Alexandrinus quotes from Simonides

Steven Avery

Administrator
"I for my part carefully considered the questions connected with the best possible performance of the penmanship. And the learned Benedict taking in his hands a copy of the Moscow edition of the Old and New Testament (published at the expense of the illustrious brothers Zosimas, and by them presented to the Greeks), collated it, with my assistance, with three only of the ancient copies, which he had long before annotated and corrected for another purpose and cleared their text by this collation from remarkable clerical errors, and again collated them with the edition of the Codex Alexandrinus, printed with uncial letters, and still further with another very old Syriac Codex; and gave me, in the first instance, Genesis to copy." - p. 56

Codex Sinaiticus and the Simonides Affair (1982)
James Keith Elliott

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A Full Collation of the Codex Sinaiticus with the Received Text of the New Testament (1864)
F. H. A. Scrivener

This Moscow Bible, after having been collated with three ancient manuscripts and the printed edition of the Codex Alexandrinus, so as to be cleared from many errors (the old spelling however remaining unaltered), was given to Simonides to transcribe.
https://books.google.com/books?id=AuBUAAAAcAAJ&pg=RA1-PP6 - p. lxiv

IV. Benedict had before him the Codex Alexandrinus, and right glad we are to be told that so ripe a work of western scholarship has penetrated the recesses of the Greek monasteries. (continues with objections) - p. lxix
https://books.google.com/books?id=v-JUmBD5zIcC&pg=RA2-PP11

II. Again, Simonides transcribed from a Moscow Bible, whose text Benedict had altered by means of his three manuscripts and the printed Cod. Alexandrinus. - p. 2
https://books.google.com/books?id=AuBUAAAAcAAJ&pg=RA1-PA2

Note that I have a special page about the Scrivener arguments.

Scrivener defense of Codex Sinaiticus authenticity
https://purebibleforum.com/index.php?threads/scrivener-defense-of-codex-sinaiticus-authenticity.160/

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Chris Pinto did a great job discussing this even back in 2013 (when I was just learning).

Chris Pinto
https://shop.worldviewweekend.com/n...cus-asking-questions-does-not-make-conspiracy

In a letter written to his friend, Charles Stewart in 1860, Simonides described the manuscripts that were chosen by Benedict as the textual basis for the codex:

“… the learned Benedict taking in his hands a copy of the Moscow edition of the Old and New Testament … collated it … with three only of the ancient copies, which he had long before annotated and corrected for another purpose and cleared their text by this collation from remarkable clerical errors, and again collated them with the edition of the Codex Alexandrinus, printed with uncial letters, and still further with another very old Syriac Codex …” (Letter of C. Simonides to Mr. Charles Stewart, as published in the Guardian, August 26, 1863, see Elliott, pp. 54-56*)

So, according to Simonides’ own testimony, Alexandrinus was one of the manuscripts used for the foundation of the text; hence, this could explain why Codex Sinaiticus is said to be comparable to Alexandrinus in the Old Testament and Pauline epistles. Furthermore, based on the description of how Benedict used Alexandrinus alongside the Moscow Bible, and then employed three unnamed “ancient copies,” which he himself had “annotated and corrected” the result would be a very unique series of readings, unlike any other manuscript -- which is exactly what is found in the Codex Sinaiticus. It is further possible that the three unnamed manuscripts were also of Alexandrian character, yet on this point we can only speculate. ALEXANDRIAN TEXT-TYPE? The theory that certain manuscripts come from an “Alexandrian” family was well established by the late 18th century, more than half a century before Codex Sinaiticus was fully discovered in 1859. Hence, the argument that the Alexandrian grouping somehow depends on Sinaiticus is untenable.

More planned from the 1859 Stewart biography, which mentions Alexandrinus.
p. 29
1666009412878.png

Interesting on scripts
p. 52
1666009638550.png

p. 67
Catalogue of Athos

Perhaps a couple of additional quotes from the literary journals.
 
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