b. 1945-).

While this notice simply accepted the Athenaeum forgery dismissal, it did give some additional information on the number of copies and the involvement, or at least the name, of Georgios D. Rhodokanakis.

Gerogios D. Rodokanakis (Γεωργιος Δ. Ροδοκανάκης) would likely be the author of O Megaklis - Ο Μεγακλής ή ο ατυχής έρως (1840)

'From Novelistic Romance To Romantic Novel': The Revival Of The Ancient Adventure Chronotope In Byzantine And Modern Greek Literature (2010)
Pieter Borghart & Koen De Temmerman - Ghent University
http://users.ugent.be/~kdtemmer/p18%20n ... omance.pdf
"the adventure novel of ordeal served as model for at least six Modern Greek novels in the romantic tradition during the twenty years following Greek independence in 1830 (Panagiotis Soutsos' Leandros (1834]. Alexandras' Soutsos' The exile of 1831 (1835], Iakovos Pilzipios' The orphan-girl from Chios (1839], Georgios D. Rodokanakis' Megaklis [I840]"

Similarly referenced here:

The Other Self: Selfhood and Society in Modern Greek Fiction
Dēmētrēs Tziovas
http://books.google.com/books?id=5pHuKBc6K7gC&pg=PA31

Here Rodokanakis translated The Wandering Jew of Eugene Sue into Greek.
http://anemi.lib.uoc.gr/metadata/8/b/b/ ... 000065.tkl

Maybe one of our Greek experts can find a little bio.

Steven Avery

[Steven Avery]

So the first question is about "The Star of the East" newspaper? Was this really a phantom Simonides creation, as claimed by the Athenaeum in 1876? (About 13 years after they saw the edition.) With just a flippant word. A newspaper supposedly invented to provide a review of a specially printed and back-dated edition of the Epistle of Barnabas (whew!).

And this claim has been accepted at face by various Bible text scholars (not James Donaldson, however, nor the bibliographies we see in Great Britain from that era. And today, it is unlikely that more than a few scholars even know of the edition.)

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

Pasquale Massimo Pinto is an Associate Professor at the University of Bari Aldo Moro, in southern Italy on the Adriatic.
http://www.uniba.it/ricerca/dipartiment ... mo%20Pinto

Massimo Pinto helped document the information from the:

Gennadius Library in Athens, Greece,
http://www.ascsa.edu.gr/index.php/gennadius/

And the gentlemen involved with Gennadius know a lot about these 1800s documents involving Sinaiticus and Simonides. They have many at Gennadius, and they know of many elsewhere.

Constantinos Simonidis in the Gennadius Library (2011)
Pasquale Massimo Pinto
http://www.academia.edu/899443/Constant ... us_Library

... The Gennadius Library preserves today 29 items corresponding to 19 titles, including several duplicates...

A LIST OF SIMONIDIS WORKS IN THE GENNADIUS LIBRARY

1) BB 1226.1
Ἡ πρὸς τοὺς ἐξ Ἑβραίων πιστοὺς Ἐπιστολὴ τοῦ Ἀποστολικοῦ πατρὸς Βαρνάβα ἥπερ ἀνακαλυφθεῖσα ἐν Ἄθωνι τῷ ͵αωλζʹ ὁλόκληρος ὑπὸ Κ. Σιμωνίδου διδάκτορος τῆςφιλοσοφίας. Ἐκδίδεται τανῦν ἐπὶ τῇ βάσει ἑπτὰ ἀρχαίων χειρογράφων δαπάνῃκαὶ ἐπιμελείᾳ Γ. Δ. Ῥοδοκανάκῃ. Ἐν Σμύρνῃ ͵αωμγʹ [1843].

In Greek. This document is a couple of newspaper pages from the appendix of a journal published in Smyrna, the Ἀστὴρ τῆς Ἀνατολῆς
(Star of the East), no. 26, August1, 1843 (pp. 425–426). The article actually contains the first part of Simonidis’ rare work bearing this title, which the Gennadius Library does not hold. 7 It concerns one of the apocryphal texts of the New Testament, the so-called Letter of Barnabas, of which Simonidis pretended that he had found a more correct text.

7. A copy of this pamphlet, which formerly belonged to Nikolaos Politis, survives in the Central Library of the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki (call no. BS2900.B2G8 1843).

Now this is interesting! This is the newspaper/journal, with a review and more, claimed to have been fabricated by Simonides. To support, it is supposed, a whole specially published edition of Barnabas, with a back-date.

Hmmm...

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

Steven Avery
Bayside, NY

[DCHindley]

Here is the take of a contemporary on the newspapers existing in Smyrna:

Report on Smyrna by George Rolleston (G.E. Eyre and W. Spottiswoode, 1856 - İzmir (Turkey) - 123 pages)

Of the educational development of the middle class of any population, the character of their favourite journals may be taken as a tolerably good indication.

Of the four newspapers published in Smyrna, three are Greek, and one French. Of the three Greek, one, the “Amalthea,” is a journal of considerable pretensions ; the other two, the “ Star of the East ” and the “ Prometheus,” the latter only recently set on foot, are inferior in size, execution, and respectability.

They are all weekly papers ...
http://books.google.com/books?id=TKZCAA ... 22&f=false

Travels in Greece and Turkey: Being the Second Part of Excursions in the Mediterranean, Volume 1 (Google eBook), by Sir Grenville Temple (10th bart.) (Saunders and Otley, 1836 - Greece)

Smyrna seems the head-quarters of the missionaries, who have established here a religious newspaper, called “The Star of the East,” but I did not ascertain whether it was read. On the whole, we may safely assert
that there exists as much religious toleration in Turkey as in any country, and indeed much more than is to be found in several European states.
http://books.google.com/books?id=iKMMAA ... na&f=false

Something of this name existed, but the one published by the Presbyterian Mission ran from 1858 to 1885, so what the nature of the predecessor mentioned in 1836 and 1856 above was I cannot say.

DCH

[Steven Avery]

Thanks, David. I am very glad that some of our readers are following the adventures.

Our research team was also very interested in this, since it seems very helpful in the Sinaiticus issues, and the following was the next result.

...from our librarian friends in Greece. It turns out that YES, there was a publication in Smyrna called "The Star of the East" that dates back to at least 1841-42. In other words, a Smyrna publication of that name that precedes the 1843 article presented by Simonides. ... the editor of the Athenaeum was, at least, mistaken in saying that "no such newspaper had ever existed."
Indeed, it did exist, and it was published in Smyrna, just as Simonides claimed.
We received the following email from the librarian of the Hellenic Parliament Library in Athens:

The Library of the Hellenic Parliament provides access to the digital copy of the Star of the East
ΑΣΤΗΡ ΤΗΣ ΑΝΑΤΟΛΗΣ through the following link:
http://srv-web1.parliament.gr/library.asp?item=32790

Only years 1841-1842 (17/10/1841-22/05/1842) are available to the library's collection.

The black and white attachment is a screen shot of the publication in question.



In the library's description for this publication, it clearly says: "Place of Issue: Smyrna." While they only have the years 1841-42 in the library collection, it is entirely possible that the publication ran longer than two years.

To be continued with more information about this supposed non-existent Journal, the one that was supposedly concocted by Simonides in order to give external support to the supposed back-date of his 1843 Barnabas!

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

Note: The pics earlier in the thread are now all inline!

Oh, we have this one, too.

Screen shot 2014-01-20 at 7.45.26 AM.png (433.23 KiB) Viewed 13731 times

Steven Avery

[Steven Avery]

Now it is clear that the Athenaeum was in left field about their not being a Star in the East in Smyrna, both in the 1840s, and also at the time their writing (a different publication) so we can review their claims of non-existance on p. 2:

Athenaeum magazine "explains" Simonides 1843 Barnabas
viewtopic.php?p=21748#p21748

Which was followed up with the German editors accepting the claim:

the Germans accept the Athenaeum story
viewtopic.php?p=21750#p21750

Clearly, this was convenient, since the James Donaldson references to the Sinaitic Barnabas had been exceedingly awkward.

The next question is, now that we know that Simonides did not simply fabricate a Journal's existence, do we have the pages from the Barnabas section? And do we have any thoughts from the Gennadius Library and Pasquale Massimo Pinto?

(And notice that there is a reference to the later publication that appears to be the one found by David Hindley above.)

We have also been in contact with Massimo Pinto from the Gennadius Library, who tells us that part of the complication is that there were a number of newspapers and publications with the name "Star of the East." However, Massimo sent us three images of the article that was presented by Simonides with the review of the Epistle of Barnabas in 1843 ...

Pasquale Massimo Pinto
"The problem is that "Astir tis anatolis" (Star of the East) was the name of several publications. One of the best known is the journal of the Evangelical Church of Greece (see http://www.gec.gr/astir), but it was established later than 1843 (and Simonides was an enemy of Christian Churches other than the Greek Church). It was probably the name of a journal of the Evangelical School of Smyrna and of a journal published in Constantinople."

Massimo ... seems to accept that the Star of the East article presented by Simonides was genuine. He does not at all appear to agree with the Athenaeum editor who dismissed it as a forgery.

....the objection of the Athenaeum editor is demonstrated to be provably wrong. Yes, there was a publication called "The Star of the East" in Smyrna in the 1840's

And all this gives support to the article presented by Simonides, and the publication of the Epistle of Barnabas in 1843, being genuine. A text that James Donaldson referenced as a "Sinaitic" Barnabas. And clearly James Donaldson was justified in writing about the Simonides' publication, giving the 1843 date.

Now, clearly it would be excellent if our modern scholars could do research and investigation of this nature. No matter the results. (We had no idea what we would find, there was simply a journalistic and historical trail to follow.) And then jump on the bandwagon helping with analysis and study. Remember, even the James Donaldson linguistic arguments on Hermas and Barnabas have not been addressed. Anyway, with the textual scholars quiescent, our team has been able to do the necessary correspondence with the European library and history experts.

Steven Avery

[Steven Avery]

Hi,

Now we have the pages from Star of the East, as given as historical evidence by Simonides, which can be studied by our Bible history and classical language scholars. The simple fact that the world-class expert on these materials, not particularly sympathetic to Simonides, Pasquale Massimo Pinto, views these as genuine is quite powerful. Clearly this support jumps these pages over the threshold of scholarly interest, although it does not close the matter. And input from any familiar with the topics will be helpful. Let's start with the first page enlarged a bit.

StarOfTheEast_001.jpg (364.26 KiB) Viewed 13727 times

Note that afaik we do not yet have the 1843 Smyrna edition itself, the "Sinaitic" Barnabas, which would be a fine auxiliary for study. However, indications are that it can be available, the article had referenced the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki .

(correction 11/20/2014, strike the above paragraph, I had forgotten all the resources compiled earlier in 2014.)

Controversies really began around 1847-48, some years later.

And it would be helpful to have a review of the publications that listed as the Simonides early years. The neat news is that there is already plenty that can be studied from the Star of the East.

Steven Avery