Codex Sinaiticus - the white parchment Friderico-Augustanus

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Kapyong
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Re: Codex Sinaiticus - the white parchment Friderico-Augustanus

Post by Kapyong »

P52 :
Image

(After DNA testing.)

Kapyong
(Sure, it's papyrus, but hey :) )
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John T
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Re: Codex Sinaiticus - the white parchment Friderico-Augustanus

Post by John T »

Kapyong wrote: Fri Jul 27, 2018 11:25 am Gday all :)

DNA testing of vellum doesn't look very useful :(

Kapyong
Yes, you are right. After all, it is not like that DNA testing can show how many generations have past since the animal lived.

Same goes for radiocarbon dating. I mean, C-14 dating can't possibly narrow down the date of a modern forgery to within a decade or two.
So what good is testing the Codex Sinaitiucs using modern scientific methods?

We should just assume that it is as old as we want it to be.

Best not to look under the bed. :cheeky:
"It is useless to attempt to reason a man out of a thing he was never reasoned into."...Jonathan Swift
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Kapyong
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Re: Codex Sinaiticus - the white parchment Friderico-Augustanus

Post by Kapyong »

Gday all,

Some more thoughts on sheep genetics (hey, I'm from Oz, sheep are important to us - you know they say 'Australia rides on the sheep's back', right ? TBH they're a little awkward travelling to work on, but the good news is that they can fit 16 lanes across the Sydney harbour hyperpotamus, 24 in peak hour when they smoosh the lanes over.)

But seriously, there is a new breed of Merino sheep that has arrived in the last decades :
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2008-05-19/n ... es/2440836
"With the wool industry under mounting pressure to phase out the practice known as mulesing by 2010, a group of woolgrowers has unveiled a genetic alternative, with a merino sheep that produces more wool of a finer texture.
Most importantly though, the sheep is wrinkle-free, meaning there is no need for mulesing, which involves cutting skin from a sheep's hindquarters to prevent flies from eating its flesh."

(Sheep can get fly-strike from maggots laid in the moist shitty folds around their rear. A serious problem.)

So here is a clearly observable recent new variation in sheep phenotype.
The merino was new and different in the early 19th C.
Apparently that Booroola mutation arrived in the 17th C.
Sheep in the middle ages were different.

It appears that observable sheep mutations occur roughly every couple of centuries or so, perhaps less frequently in the previous dark millenium.

So in principle, being optimistic :
if genotype sequencing becomes easy and cheap, and we sequence all our sheep breeds past and present, and build their family tree, and we sequence a set of dated vellum exemplars through the centuries, and we can combine all that data so that a signal can be discerned among the noise -
then,
maybe a DNA test of vellum might be able to date it to within a couple of centuries or so.

Maybe goat too, but probably not papyrus.

Kapyong
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John T
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Re: Codex Sinaiticus - the white parchment Friderico-Augustanus

Post by John T »

Darn those scientists.
Just who do they think they are in telling us how old books are based on ink analysis and C-14 testing of the pages? :cheeky:

The Voynich Code is dated accurately between 1404-1438 CE.

See 45 minute mark of video below.

https://youtu.be/awGN5NApDy4

John T
"It is useless to attempt to reason a man out of a thing he was never reasoned into."...Jonathan Swift
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John T
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Re: Codex Sinaiticus - the white parchment Friderico-Augustanus

Post by John T »

Can a computer expert tell me why this post has over 60,000 views?
Granted the O.P. is about 4 years old but the number seems excessive.

Could this be one of those bot things when someone types in, Codex Sinaiticus and then this site lists it as a view? :scratch:
"It is useless to attempt to reason a man out of a thing he was never reasoned into."...Jonathan Swift
Ulan
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Re: Codex Sinaiticus - the white parchment Friderico-Augustanus

Post by Ulan »

As much as I am for testing the Codex, they may have botched their chances for this to happen. If you look at official videos about Codex Sinaiticus, you can see that the researchers touch the text with their bare hands. They even give the explanation that oils from fingers preserve the vellum. Of course, oils from fingers also prevent any useful result from C14 testing. Who knows what else they put on for preservation.

I guess someone from the circle of Christian Bible scholarship should ask for testing or at least for clarification why it may not be possible. It's somewhat understandable that they don't care for any questions from the group that this thread sprung from.
Steven Avery
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Re: Codex Sinaiticus - the white parchment Friderico-Augustanus

Post by Steven Avery »

To be fair, even Leipzig is being helpful now on some aspects of the history of the manuscript. (When was it bound and unbound, did it travel with Tischendorf?) And the British Library really did help on the colour in the early days.

You are basically right Ulan, as long as they can claim "scholarship consensus .. who cares" the libraries can say we do not want or need to do any testing. And there is a small clique of scholars who really have a lot invested in whatever defense of Sinaiticus antiquity they can muster. These are the ones who cry "conspiracy theory". They do vary, however, and some of the scholars can engage in iron sharpeneth discussion, privately.

However, tomorrow is a new day. Even today is still active.

Steven
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Re: Codex Sinaiticus - the white parchment Friderico-Augustanus

Post by Steven Avery »

Take a look at this palaeographic puzzle, as one example.

Codex Friderico Augustanus 1845 ink next to theorized 600 AD ink `
http://www.purebibleforum.com/showthrea ... 0#post1230

Image

Theoretically, these are supposed to be inks from 3 different time periods

a) c. 350 AD
b) c. 600 AD
c) 1845

Yet none of them has caused acid deterioration to the parchment. You can understand that the library does not want real scientific information out about the ink.
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John T
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Re: Codex Sinaiticus - the white parchment Friderico-Augustanus

Post by John T »

I don't know if this link has been used on this thread already but here is a short video by David Daniels from Chick Publications (who gives a couple of shouts out to Steven Avery) that addresses the problem of staining of some of the pages and not others.

https://youtu.be/OVjOhDJ5HKo

My take on what caused the different color of pages.

The darkening of the pages could simply be water stains or accelerated darkening due to transferring the pages from a dry environment like St. Catherine to a more humid one. I also find it troubling the way the current custodians of the Codex Sinaiticus handle such a so-called ancient document.

Anyway, Daniels suspects some kind of chemical like coffee or tea was brushed onto the pages to make the pages look old.

Either way, it does not matter for me because mass spectrometry testing can easily determine what caused the stains.

To not test the stains is highly suspicious and those who think the Codex Sinaiticus is a fraud are standing on firm ground on this one and should not be ridiculed as conspiracy theorists.

Now as far as David Daniels idea as to what Tischendorf was up to and the hidden agenda of Westcott and Hort in completely changing the bible, I would like to hear more on that but on a separate thread.

Sincerely,

John T
"It is useless to attempt to reason a man out of a thing he was never reasoned into."...Jonathan Swift
Steven Avery
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spectrometry for ink analysis

Post by Steven Avery »

From the abstract of one of the papers about spectrometry for ink analysis:

Cohen 2015 Composition of the primary inks in medieval palimpsests effects of the removal
https://www.academia.edu/34532883/Cohen ... he_removal

"The qualitative and quantitative investigations of historical iron-gall inks by use of µ-XRF spectrometry is a common method for analyzing the differences in their composition. When a fingerprint is established, it is possible to characterize the distinguishable inks used in the production of medieval manuscripts, and, in turn assist in the reconstruction of the manuscript’s history."

This would be a natural for Sinaiticus with its varying conjectured centuries, and some rubrications.

However, the libraries would resist, what if, e.g. the 1845 ink two posts above above has a fingerprint close to some ancient ink?

Notice that the paper is from:

BAM Federal Institute for Materials Research and Testing
http://www.bam.de/
https://bam.academia.edu/Departments/4_ ... /Documents

This is the group that was planned for the 2015 tests, and has lots of DSS experience.

Steven
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