Codex Sinaiticus - the white parchment Friderico-Augustanus

Discussion about the New Testament, apocrypha, gnostics, church fathers, Christian origins, historical Jesus or otherwise, etc.
Steven Avery
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Re: Codex Sinaiticus - the white parchment Friderico-Augustanus

Post by Steven Avery »

:)

Hi Charles,

And I would say that the Sinaiticus authenticity issues, which have a few fine threads on this forum, are about 1,000 to a gazillion times more significant than your other reference. And one does not preclude the other anyway.

Do you have anything actually substantive to share about the Codex Sinaiticus history and evidences?

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

Post by Charles Wilson »

It's April Fool's Day. I thought I would exhibit my usual Pain-in-the-Ass techniques by not creating my own AFD nonsense but referencing someone else's.

As to contributing to THIS discussion, see: https://www.amazon.com/Archimedes-Codex ... edes+codex

It took about 4 years to take the book apart without destroying it. The book about the book is a great read.

Also, to contribute just a little more, I still look at the Productions of the Roman Court: How many could read the texts, who could have produced them and - in regard to Mark - what could happen if there appeared to be precisely one Book of Mark. Literally, "Who knew...?"

My focus in NT Studies is so different that I'm a Not-So-Innocent Bystander here.

Best to both of you,

CW
Last edited by Charles Wilson on Sun Apr 01, 2018 2:32 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Steven Avery
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Re: Codex Sinaiticus - the white parchment Friderico-Augustanus

Post by Steven Avery »

Yes, there is some direct overlap, in that Tischendorf stole a leaf from the Archimedes palimpsest. And that may be from the same place as he stole the 1844 Sinaiticus quires. It is mentioned in the book.

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

Post by Charles Wilson »

Steven --

In a rough review of this thread, I note that you stated that Tischendorf stole a leaf from the Archimedes palimpsest and mutilated it. In what manner did he mutilate this page, if known? Why? If he used it to make a paper airplane or as a coaster for his after dinner drinks, that would be one thing. Without cuing dark and mysterious music, he could do only a few things with it: Look at it, feel it, smell it, scrape it with his fingernails and so on.

If this theft occurred after Sinaiticus, all bets are off. However...

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

Post by Steven Avery »

I’ll plan on pulling out more Archimedes palimpsest ms information in the AM, when my notes are handy.

I will say that a sheet can get mutilated in the act of theft itself. Edges might be trimmed, cuts made, etc. With the Codex Frederico-Augustanus (the first Sinaiticus theft) sheets stolen in 1844, Tischendorf extracted 5 intact quires. Each quire is 4 sheets, or 16 pages. To make that into 40 folia, they would be cut in half. Tischendorf hid the fact that he had taken intact quires, and 15 years later, in 1859, made up a self-serving cover story, of saving pages from burning, that he used to garner political support. Plus, the smaller size is easier to hide in transport. Then Tischendorf took 3 more folia, from part of a quire, as explained in the video.

Tischendorf was involved with various thefts, so I have no idea what the “all bets are off” comment is about.

With Sinaiticus, the evidence is that he trimmed all the sheets, in order to eliminate margin notes.

And Tischendorf coloured the sheets that came out in 1859. This led to the amazing situation where you can actually see and compare the BEFORE 1844 white parchment that went to Leipzig and the AFTER 1859 yellowed, streaky, stained parchment now in Britain. Rarely does such a crime leave such an easy to see and follow trail.

Plus, the crime of colouring the manuscript to make it look old was specifically noted as having occurred in the 1850s. This was noted by an observer who was at the monastery, Kallinikos, and published in 1862-64. Kallinikos also noted the 1844 theft. And that the “loan” of 1859 was a cover for theft and would not be returned.

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

Post by Steven Avery »

The mutilation refers to the crime of simply cutting out a page from an intact manuscript as described here:
Eureka Man: The Life and Legacy of Archimedes (2009)
By Alan Hirshfeld
https://books.google.com/books?id=zbcfLoZKDl8C&pg=PA167

To Tischendorf, who was not mathematically trained, the technical symbolism was meaningless scrawl, not rare Archimedean writings. Whatever it was, it had nothing to do with the New Testament. Nevertheless, Tischendorf must have sensed the document’s potential importance. He took out a blade, surreptitiously excised a sample page featuring both text and diagrams, and spirited it out of the Mctochion.

That Tischendorf had violated the trust of the patriarchate was not revealed until thirty years later, when Cambridge University purchased the unidentified palimpsest page from his estate—along with several dozen other manuscript leaves Tischendorf had apparently pilfered during his lifetime. The severed palimpsest page became Cambridge Manuscript 1879.23.
Additional examples and references at:

the theft and mutliation of manuscripts
http://www.purebibleforum.com/showthrea ... anuscripts
Charles Wilson
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Re: Codex Sinaiticus - the white parchment Friderico-Augustanus

Post by Charles Wilson »

Thank you, Stephen.

No Conspiracy Theory at this point. People "collect" things and Tischendorf might have "merely" seen the church material rather than the text that had been scrubbed. It was most probably presented as "church text" anyway as the entire Archimedian Thread had been long lost. Nor would it have been a discovery such as "Annals", which was attacked very quickly. The Conspiracy Theorist would wonder if the "found page" had tell-tale markings indicating a "test sheet" for a forger - "I have stained a page from an old document and it looks much older now and didn't disintegrate. Good. Now, onto the [Sinaiticus] forgery. There's money to be made. Nuclear resonance equipment won't be invented for another 150 years so I'm OK.."

'N I'm no Conspiracy Theorist, especially here. The remark about "all bets are off" was to be invoked if a more benign explanation would be offered as to the reasons for the theft of a single sheet of a church document. There could be many, absent a signed confession from Mr. T.

Eventually there will be some non-destructive test that will be able to analyze the document. Whether or not it will solve anything is anyone's guess, not because it won't give an answer but that the response will, "Yes, but it doesn't matter".

CW
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Jax
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Re: Codex Sinaiticus - the white parchment Friderico-Augustanus

Post by Jax »

Charles Wilson wrote: Tue Apr 03, 2018 4:01 pm Thank you, Stephen.

No Conspiracy Theory at this point. People "collect" things and Tischendorf might have "merely" seen the church material rather than the text that had been scrubbed. It was most probably presented as "church text" anyway as the entire Archimedian Thread had been long lost. Nor would it have been a discovery such as "Annals", which was attacked very quickly. The Conspiracy Theorist would wonder if the "found page" had tell-tale markings indicating a "test sheet" for a forger - "I have stained a page from an old document and it looks much older now and didn't disintegrate. Good. Now, onto the [Sinaiticus] forgery. There's money to be made. Nuclear resonance equipment won't be invented for another 150 years so I'm OK.."

'N I'm no Conspiracy Theorist, especially here. The remark about "all bets are off" was to be invoked if a more benign explanation would be offered as to the reasons for the theft of a single sheet of a church document. There could be many, absent a signed confession from Mr. T.

Eventually there will be some non-destructive test that will be able to analyze the document. Whether or not it will solve anything is anyone's guess, not because it won't give an answer but that the response will, "Yes, but it doesn't matter".

CW
I would love to know more about this.

Please.

Lane
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MrMacSon
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Re: Codex Sinaiticus - the white parchment Friderico-Augustanus

Post by MrMacSon »

Jax wrote: Tue Apr 03, 2018 5:19 pm
Charles Wilson wrote: Tue Apr 03, 2018 4:01 pm .. People "collect" things and Tischendorf might have "merely" seen the church material rather than the text that had been scrubbed. It was most probably presented as "church text" anyway as the entire Archimedian Thread had been long lost. Nor would it have been a discovery such as "Annals", which was attacked very quickly. ...
I would love to know more about this.
The discovery of Tacitus' Annals in the 14th century? I know aspects of their discovery, and later commentary that it/they might have been fake ...
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Jax
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Re: Codex Sinaiticus - the white parchment Friderico-Augustanus

Post by Jax »

MrMacSon wrote: Wed Apr 04, 2018 5:21 am
Jax wrote: Tue Apr 03, 2018 5:19 pm
Charles Wilson wrote: Tue Apr 03, 2018 4:01 pm .. People "collect" things and Tischendorf might have "merely" seen the church material rather than the text that had been scrubbed. It was most probably presented as "church text" anyway as the entire Archimedian Thread had been long lost. Nor would it have been a discovery such as "Annals", which was attacked very quickly. ...
I would love to know more about this.
The discovery of Tacitus' Annals in the 14th century? I know aspects of their discovery, and later commentary that it/they might have been fake ...
Do you have links that you can post about this?

Thanks,

Lane
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