Biblical Criticism & History Forum - earlywritings.com

Here is some helpful info, brought over from Mark, handling the website, with my additions.

If you go to http://www.sinaiticus.net you can see that it is showing out the numbers for the contiguous points pictures.
Remember, the great mass of the mass is British Library (1859, from Russia with love in 1933, for money) and Leipzig (1844)

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The CSP uses the NCS (Natural Colour System) to describe the colour of each manuscript leaf held at Leipzig University Library and at the British Library. Fragments and Leaves held at Saint Catherine's Monastery and the National Library of Russia have not been assigned an NCS number.

Logic behind the system Just as language has syntax and music its own note system, colour has its own distinct structure that forms the notation vocabulary of NCS.
http://www.ncscolour.com/en/natural-col ... he-system/

The NCS colour numbers represent the following information:

S stands for "standard collection".
The first two digits represents the "blackness of the colour as a percentage.
The second set of two digits represents the chromatic strength of the colour.
The last set of letters and digits represents the hue of the colour. For example Y is yellow with no red; Y10R is 90% yellow and 10% red; Y20R is 80% yellow and 20% red.
The colour of the CFA pages housed in Leipzig are consistently characterized by the CSP as S1005-Y20R, while the leaves housed at the British Library are more variable. They tend toward a NCS number of S1010-Y or S1010-Y10R but vary all the way from S1005-Y20R to S1515-Y10R.

Some pages of BL that are = to LUL are in Revelation:
Q90 f1r
Q90 f4v
Q93 f5r and f5v

However, it is trivially easy to see that these pages, while not as dark as most of the British Library pages, remains significantly darker than the CFA. A simple way is to go side by side with a browser and two pages. (e.g. Two open windows, and then "show windows side by side" in the system tray area right-click in Windows OS) .We believe that the picture itself is more reliable in comparison than the number. And we plan on placing an example of this on the website shortly.

It is also helpful to note that the CFA pages are totally uniform. While the BL pages are all over the color map. This is consistent with tampering, which will be inconsistent. It is possible that some pages were missed, or colored very lightly, toward the end of the New Testament (the let's get this done mentality), but by visual examination all are visually and clearly darker than the CFA. Again, you can see this at a glance also in the full manuscript single picture that David put together.

Looking at the numbers: the consistent CFA S1005-Y20R

This indicates that while the CFA pages are described as having:
10% blackness and a 5% chromatic strength with the hue being 80% yellow and 20% red.
The pages in the British Library are between 10% and 15% in blackness, with chromatic strength between 5% and 15% and the hue ranging from 100% yellow to 80% yellow and 20% red.
Why are the CFA pages a consistently rosey, yellowish white, while the British Library pages are extremely variable - darker and strongly yellow?

In a general sense, the BL pages, compared to the CFA, are blacker, they have a lot more chromatic strength. With hue remaining constant, raising chromatic strength from 5% to 15% means the yellow and red are both 3X as strong.

Steven

> Peter
> viewtopic.php?p=46111#p46111

Steven Avery wrote:If the white parchment unstained leaves are not authentically ancient, then it is pretty definite that the stained yellow leaves, the full manuscript, is also not authentically ancient.

Peter Kirby wrote:Please let us know what the structure of the argument is.
A)
1. "White parchment" leaves are implausible in and of themselves.
2. Therefore, the Sinaiticus manuscript leaves that are white are not plausibly ancient.
3. Therefore, at least some leaves of the Sinaiticus manuscript are not plausibly ancient.

B)
1. Some of the leaves stored in one place are "white," and some of the leaves stored in another place are "yellow."
2. The discrepancy is not plausible unless we assume artificial causes (tampering).
3. Therefore, there has been tampering with the Sinaiticus leaves (to make them appear yellow).
4. If there is tampering, then this suggests that the Sinaiticus manuscript is not plausibly ancient.
5. Therefore, the Sinaiticus manuscript is not plausibly ancient.

And I noted in response that both your A and B arguments are included.

And there is also a "C", that is independent of the white parchment, but is also one of condition.

C)
Any heavily used 1500+ year ms that has a history like that presumed to Sinaiticus will have specific signs of wear. These signs include a loss of flexibility, dirt from handling, etc. These signs are largely absent in Sinaiticus, which is thus simply referred to as having ** exceptional conservation ** (by those who are forced to have a presupposition of authenticity, who are generally those allowed to handle the ms. today, leading to a circular paralysis in the establishment pseudo-palaeography.)

A complementary element of (C) is the rather wild colour disparity, within the Russian-->England leaves (the German leaves are uniformly white, and they were bypassed). The CSP actually put up a "foursquare" picture of this disparity, noting it as an element that requires study. See "fig. #14: Colour variance" in the page by Gavin Moorhead:

Parchment Assessment of the Codex Sinaiticus
Gavin Moorhead - May 2009
http://codexsinaiticus.org/en/project/c ... hment.aspx

Nikolai Alexandrovich Morozov (1854-1946) looked at the ms as a scientist, and quickly saw that the Tischendorf antiquity story crumbled to pieces, in a way the flexible, supple ms. did not. And afawk Morozov did not even see the snow-white section in Leipsig.

Many of the quotes showing the view of conservation are on the PureBIbleForum
http://www.purebibleforum.com/forumdisplay.php?f=65

These three threads/articles are especially germane:

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Nikolai Alexandrovich Morozov handles Sinaiticus, notes the Tischendorf antiquity claims are false
http://www.purebibleforum.com/showthread.php?t=183

British Library - and other - modern comments on research and condition and colour
http://www.purebibleforum.com/showthread.php?t=191

Sinaiticus through the centuries in the 4th century paradigm
http://www.purebibleforum.com/showthread.php?t=137

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

We are also working on a presentation that will cover how Tischendorf worked the misdirection of keeping attention off the ms and keep in on softer lesser issues, like the facsimile edition he created and textual theories (e.g. the missing ending of Mark was a major argument for his dating the ms.) Very few people actually talk of looking at and handling the ms. Not even one part, much less the Tale of Two Manuscripts. In the 1860s I can think of very limited handling by Tregelles, as a supplicant to Tischendorf, and Bradshaw. And so far, in their literature, they simply do not talk of the ms. condition. Tischendorf says little beyond sufflava (which does not apply to the CFA.) The Russians did very little with the ms. and unloaded it on the Brits in their 1930s fire sale (which they used for unloading fakes as well as authentic pieces.)

Morozov is famous for being a type of father of new chronology issues. The irony is that he was able to run with the Sinaiticus lateness as a key spur, since it was so obvious and clear. However, Sinaiticus may simply be an 1800s anomaly of forgery or replica, and thus can scarcely be used as a proof of inauthenticity or moving dates of other uncials. (Although it should be noted that others have doubted the super-early dating given, e.g. to Vaticanus, even if viewing it as 100% authentic.)

And on Sinaiticus.net
http://www.purebibleforum.com/showthread.php?t=183
this issue of overall condition is in the process of being added.

Steven

And you can actually see Sinaiticus being handled here, courtesy of the BBC:

The Codex Sinaiticus: The Oldest Surviving Christian New Testament - The Beauty of Books - BBC Four
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U4Xkv2gjzZw

almost as if were a nicely stored Life Magazine article of some decades back, talking of the reunification of Jerusalem, going to the moon, or the JFK assassination.
Simply turn the pages, flexible, supple, not at all brittle, in excellent condition.
Also no finger grime from the hundreds of years of notes and handling (a point made by Morozov.)

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1844 BEFORE and 1859 AFTER
http://www.sinaiticus.net/beforeafter.html
"You do not have to be a world-class combainatorial mathematician to understand the colouring of Sinaiticus"

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

Skeat and Milne in their book, "The Codex Sinaiticus and the Codex Alexandrinus" wrote that the Codex Alexandrinus vellum has a :
"limp, dead appearance in marked contrast to the vellum of the Codex Sinaiticus".

Gavin Moorhead of the Codex Sinaiticus Project referred to that Sinaiticus parchment as "exceptional".

"any 4th Century parchment with this amount of flexibility, thinness, maker’s holes, repairs and striation is exceptional."

"the condition of the parchment is exceptional for its age"

"The parchment condition is: Exceptional for its age."

"survived the rigours of 16 centuries with an unexpected lack of damage"

Similarly Sara Mazzarino:
"quality of the writing medium originally used by the scribes was truly exceptional, as is the quality of the parchment."

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And a picture of the whole ms!
Can you find the two 1844 sections?
http://www.sinaiticus.net/four%20contig ... oints.html

Steven Avery

Minus all the technical minutiae, what is actually being asserted about the manuscript? Not in terms of symptoms, but causes?

Is the entire manuscript alleged to be a 19th century fake?

gmx wrote:Minus all the technical minutiae, what is actually being asserted about the manuscript? Not in terms of symptoms, but causes? Is the entire manuscript alleged to be a 19th century fake?

Hi gmx,

Please be sure to look at the two urls above, they are designed to be understood by high and low tech.

The evidence is extremely strong, close to certainty, that Sinaiticus, the two parts, is a recent manuscript. One in which the mass of pages, the 90% that went to St. Petersburg and later England, were coloured to give the "appearance of age". (This artificial colouring had little or no effect on the actual physical condition of the pages, which remained flexible and supple as young, with much amazing ink. The leaves only appeared older, and the ms. could then be written about as an aged sufflava rather than white parchment. Scholars were simply pointed to the printed edition.)

And coalescing the physical evidence with the the wildly contentious and fascinating historical and provenance aspects, this would mean that Sinaiticus was originally written (finished) around 1840, in a Mt. Athos environment. And brought over to Sinai, perhaps through Constantinople. This is why it has no provenance support in the vulgate version of its history before 1844.

Sidenote: On the current evidence, there are some possible tweaks in the scenario (e.g. the OT could conceivably have a different provenance than the NT, if Ludwig Traube was right about the NT being a totally distinct scribe.)

** In this 19th century Mt. Athos production scenario, Sinaiticus may have been originally developed as a replica edition. Or it may have been developed with the intention of being a fake, a forgery for sale. **

Conjectural section
And, as it developed, Sinaiticus may have been a type of prototype for a final document never done, a hack job early draft. And it may have morphed from replica to forgery. And it is possible that it was deliberately given what became the Vaticanus support text in the New Testament. In a number of these areas we have to piece together the most likely scenario.

Once Tischendorf got his hands on it, he ran with it as the long-sought ancient New Testament that would change the Bible (see how he changed the 7th edition to the 8th of his GNT) and that would justify the travels on which he had been sent, and that place him in a special textual luminary position of status and lucre, one that he ran with in a vain-glorious manner. He may have contributed to its development, he may have provided enhancement in the wild years up to the 1862 printing (e.g. section numbers not noted by Uspensky.) Amazingly enough, he was able to hide The Tale of Two Manuscripts (ie. that St. Petersburg was coloured, Leipzig was not, it remained snow-white parchment as it had been delievered in 1844) while he lived. And even unto 2009, when the ms. was unified online.

Steven Avery
Dutchess County, NY
SART
Sinaiticus Authenticity Research Team

While quiet here, the Sinaiticus authenticity issue has heated up elsewhere.
Here, for one poster, I simplified some of the basics to A-B-C-D, which I will share.
This is about the colour tampering, although the emphasis today is ALSO on the incredible "exceptional" condition of the ms. Followed by history and provenance and anomalies and much more.

And you can consider this historic forensics.

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Look at the two parts of the manuscript.

a) the 1844 Leipzig is white parchment (even snow-white, per Dobschutz in 1910)

b) the 1859 British Library is varied yellow. (even an abnormally "exceptional" amount of variance)
In the composite picture you can see the exact leaves of 1844, the two sections, immediately.

c) colouring of the 1859 manuscript by hand would produce that exact effect, and colouring of the manuscript by hand was pointed out by Simonides ..

d) this accusation of colouring was made WITHOUT, supposedly, Simonides seeing anything of the manuscript, other than, possibly, the uncoloured part in Leipzig, 1856.

Is there any part of A-B-C-D with which you disagree?

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If not, we have the conclusion that Simonides was working with "inside info" .. or he simply made a one in a gazillion stab in the dark, with no rhyme or reason. And if he was working with inside info, and the manuscript was coloured, every part of the current vulgate version of the ms should be scrapped, and we start fresh.

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Steven Avery
Dutchess County, NY

John T wrote:As far as the date it was written, that is not in much dispute.

"The codex was written in the 4th century. It could not have been written before 325 because it contains the Eusebian Canons, which is a terminus post quem. It could not have been written after 360 because of certain references to Church fathers in the margin. This means that 360 is a terminus ad quem.[14]"...wiki

And I was looking up this absurd terminus ante quem argument in Wikipedia, which is attributed there to: Metzger, Bruce M., (1991). Manuscripts of the Greek Bible: An Introduction to Palaeography, Oxford: Oxford University Press, p. 76. The Wikipedia claim is a gross distortion of the actual Metzger words. Ironically, while I was searching it out, I found that it had been missed on this thread!

The one objective criterion of the terminus post quem is the presence of the Eusebian apparatus which was inserted, as it seems, by two of the scribes of the manuscript itself. The terminus ante quem
is less certain, but, according to Milne and Skeat, is not likely to be much later than about 360.- Metzger

There is no terminus ante quem before 1844.

And I made a change to Wikipedia to simply quoting Metzger.

Steven Avery

gmx wrote:Minus all the technical minutiae, what is actually being asserted about the manuscript? Not in terms of symptoms, but causes?

Is the entire manuscript alleged to be a 19th century fake?

Steven Avery, who cannot even READ Sinaiticus and has no training in paloegraphy, asserts on the basis of his Internet cobbling of nonsensical stories that Sinaiticus is a 19th century document.

He has ZERO evidence supporting this insane notion. Not one competent scholar has ever made this argument.

And for the record, he has a hidden agenda in his 'research' - you see, he is a KJV Onlyist, so he wishes to easily disperse with evidence that overturns his pet theological position. Thus, we don't even have anything resembling impartial adjudication here - it's merely a cobbling together of loosely (at best) associated arguments designed to defend the KJV as 'the pure Bible.'

He has been asked 35 questions by yours truly specifically relating to this ridiculous notion. Despite 18 months to answer them, he has steadfastly refused to do so.

I wouldn't want people knowing the answer to, "Can you read Greek?" to be "no" either if that were true of me.

Steven Avery wrote: Yes, the papyri were dated a century or more earlier - e.g. (made up numbers) 225 AD (range of 200-250 or 175-275, range as little as 50 years given at times) when they they should have been 3rd-4th c., even possibly 5th. (225-425, range of 200 years, maybe even more, 250, 300 years). They were dated fringe early and the date range was far too small. There were two distinct problems. Nongbri's emphasis is more visibly on the date range, however he is making both points. His P66 paper looked to my untrained eye like a technical masterpiece.

There are a couple of ironies here. First, Avery wants to argue for a later date because early papyri upset his KJVO applecart. After all, the earlier P75 goes back, the bigger problem it is for his aberrant view. Secondly, he's never studied paleography anywhere at any level, so how would he know? Thirdly, this is on a post where he's arguing for a 19th century date for Sinaiticus and cites Nongbri, but he doesn't bother to mention that Nongbri has stated he has no reason to reject the fourth century date.

This 'lying by omission' becomes more prominent in this post and is a hallmark of his entire argumentation scheme.

Steven Avery wrote: e.g. Let us conjecture that P75 would be more accurately 225-425. That would mean that all theories that are built around P75 being before Vaticanus are only probablity theories. And textual theorists like Gordon Fee and Daniel Wallace were, meanwhile, building fanciful theories around the date spread between P75 and Vaticanus of about 150 years. Fee was de facto using it as a new method to justify Vaticanus primacy and a nouveau Hortian approach, since Hort's own theories had crumbled (beyond that, Fee and Wallace were weak on logic in their "common ancestor" assertions.) Thus, this it was not just an academic, stodgy matter of a few years, it is a primary theoretical matter. Wallace would use dubious dates, combined with the large numbers of small papyri fragments for fanciful claims both contra Ehrman's position and contra the Byzantine text positions. He would make charts that would have a papyri fragment of 5 verses == to a manuscript of a full Bible. Many of the gentlemen in the realms of New Testament "textual criticism" are clearly not the brighest light bulbs, and they often get a free pass in the public arena from their compatriots when they divvy up mishegas.

Let me summarize: "I have no earthly idea what I'm talking about, but everyone else but me is wrong!!!"

Steven Avery wrote: Here is the Aland warning about the papyri:

The Text of the New Testament (1995)
Kurt and Barbara Aland


We should not forget that apart from 0212 (found at Dura Europus) all the early witnesses listed above on p. 57 are from Egypt, where the hot, dry sands preserved the papyri through the centuries (similar climatic conditions are found in the Judaean desert where papyri have also been discovered). From other major centers of the early Christian church nothing has survived. This raises the question whether and to what extent we can generalize from the Egyptian situation. Egypt was distinguished from other provinces of the Church, so far as we can judge, by the early dominance of gnosticism; this was not broken until about A.D. 200. when Bishop Demetrius succeeded in reorganizing the diocese and establishing communications with the other churches. Not until then do we have documentary evidence of the church in Egypt ...

(the Dura Europus fragment is a Diatessaron, gospel harmony, text)

Let the record show we have some patent dishonesty going on here on the part of Steven Avery.

1) Kurt Aland never gave any sort of 'warning' - this is Avery's wishful thinking controlling his argument. Furthermore, just look at the rest of the quotation - that he cut short because it would no doubt embarrass him - and it overturns his claim. Simply look at the part he cut out and gambled nobody would bother to check out (the bold is the part he intentionally excised):

"Egypt was distinguished from other provinces of the Church, so far as we can judge, by the early dominance of gnosticism; this was not broken until about A.D. 200. when Bishop Demetrius succeeded in reorganizing the diocese and establishing communications with the other churches. Not until then do we have documentary evidence of the church in Egypt although undoubtedly not only the gnostic but also the broader Church was represented there throughout the whole period. At almost the same time, the Catechetical School of Alexandria' was instituted as the first 'Christian university.'"

2) Aland would vote in favor of what KJVOs allege to be 'Gnostic' readings as being ORIGINAL (Avery didn't mention that part)

3) Avery has known for AT LEAST FOUR YEARS now that he's lying about Aland.

Simply google maestroh kurt aland warning steven avery and you find a BVDB post from 2012.

Why is he coming here as though I never corrected him on his stupidity?

Answer? Because the man is a liar.

Stephan Huller wrote:I know from the Mar Saba document that the pages seemed to be white when first discovered by Morton Smith and by 2000 they were yellow also. Could just be indicative of the way they were stored and kept.

Yeah... the actually fake Mar saba document that just happened to go missing!!!!!!!!!