Biblical Criticism & History Forum - earlywritings.com

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5_RwIt3a8xs

JW:
I fear that the Thread Sinaiticus authenticity discussion Wed 11/30/2022 - James Snapp Jr. and Steven Avery is misleading to the Skeptical newbie as it focuses on the evidence that Sinaiticus is not ancient rather than the evidence that it is. Hence, this Thread. First, a few general comments:

• 1) As always, the combination of potential age and lack of patristic credibility creates a lot of uncertainty, which moves conclusions from probable towards possible.
  
  2) I have to confess that I do find Avery entertaining. He invokes Tischendorf and St. Catherine's Monastery as questionable provenance, but as far as provenance setting/discovery, how could it be any better than a Bible Scholar finding an ancient and preserved Alexandrian manuscript in a Monastery in the Sinai desert?

In the context of Avery's complaint, the basic question is a general one, whether Sinaiticus is ancient or modern, and not a specific one, whether it is fourth century. The starting point for Christian Bible Scholarship (CBS) to answer that one is not necessarily what you think. It's commonly thought that it's based on an analysis of comparison of specific letters to examples of other specific letters from known or probable dates. An important criteria but, there is a lot of variation of letters for most time periods. Specifically here, the starting point is the form/style of the Manuscript as a whole. It's commonly accepted that the ancient Christian Bible manuscripts had a Magical, oops, sorry, Majuscule style, also known as Uncial script:

Uncial is a majuscule[1] script (written entirely in capital letters) commonly used from the 4th to 8th centuries AD by Latin and Greek scribes.[2] Uncial letters were used to write Greek and Latin, as well as Gothic and Coptic.

Sinaiticus is Majuscule. Hence, the starting/default position that Sinaiticus is ancient. As a side note I'm not aware of any of Simonides' forgeries/writings that were in Unical.

The second best evidence for ancient by CBS would be the specific style of letters. But there is a potentially best of all criterion for ancient that
Avery & Snapp and CBS avoid here. Someone, anyone, Alexander?


Joseph

CONVENT, n. A place of retirement for woman who wish for leisure to meditate upon the vice of idleness.

Has There Ever Been Colonialization, Genocide and an Endless Series of Crimes Against the Universe in Modern Israel?

JoeWallack wrote: ↑Thu Dec 15, 2022 7:27 am
2) I have to confess that I do find Avery entertaining. He invokes Tischendorf and St. Catherine's Monastery as questionable provenance,

What about the more specific provenance - "discovered in a rubbish bin"?
Doesn't this asserted fact alone set off all sorts of alarm bells?
How opportune was the timing of Tischendorf's mission.
Thank god for Tischendorf.

but as far as provenance setting/discovery, how could it be any better than a Bible Scholar finding an ancient and preserved Alexandrian manuscript in a Monastery in the Sinai desert?

What would be better would be the discovery an ancient manuscript in a earthen jar buried in the sands of the desert. Like the Nag Hammadi codices. At least we would then be very confident that such a manuscript had not been meddled with by monks and/or the church industry during the intervening centuries.

JoeWallack wrote: ↑Thu Dec 15, 2022 7:27 am

Uncial is a majuscule[1] script (written entirely in capital letters) commonly used from the 4th to 8th centuries AD by Latin and Greek scribes.[2] Uncial letters were used to write Greek and Latin, as well as Gothic and Coptic.

Sinaiticus is Majuscule. Hence, the starting/default position that Sinaiticus is ancient. As a side note I'm not aware of any of Simonides' forgeries/writings that were in Unical.

It's not only about this being a manuscript in uncials, but in the style of classical Greek or Latin, which is Scriptio continua. To quote Wikipedia:

"Scriptio continua (Latin for "continuous script"), also known as scriptura continua or scripta continua, is a style of writing without spaces or other marks between the words or sentences. The form also lacks punctuation, diacritics, or distinguished letter case. In the West, the oldest Greek and Latin inscriptions used word dividers to separate words in sentences; however, Classical Greek and late Classical Latin both employed scriptio continua as the norm."

Even in the time frame in which uncials were used, Scriptio continua fell out of use. This may also be the reason, why the monks had put the manuscript pages into the bin for repair materials. Who wants to read such a book that's just one big block of letters?