Steven Avery
Administrator
The professionals who work with manuscript science, the science of parchment conservation (e.g. IDAP) apparently accept the palaeographic dates that can be assigned and then verified by "textual criticism" or "politicized" palaeography ... without any recourse to the actual manuscript.
(In the papyri realm, the related issue of "theological palaeography" assigning dubious dates has been a recent controversy, however that only occasionally touched on the authenticity issue. It is in the authenticity realm that actual handling of the ms becomes extremely important, less so on the issue of whether a papyrus dated 250 AD might actually be 450. The concept of the non-symmetery of time chronology in palaeography does apply though in both cases, future scripts wll not be possible.)
In some cases this is not too much of a problem, there are no provenance issues, and the manuscript fits its mode well (e.g. a later medieval purple manuscript with a script matching). And in many cases, of course, the manuscript itself has been easily available in the libraries of Europe.
Sinaiticus in England looks old, in a sense, because it is "yellow with age" .. or "yellow with lemon-juice". The issues in England, the CSP, Codex Sinaiticus Petropolitanus section, are the amazing flexible, supple condition, that does not match manuscript science. And also the wide variance in colour and the stain factor. The CFA in Leipzig is simply white, which is an insoluble problem for manuscript theory. So call it "exceptional" and move on.
Sinaiticus, especially the CFA in Leipzig, apparently requires large hoops to see, which is puzzling since the manuscript is in excellent conservation. That can be seen in the British Library video, and based on the comment of the image specialist who worked on the CFA for the Codex Sinaiticus Project, Leipzig is the same. You would think that they would leave a leaf on display in a temperature-controlled case, my conjecture is that they want as little embarrassment as possible and only occasionally have an exhibit.
Now, when asked questions about the historic conservation, Leipzig arrogantly says "go to the CSP". Which says nothing. Thus the British Library people will talk of a Leipzig "cleaning" as one possibility for explaining the white parchment, and then backtrack and say maybe that was just surface dust taken off. Leipzig is mum .. they will say .. nothing. Leipzig planned real scientific studies, and then they were cancelled.
Sinaiticus is is "good conservation" .. it should have been questioned early and often and access sought (not just Morozov in St. Petersburg).
What we have had instead is a "perfect storm" of illusion. Starting from when Tischendorf utilized the facsimile for misdirection. Everybody thinks the other guy verified the manuscript satisfactorily. Few, or none, before 2009, even saw and handled the two parts of the manuscript. (We don't know of any from 1860 to 2009 other than Tischendorf and Lake who even saw the two parts, and they had vested interests. Skeat and Milne in England made the telling comment that Alexandrinus was "limp, dead" compared to Sinaiticus, and dropped the issue. It is possible they traveled to Germany, but offhand I do not remember such an action.)
Ironically, in his Memoir, Simonides used the superb conservation of Sinaiticus to argue that forgeries that he created could be thousands of years old even though the parchment or papyrus was in great shape. And how did he know the Sinaiticus parchment was in such superb shape in 1859? ....
.... the answer is obvious ... the same reason that Tischendorf was concerned about the Sinaiticus "stories" when he was going to heist the manuscript. Personal involvement. Crafty fellow, that Simonides, he would use one dubious piece to support another.
Ironies abound.
=====================
Lots of people get hurt by this charade. A lot of times the emphasis is on the false textual theories of Hort that needed Sinaiticus to try to fly.
A simpler area that gets hurt are the professionals in parchment conservation and related fields. They now have to modify all their chemistry and science to allow that parchment does not really have to yellow, even with 1650 years of largely heavy use. Take really good parchment, like Sinaiticus, and it can stay "snow-white". This would be a hard position to take, so they are silent, while willfully deceived. Remember, though, that the IDAP people were called in to help with the study of what animal was involved. Were they concerned with the anomalies (they probably only saw England)? If so, not publicly.
Generally, they try to ignore this, but it is a type of scholastic blot on their profession and integrity. At the very least, they would want to study closely the ultra-"exceptional". And write a paper about what made Sinaiticus so "exceptional". However, so far, mums the word. The scientists and conservationists play "pretend".
(In the papyri realm, the related issue of "theological palaeography" assigning dubious dates has been a recent controversy, however that only occasionally touched on the authenticity issue. It is in the authenticity realm that actual handling of the ms becomes extremely important, less so on the issue of whether a papyrus dated 250 AD might actually be 450. The concept of the non-symmetery of time chronology in palaeography does apply though in both cases, future scripts wll not be possible.)
In some cases this is not too much of a problem, there are no provenance issues, and the manuscript fits its mode well (e.g. a later medieval purple manuscript with a script matching). And in many cases, of course, the manuscript itself has been easily available in the libraries of Europe.
Sinaiticus in England looks old, in a sense, because it is "yellow with age" .. or "yellow with lemon-juice". The issues in England, the CSP, Codex Sinaiticus Petropolitanus section, are the amazing flexible, supple condition, that does not match manuscript science. And also the wide variance in colour and the stain factor. The CFA in Leipzig is simply white, which is an insoluble problem for manuscript theory. So call it "exceptional" and move on.
Sinaiticus, especially the CFA in Leipzig, apparently requires large hoops to see, which is puzzling since the manuscript is in excellent conservation. That can be seen in the British Library video, and based on the comment of the image specialist who worked on the CFA for the Codex Sinaiticus Project, Leipzig is the same. You would think that they would leave a leaf on display in a temperature-controlled case, my conjecture is that they want as little embarrassment as possible and only occasionally have an exhibit.
Now, when asked questions about the historic conservation, Leipzig arrogantly says "go to the CSP". Which says nothing. Thus the British Library people will talk of a Leipzig "cleaning" as one possibility for explaining the white parchment, and then backtrack and say maybe that was just surface dust taken off. Leipzig is mum .. they will say .. nothing. Leipzig planned real scientific studies, and then they were cancelled.
Sinaiticus is is "good conservation" .. it should have been questioned early and often and access sought (not just Morozov in St. Petersburg).
What we have had instead is a "perfect storm" of illusion. Starting from when Tischendorf utilized the facsimile for misdirection. Everybody thinks the other guy verified the manuscript satisfactorily. Few, or none, before 2009, even saw and handled the two parts of the manuscript. (We don't know of any from 1860 to 2009 other than Tischendorf and Lake who even saw the two parts, and they had vested interests. Skeat and Milne in England made the telling comment that Alexandrinus was "limp, dead" compared to Sinaiticus, and dropped the issue. It is possible they traveled to Germany, but offhand I do not remember such an action.)
Ironically, in his Memoir, Simonides used the superb conservation of Sinaiticus to argue that forgeries that he created could be thousands of years old even though the parchment or papyrus was in great shape. And how did he know the Sinaiticus parchment was in such superb shape in 1859? ....
.... the answer is obvious ... the same reason that Tischendorf was concerned about the Sinaiticus "stories" when he was going to heist the manuscript. Personal involvement. Crafty fellow, that Simonides, he would use one dubious piece to support another. Ironies abound.
=====================
Lots of people get hurt by this charade. A lot of times the emphasis is on the false textual theories of Hort that needed Sinaiticus to try to fly.
A simpler area that gets hurt are the professionals in parchment conservation and related fields. They now have to modify all their chemistry and science to allow that parchment does not really have to yellow, even with 1650 years of largely heavy use. Take really good parchment, like Sinaiticus, and it can stay "snow-white". This would be a hard position to take, so they are silent, while willfully deceived. Remember, though, that the IDAP people were called in to help with the study of what animal was involved. Were they concerned with the anomalies (they probably only saw England)? If so, not publicly.
Generally, they try to ignore this, but it is a type of scholastic blot on their profession and integrity. At the very least, they would want to study closely the ultra-"exceptional". And write a paper about what made Sinaiticus so "exceptional". However, so far, mums the word. The scientists and conservationists play "pretend".
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