Codex Sinaiticus - the white parchment Friderico-Augustanus

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Kunigunde Kreuzerin
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Re: Codex Sinaiticus - the white parchment Friderico-Augusta

Post by Kunigunde Kreuzerin »

DCHindley wrote:Now, if Sinaiticus is a modern fake, the most likely suspect would not be Tisch., but Simonides. This is not because Sim. makes such a claim, one that he may have just made up to try to pop Tisch.'s balloon of fame in a fit of jealously, but because if anyone was capable of doing such a thing, it would be Simonides, a somewhat shadier but much more practiced version of Tisch. himself. Similarly, Simonides name was on the library card in the pocket attached to the remaining binding at the front of the Voss edition of the Ignatian corpus in which Morton Smith found that beautifully written fragment of Theodore at Mar Saba. That fact is, in fact, a little known fact.
It is often claimed that Simonidis was a master forger. But I was not so impressed by his works.
He created "a considerable sensation by producing quantities of Greek manuscripts professing to be of fabulous antiquity – such as a Homer in an almost prehistoric style of writing, a lost Egyptian historian, a copy of St. Matthew's Gospel on papyrus, written fifteen years after the Ascension (!), and other portions of the New Testament dating from the first century."[4]
That sounds rather like an amateur's idea to me. And I surmise that many of our own fellow members would question the authenticity of such a ms

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DCHindley
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Re: Codex Sinaiticus - the white parchment Friderico-Augusta

Post by DCHindley »

Kunigunde Kreuzerin wrote:
DCHindley wrote:Now, if Sinaiticus is a modern fake, the most likely suspect would not be Tisch., but Simonides. This is not because Sim. makes such a claim, one that he may have just made up to try to pop Tisch.'s balloon of fame in a fit of jealously, but because if anyone was capable of doing such a thing, it would be Simonides, a somewhat shadier but much more practiced version of Tisch. himself. Similarly, Simonides name was on the library card in the pocket attached to the remaining binding at the front of the Voss edition of the Ignatian corpus in which Morton Smith found that beautifully written fragment of Theodore at Mar Saba. That fact is, in fact, a little known fact.
It is often claimed that Simonidis was a master forger. But I was not so impressed by his works.
Looking up some things various sites say about him, he seems to be slightly "shady". I mean, besides being a photographer, he made his business in the trading of antiquities, and it seems, if the accounts are not just mean-spirited lies about him, from making copies of famous mss. for the well-to-do. I suppose he would have access to new blank vellum sheets made for that purpose, using his client's money to have them made. Like any artist (and that is what this is, artistic reproduction of mss.) he would order somewhat more than he might expect to need, to leave a margin of error if he miscalculates his requirements. In time he may have looked at these growing reserves of materials, evaluated his ability to copy, and an impossible idea takes root in his mind. He just could not juggle as many details as he needed to, and in time it came crashing down.
He created "a considerable sensation by producing quantities of Greek manuscripts professing to be of fabulous antiquity – such as a Homer in an almost prehistoric style of writing, a lost Egyptian historian, a copy of St. Matthew's Gospel on papyrus, written fifteen years after the Ascension (!), and other portions of the New Testament dating from the first century."[4]
That sounds rather like an amateur's idea to me. And I surmise that many of our own fellow members would question the authenticity of such a ms

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That Wiki citation wasn't mine. I usually don't quote Wiki at all. What we get there are a lot of "homework" assignments from "Bible college" (Bob Jones Univ.& Pensacola Christian Academy on the far right, and students of Dan Wallace at Dallas Theological Seminary on the not quite as extreme but solidly conservative right, in this country). If you are referring to Simonides' attempts to foist his copies of classic writers written in "really archaic" script or otherwise unknown or highly fragments full of imaginative ideas or overly clever reconstructions of lacunae, yeah, he bit off more than he could chew.

Now he may well have ferreted out and managed to buy or sneak out some genuine manuscripts as he made his copies at famous or remote monasteries for his clients, but he was just too good at it, and some of them, as you note, are difficult to swallow, but the market was looking for the new and unexpected, so he gave them what they wanted. I was surprised to learn that he thought he was a better translator of Egyptian hieroglyphs than were the experts, a claim also made by Joseph Smith the founder of the Latter Day Saints movement. He seems to have been a very talented calligrapher and multilingual (English & Greek for sure) dilettante, but he kept increasing the stakes until he had "risen to the level of his incompetence" (from The Peter Principal, 1969, with "Peter" referring to "Petering out," that is, loosing one's impetus).

DCH
Steven Avery
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Re: Codex Sinaiticus - the white parchment Friderico-Augusta

Post by Steven Avery »

The understanding of Simonides is much greater in Europe especially from German down to the Balkans, also Italy. The 2014 Conference in Vienna was an interesting event. I am trying to see if there is documentation of his Russian period after Simonides was quieted down on Sinaiticus. Some of the material is in Russian, and that is translated to Italian. The Artemidorus papyrus has been a hot issue now for years.

In my experience, the Americans and even the Brits have a facile historical understanding of those times. We can expect that Simonides will be featured in another conference shortly, after the Sinaiticus issue really makes the news.

Steven
Ulan
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Re: Codex Sinaiticus - the white parchment Friderico-Augusta

Post by Ulan »

The conference book about Simonides will be released in April this year (print and pdf):
http://www.v-r.de/de/die_getaeuschte_wi ... 0/1094218/

Print price will be €50.
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Re: Codex Sinaiticus - the white parchment Friderico-Augusta

Post by andrewcriddle »

Steven Avery wrote:
Ulan wrote:I read this as a "No" then..

To what specific question?
Ulan wrote:Anyway, has anyone ever calculated how much it would cost to forge such a manuscript? You would have to produce all that top notch, selected parchment which is obviously handcrafted with utmost care. Then someone would have to devise the unique text with its specific variants, forge a correction history on top of that and then write the whole bible in this specific uncial style.We are not talking about forging some short piece of papyrus here, where empty papyrus from ancient times is readily available and where you just have to write a few paragraphs. Even in Tischendorf's time, this would have been costly and lots of work.
True, these are very valid considerations. The ms. would probably have to be done at a locale where there could be blank parchment available, like Mount Athos c. 1840s, which we can call Manuscript City, and Parchment Town. (Apparently at times, Simonides had one or more full chests of parchment and manuscripts.) And low-cost monk-style calligraphy scribal activity as well, like Mount Athos c. 1840. Simonides said that his uncle Benedict hoped or expected to get a printing press in return, which would also be quite valuable item at that time. (It is possible that they did plan to pawn it off as authentic antiquity, rather than a replica, at this time I consider both as possible.)

I don't think the parchment used was old,at all. Simonides said it came from a blank parchment stash, perhaps in a large book. The thinness and bleed-through elements are something I would like to study more, but they are auxiliary to the basic issue of super-supple, obvious colouring, minimal smudging from handling, ink questions, etc, which support -- recent ms.

It is true that some forgeries and replicas are small, others, like ms 2427 (Archaic Mark) take much more effort. This was a unique time and place. If you consider the ms. authentic, you have an incredible "too good to be true" element as well, something that Stephan Huller emphasized even back in 2011, before we found all the smoking guns like the BEFORE and AFTER colouring, and before the white parchment reference of Uspensky caused us to follow up on the whole question.

Steven
One should note that Simonides' claim to be the author of Sinaticus does not argue that the parchment was recent in fact the contrary.
I selected from the library of the monastery...a very bulky volume antiquely bound and almost entirely blank the parchment of which was remarkably clean and beautifully finished. This had been prepared apparently many centuries ago...
Andrew Criddle
Steven Avery
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Re: Codex Sinaiticus - the white parchment Friderico-Augusta

Post by Steven Avery »

andrewcriddle wrote:One should note that Simonides' claim to be the author of Sinaticus does not argue that the parchment was recent in fact the contrary.
I selected from the library of the monastery...a very bulky volume antiquely bound and almost entirely blank the parchment of which was remarkably clean and beautifully finished. This had been prepared apparently many centuries ago...
Andrew Criddle

True, but even if the Simonides story is true, this could simply be a medieval ms a couple of hundreds of years old, unused parchment (Simonides had no trouble embellishing a bit), no ink,no acid damage, no dirty hands, and minimal environmental havoc. Which is totally a different environment than supposed heavy usage within multiple locales and correctors over 1500 years.

There is a lot of ebb and counterflow in the historical assertions of both Simonides and Tischendorf about Sinaiticus. A very humorous example was in this (auto)-biography. Simonides seems to obliquely refers to the find from Tischendorf (Sinaiticus) as 2nd century and then uses that to defend the antiquity of his papyri finds. Ironically, he used the excellent condition of the supposed 1700 year old parchment in Russia to defend what he was selling in the UK as 1800 year old papyrus. The whole situation is an amazing puzzle.

You might enjoy looking at the homoeoteleuton posts back on p. 18. It can fit a nice piece of the puzzle

Steven
Steven Avery
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Sinaiticus - white parchment - homoeoteleuton confirms redat

Post by Steven Avery »

It should be pointed out that the Claromontanus-Sinaiticus relationship essentially closes the issue of Sinaiticus being a 4th century manuscript. (It is not.)
Details can be followed from this new thread:

Sinaiticus homoeotelutons show Claromontanus as a source doc used by the Aleph scribe
http://bibleforums.org/showthread.php/2 ... eph-scribe

Due to the nature of the academy and the textual establishment, it may take awhile for the truth to settle in :).
The new hard textual evidence is in the sweet spot of the textual critics, scribal omission of text through homoeoteleuton.

Steven Avery
Maestroh
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Re: Codex Sinaiticus - the white parchment Friderico-Augusta

Post by Maestroh »

Steven Avery wrote: The understanding of Simonides is much greater in Europe especially from German down to the Balkans, also Italy. The 2014 Conference in Vienna was an interesting event. I am trying to see if there is documentation of his Russian period after Simonides was quieted down on Sinaiticus. Some of the material is in Russian, and that is translated to Italian. The Artemidorus papyrus has been a hot issue now for years.

In my experience, the Americans and even the Brits have a facile historical understanding of those times. We can expect that Simonides will be featured in another conference shortly, after the Sinaiticus issue really makes the news.

Steven

None of this is true, and you know it.

The reason you like to appeal to languages you cannot read (like Russian) and make claims you cannot substantiate (claiming the understanding of Simonides is much greater elsewhere) is because you have nothing to substantiate your argument. This is a way of appealing to things you've never actually read and taunting people by pretending you have read them, knowing they won't be able to call your bluff.

Fact is that nobody is wrong about Simonides save for you, sir. The guy was a liar (Farrer, whom you cite as an authority, ADMITS this), a forger, and he very simply didn't do this.
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Re: Sinaiticus - white parchment - homoeoteleuton confirms r

Post by Maestroh »

Steven Avery wrote: It should be pointed out that the Claromontanus-Sinaiticus relationship essentially closes the issue of Sinaiticus being a 4th century manuscript. (It is not.)
It should be pointed out that Avery used his conclusion to come to his conclusion and is engaging in a circular argument. It should also be pointed out, he neither can read Greek NOR does he even understand homoioteleuton. (Ask him to explain all the TEXTUAL VARIATION in these manuscripts in the same chapters he's now claiming "this was copied from this."

You have to explain EVERYTHING, not just offer nonsensical theories.

Note also he's never even been in the same room with Sinaiticus.


Steven Avery wrote: Details can be followed from this new thread:

Sinaiticus homoeotelutons show Claromontanus as a source doc used by the Aleph scribe
http://bibleforums.org/showthread.php/2 ... eph-scribe
You can also see Avery's conclusions get taken apart in this new thread:

http://bibleforums.org/showthread.php/2 ... eph-scribe


Steven Avery wrote: Due to the nature of the academy and the textual establishment, it may take awhile for the truth to settle in :).
Due to Mr Steven Avery Spencer's stubbornness, a character trait he has admitted elsewhere, it no doubt will take his passing to admit he's in error here.
Steven Avery wrote: The new hard textual evidence is in the sweet spot of the textual critics, scribal omission of text through homoeoteleuton.
There is no 'new hard textual evidence.' Calling a donkey a horse doesn't make it a horse.
Steven Avery
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Re: Codex Sinaiticus - the white parchment Friderico-Augusta

Post by Steven Avery »

Maestroh wrote: The reason you like to appeal to languages you cannot read (like Russian) .

This shows you the level of Bill Brown's posting.

This is a reference to the fact that our group supplied the first known English translation, by employing a professional translator of the Old Slavonian text, of the Porfiry Uspensky words about the manuscript now called Codex Sinaiticus (or Simeonides). Dirk Jongkind thanked us for this translation, and would have liked to have that information when he wrote his book on Codex Sinaiticus. (If I remember, he wrote to me that he had actually made some efforts to find and read the text.)

Why was this critical information missing from English-language Sinaiticus scholarship until we did the translation? Good question. We seem to be in the forefront of important Sinaiticus studies these days, and it is becoming rather obvious that Sinaiticus is not a 4th century document. In fact, it is becoming rather obvious that it came forth only in the 1800s.

These words from Uspensky, about his visits to St. Catherines, make a major contribution to destroying the Tischendorf conspiracy theory. Tischendorf obviously stole the leaves (see what he wrote his wife) and he craftily invented the "saved from fire" nonsense in 1859. Claiming that he saved the 43 leaves, and more, from fire in 1844. Bridge for sale. Yet the textual books often still quote this as the textual history. The Uspensky account helps dismantle the Tischendorf fabrications. (Uspensky saw the whole manuscript in 1845 and again in 1850.)

And Uspensky also wrote of seeing a "white parchment" manuscript. Reading this led, step by step, to our discovering that the actual colour and condition of the manuscript sections fully supports the colouring allegations of Kallinikos through Simonides. (One of the many coincidental "called shots".) We even have the BEFORE and AFTER visible today, since 2009. The excerpt of Uspensky in the Russian was originally placed on Wikipedia by an informed Ukrainian scholar. Ironically, without that little Russian section, we may have never searched out and discovered the colour anomalies and tampering.

Bill Brown's writings are consistently on this level, harumph gazoo. So unless he makes a clear, salient argument, or an interesting relevant point, they will be bypassed. Time and energy are precious, and to be used in helpful and edifying research, iron sharpeneth. Think of Shakespeare "Told by ... full of sound and fury,. Signifying nothing."

This forum is generally very helpful, overall it has been the best open discussion spot on the net, so rabbit trails shall be gone. :P

Steven
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