Coloring the Truth: Sinaiticus

[Steven Avery]

We had discussed this topic, and you rely too much on words and disregard the evidence. The actual evidence of the Leipzig and the London documents in public displays, both documented by two of the links I posted a few days ago, shows that both documents are about the same hue of light yellow.

This is irrelevant, of no value, unless there was a standardization attempt as with the CSP.

It would have the same value as your childish fabrication about "terrible yellow".

[Steven Avery]

We had discussed this topic, and you rely too much on words and disregard the evidence. The actual evidence of the Leipzig and the London documents in public displays, both documented by two of the links I posted a few days ago, shows that both documents are about the same hue of light yellow.

This is irrelevant, of no value, unless there was a professional standardization attempt as with the CSP.

The words of Gavin Moorhead are far more salient than random pictures off the internet.

It would have the same value as your childish fabrication about "terrible yellow".

[Ulan]

We had discussed this topic, and you rely too much on words and disregard the evidence. The actual evidence of the Leipzig and the London documents in public displays, both documented by two of the links I posted a few days ago, shows that both documents are about the same hue of light yellow.

This is irrelevant, of no value, unless there was a professional standardization attempt as with the CSP.

The words of Gavin Moorhead are far more salient than random pictures off the internet.

It would have the same value as your childish fabrication about "terrible yellow".

Quite the opposite. It's you and your friends who ignore the existing standards of the images on codexsinaiticus.org and fabricate the coloring issue. I haven't seen any recognition by you that you understand the meaning of these standards. The only thing you manage is some attempt to hand-wave the evidence away.

I guess the scholars at academic institutions overestimate the capability of the general public to read scholarly exhibits. Anyway, you will probably never stop with your preaching until the day you die. Academics will ignore it, and whoever takes a good look at the issue, will ignore it, too.

[ebion]

It would have the same value as your childish fabrication about "terrible yellow".

I guess the scholars at academic institutions overestimate the gullibility of the general public to swallow scholarly exhibits. Anyway, I will probably never stop with my preaching until the day I die. Academics will ignore me, and whoever takes a good look at the issue, will ignore me, too.

There; fixed it for you :-,)

[Ulan]

Lovely. Sure, academics will ignore me, that's correct. The reason for that is that they ignore the whole "Codex Sinaiticus is a forgery" bullshit, which means they aren't interested in what Steven or you think about that topic, either. You have to show some evidence that doesn't fall apart already at the first look to get them interested.

[DCHindley]

Citing a video by Jack Chick is a little discouraging, Steven.

Don't get me wrong, I used to be one myself for about a decade, and had delighted in reading and passing out Chick tracts, although even then I ...

WAT

This begs elaboration. Really. More coloring, please.

Just about everyone who frequented evangelic churches, feel-good bible-studies, public restrooms or find something tucked under your windshield wiper, has encountered them.

I was active in these circles from my high school years and the 3rd year of college, so yeah, I've seen a lot of them. Yes, there was even a brochure that advertised the different tracts, which could be used as a sales order if mailed in with boxes checked and the publisher's fee for volume orders. It wasn't a lot.

What interested me were the cartoons. The narrative was basically a pitch for evangelical Christianity, God's favored way to pay respect to their savior, Jesus Christ.

I liked cartoons in those days:

1) Funny pages in the daily newspaper, especially Sundays when they were in color. Some of them pushed the envelope, such as Al Capp & his L'il Abner based strips. Those that parodied hippy radicals, feminists, or protesters protesting for the sake of protesting itself, were the funniest to me. I later learned that a good parody exaggerates normal everyday things to the point of absurdity (well, that was how comedian Dana Carvey described it when discussing his parody of President Bush I's mannerisms, which made the President laugh because it was so spot on, in an interview on TV).

2) Those hippy radical type comics (Mr Natural, Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers, etc.) that illustrated their adventures as they attempted, with varying degrees of success or failure, to score "lids" of "weed," participated in protests (didn't matter what for, the signs depicted were usually pretty silly), and all that. Not that I did any of that, but I knew kids who did, and I could see the humor in them.

3) Independent evangelical oriented churches, especially "full-gospel" ones (think speaking in tongues), often operated dry clubs where Christian teens could congregate, drink pop, and see Christian rock bands (70s) and well known crossover rock artists. There was one I remember vividly, Larry Hill's "All Saved Freak Band." Larry Hill was operating a commune that was almost cult-like. They dressed like lumberjacks, one band member was missing a hand, the women all wore peasant frocks and kept their eyes down when males were present to demonstrate their submission. One was even a former celebrated orchestra cellist who left all that to play in Larry Hill's band. The music was not too bad, but I heard that David Koresh known from the Waco TX USA siege was also a talented guitarist as well. They exist. Plenty of J C Chick tracts were available for free. Some of these published newsletters (about comic book size) that included Christian comics. Most were pretty weird and badly drawn. Many mimicked the Mr Natural style of comic panel.

4) Chick Tracts: I thought Chick tracts that depicted Catholic Nuns as sadists were too extreme. I like the ones like "This was your Life." I may have tucked a few under wipers or in restrooms. I used to volunteer at Billy Graham crusades too. The characters were always stereotypes, but they talked frankly and a little skeptically, which I liked.

DCH

[billd89]

Strange congruencies, here. Decades ago I used to collect 'head comix' (from 1967-73), especially R.Crumb. In college, I took a comics literature class in the mid-1980s w/ an expert on Donald Duck. And yeah, I always read those crazy Jack Chick tracts.

Today, just Because, I scoop & drop off a local zine at nearby hipster coffeeshops; my first job (Age 10) was delivering the Patriot Ledger.

[RandyHelzerman]

What's fascinating to me about Jack Chick comics is how completely devoid of any trace of irony or hyperbole they are--they aren't exaggerating for comic effect. No, as ludicrous as they are at face value, that is what they sincerely believe. As art, they are some of the best art from the 20th century, just because they so precisely express a worldview. No other medium would do it justice.

Makes me nostalgic for a time in which seeing was believing. That "photographic proof" was really proof. I remember, back in the late 80's, reading an article about what the primitive computers could do for image processing, and they made the following astounding claim: soon, a picture, or even a videotape! would not be admissible in a court of law as evidence that something had happened, because they would be so easily faked. At the time, it was hard to believe.

Now here we are--and we have this video of the O.P., showing a guy who was actually manipulating images in front of our faces ("here, let me add some more shadows--this will really bring it out!") in service of persuading us that the real thing is fake. How such a huge epistemic shift can happen in 1 lifetime, without all of us going insane, is something I can't understand. Maybe because we all did go a bit insane. As P.K. Dick said, sometimes going insane is the appropriate response to reality.

It's a huge fall from where Jack Chick publications started. At least the image on the page was an accurate and articulate representation of the beliefs. Now we get obscuration as proof of obscuration, and it only "works" because we all know that we can't believe anything we see anymore.

[Leucius Charinus]

Makes me nostalgic for a time in which seeing was believing. That "photographic proof" was really proof. I remember, back in the late 80's, reading an article about what the primitive computers could do for image processing, and they made the following astounding claim: soon, a picture, or even a videotape! would not be admissible in a court of law as evidence that something had happened, because they would be so easily faked. At the time, it was hard to believe.

Are Sinaiticus, Alexandrinus and Vaticanus actually inviolable "holy relics"? Going by the non-destructive policy of the British Library (on the former two codices) this appears to be the case. 21st century skeptics should forget the color. It will soon be 1700 years after the Nicene council. Isn't it about time to allow the scientists to test out church dogma and its chronology?

A fragment of Sinaiticus, Alexandrinus or Vaticanus the size of a postage stamp may be sufficient for a dozen modern C14 tests farmed out to scientists in multiple radiocarbon labs. What C14 did for the "Shroud" it can also do for Sinaiticus, Alexandrinus and Vaticanus.

[ebion]

A fragment of Sinaiticus, Alexandrinus or Vaticanus the size of a postage stamp may be sufficient for a dozen modern C14 tests farmed out to scientists in multiple radiocarbon labs. What C14 did for the "Shroud" it can also do for Sinaiticus, Alexandrinus and Vaticanus.

It's Sinaiticus that matters, as it's alledged to be old, and known to be a fraud.

The BL refused to test it , regardless of the tiny sample size (~50 mg.):

Moreover, these methods sometimes lead to inconclusive and unhelpful results in dating manuscripts, so in our present view (and, also in the view of several of our predecessors) the scholarly benefits of undertaking this do not outweigh or justify the losses that would occur to this critically significant artefact if C14 was undertaken. Contextual and imaging analysis can, in our opinion, prove as reliable and much less harmful way to interpret artefacts like this and were widely and successfully applied in various other manuscripts.

They don't want to know as they are afraid it might show that they own a critically significant fraud.