1 Maccabees - Greek numerals with curl-crest above the letter (older) - simple slanting stroke to left bottom the letter (newer)

[Steven Avery]

https://forums.carm.org/threads/codex-sinaiticus-the-facts.12990/post-1247234

"Greek literary hands, 350 B.C.-A.D. 400 by Roberts, Colin H. (Colin Henderson)," 1909-1990, Page 24:

Codex Sinaiticus:

(c) The system of representing numerals points to a fourth-century date. In this century the practice of representing, for example, 1,000 by a stroke below the letter (,A) replaces the old system of putting a curl above the letter (4). Milne and Skeat assign this change approximately to the years 338-60. As the codex was written to dictation and as it is certain that in some places in the exemplar the numerals were written out in full, the use of the old system is evidence of fourth-century date.

The Date of Codex Sinaiticus (2022)
Brent Nongbri:
https://academic.oup.com/jts/article/73/2/516/6652265
https://mfopen.mf.no/mf-xmlui/bitst...x+Sinaiticus+JTS+2022+Preprint.pdf?sequence=1

PBF and Zoom video
https://www.purebibleforum.com/inde...-date-of-codex-sinaiticus-brent-nongbri.1357/

Roberts thus provided a concise précis of the more ‘objective’ arguments for the date of the codex ... point (c) is invalid,
...
The fact that this older system using numerals with curls is present only in 1 Maccabees suggests that a copyist simply carried them over from an exemplar .... Barring some new and compelling evidence that Sinaiticus was copied by dictation, the argument about the orthography of numbers can carry no weight at all in the question of the date of the copying of the codex.

Very helpful.
So we should be looking to see which printed editions or manuscripts of 1 Maccabees (available at Mt. Athos a plus) had this number system

 

[Steven Avery]

Another question:

“this older system using numerals with curls is present only in 1 Maccabees”

Why not much more usage?
One simple answer: Sinaiticus is actually a much later manuscript.

And other than the exemplar anomaly in 1 Maccabees, the curl representation was long gone.

Granted, more study is needed.

===============================================

Numerals in Early Greek New Testament Manuscripts (2017)
Zachary J. Cole
https://www.academia.edu/37204325/Numerals_in_Early_Greek_New_Testament_Manuscripts

p. 2
(5) Can numerical symbols be used to detect relationships between witnesses?

The Milne and Skeat quote above is on p. 22,

followed by:

They concluded that this transition occurred between 338–360 CE. The presence of both methods in Sinaiticus seemed to confirm that the codex was created in this period of transition; Skeat later softened on this stance somewhat.16

16 “I should like to repeat here that the statistics quoted are only a hasty collection which makes no claim to be exhaustive; another late instance of the use of the older system is BGU 940, of A.D. 398” (T. C. Skeat et al., “Bibliography: Graeco-Roman Egypt Part I: Papyrology [1938],” JEA 25 [1938]: 70–93 [86]). Nevertheless, the original argument from Scribes and Correctors was affirmed and followed by others such as Colin H. Roberts, Greek Literary Hands: 350 B.C.–A.D. 400 (Oxford: Clarendon, 1956), 24; and by James R. Royse, Scribal Habits in Early Greek New Testament Papyri, NTTSD 36 (Leiden: Brill, 2008), 372–73, n. 71.

===============================================

 

[Steven Avery]

This was earlier Dec 2022

One moment, please...

According to Nongbri, "For the logic of Milne and Skeat’s argument about numerals to be convincing, it is necessary to assent that Sinaiticus was copied by dictation. But the argument of Milne and Skeat in favor of dictation has proven persuasive to almost nobody. A recent article in the Journal of Biblical Literature (Zachary J. Cole, ‘An Unseen Paleographical Problem with Milne and Skeat’s Dictation Theory of Codex Sinaiticus’, JBL 135 (2016), pp. 103–7) has demonstrated that what Skeat regarded as ‘positive proof of dictation’ (the nonsense sequence of characters in 1 Macc. 5:20) was in fact based on a mistaken reading by Milne and Skeat. Barring some new and compelling evidence that Sinaiticus was copied by dictation, the argument about the orthography of numbers can carry no weight at all in the question of the date of the copying of the codex."

cjab [This argument is overdone. If in fact the older numbering system using numerals with curls was obsolete at the date of transcription, there was no reason for it to be retained. Roberts ('Greek Literary Hands') notes that over the course of the fourth century, one system of representing multiples of 1,000 with a curl (A ͗ ) was replaced by a new system using a stroke (/A). Roberts concluded that ‘as the codex was written to dictation and as it is certain that in some places in the exemplar the numerals were written out in full, the use of the old system is evidence of fourth-century date’. In fact it is evidence of a 4th century date in any event.]

Somehow cjab missed the solid answer by Nongbri that the 1 Maccabees exemplar proves no such thing.

In fact, the lack of the curl numbering is an argument for a late Sinaiticus.

 

[Steven Avery]

Metzger - 1976
https://books.google.com/books?id=Ltg3AAAAIAAJ&pg=PA304
2014
https://books.google.com/books?id=U-Z5DwAAQBAJ&pg=PA304

Coptic Scheide codex?

 

[Steven Avery]

P.2 (5) find relationships

Chart p.22

P.4 number chart

Zachary Cole

P.44 chart

Numerals in Early Greek New Testament Manuscripts

I declare that this thesis has been composed solely by myself and that it has not been submitted, in whole or in part, in any previous application for a degree. Except where states otherwise by reference or acknowledgment, the work presented is

www.academia.edu

P.59 lomghand shorthand p47

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Old form not in NT - Kirk

P. 103 - sinaiticus

104 - chart

108

109

112 - vchart

113

118 - end

 

[Steven Avery]

Jongkind

first, third and fourth letter and interpret this stroke, which normally would indicate a numeral, as reflecting the confusion of the scribe. They do not explain, however, why the scribe would be confused by the exclamation of the reader. The reading as it stands, with the crossbars, is a clear nonsense reading, but it is not necessarily a reflection of how a reader tried to correct himself and confused a scribe in the process. Moreover, the numeral used for three thousand, occurs, as far as I can tell, only a couple of times in 1 Maccabees, and never outside this book, which suggests that in this instance we have an argument for a visual link between Sinaiticus and the exemplar.

 

[Steven Avery]

Skeat - look at text
Robert’s

Cole - no NT
Royce
Nongbri

Groups - any shorthand of nre types

 

[Steven Avery]

They concluded that this transition occurred between 338–360 CE. The presence of both methods in Sinaiticus seemed to confirm that the codex was created in this period of transition; Skeat later softened on this stance somewhat.16
This discussion is only of limited relevance for our study, however, as there are only a handful of
numerical abbreviations for values in the thousands in NT manuscripts, and none in
Sinaiticus (those observed by Milne and Skeat were in 1 Maccabees)


The NT long forms exist, but are not thousands.

 

[Steven Avery]

Milne and Skeat - p. 62 and 64

 

[Steven Avery]

 

[Steven Avery]

 

[Steven Avery]

 

[Steven Avery]

CARM
https://forums.carm.org/threads/codex-sinaiticus-the-facts.12990/page-60#post-1255493

Here is one of the numeral verses, from the Kirsopp Lake #47.

The twenty thousand is spelled out.
The two thousand has the abbreviation, looks to be both old and new!

1 Maccabees 9:4 (AV)
From whence they removed, and went to Berea,
with twenty thousand footmen and two thousand horsemen.

1 Maccabees, 8:32 - 9:29 library: BL folio: 25 scribe: A
https://www.codexsinaiticus.org/en/...lioNo=3&lid=en&quireNo=40&side=v&zoomSlider=0


1 Maccabees 9:4 has two or three thousands.
https://www.codexsinaiticus.org/en/...lioNo=3&lid=en&quireNo=40&side=v&zoomSlider=0

 

[Steven Avery]

1 Maccabees 9:49 (AV)
So there were slain of Bacchides' side that day about a thousand men.

1 Maccabees, 9:29 - 9:56 library: BL folio: 25b scribe: A
https://www.codexsinaiticus.org/en/...lioNo=4&lid=en&quireNo=40&side=r&zoomSlider=0

There is a Ca corrector and some folks say 3,000, the G is a 3.

First they spelled out the word one, (maybe they inferred the thousand from the plural man) then they changed it to the scribbley correction to make it actually 1,000.

Folio 40 f4v column 3 very last letter I Mac 9.49

Maybe an A with the old system hook, maybe the new system as well, the A is difficult.

 

[Steven Avery]

This is ONLY theorized numerals in the exemplar.

Numbers in the text, and correction at the bottom of the page.

1 Maccabees, 5:18 - 5:40 library: BL folio: 21 scribe: A
https://www.codexsinaiticus.org/en/...chapter=5&lid=en&side=r&verse=27&zoomSlider=0

3008 corrected to 8,000

1 Maccabees 5:34
Then the host of Timotheus, knowing that it was Maccabeus, fled from him:
wherefore he smote them with a great slaughter;
so that there were killed of them that day about eight thousand men.

 

[Steven Avery]

1 Maccabees 5:20

1 Maccabees 5:34

1 Maccabees 9:4 - Kirsopp Lake #47
https://forums.carm.org/threads/codex-sinaiticus-the-facts.12990/page-60#post-1255493
The twenty thousand is spelled out.
The two thousand has the abbreviation, looks to be both old and new!

1 Maccabees 9:49
Ca corrector and some folks say 3,000, the G is a 3. First they spelled out the word one, (maybe they inferred the thousand from the plural man) then they changed it to the scribbley correction to make it actually 1,000.

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O.T. 43 Col 1 - likely 1 Maccabees 5:34
O.T. 47 Col 1 - (two) on 1 Maccabees 9:4

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