Steven Avery
Administrator
The trick of Tischendorf of having the two sections, Leipzig 1844 and St. Petersburg 1859, separate made any normal manuscript palaeography attempts very difficult. Plus, Russian access was especially difficult for European scholars (pointed out by Morozov). As well as the hindrance of the Russian manuscript being locked in a safe in St. Petersburg for most of the 1860s, the era when there was an element of true palaeographic debate!
Tischendorf took the position that his $$$ facsimile 4-volume book, which hid the actual condition of parchment and ink, and also hid the true differences between the two sections, should be used for any discussion. Curiously, he managed to get major support from the generally respected Frederick Henry Ambrose Scrivener, even when Scrivener had not seen or handled even one page of either section of the manuscript! Vert crafty.
The lack of even true pictures of the manuscript continued until the superb 2009 Codex Sinaiticus Project online unification of the manuscript. Even in 2011 the $$$ Hendrickson printed edition deliberately smoothed out the true colour variance between the manuscript sections. However, the online CSP had let the colouring and tampering cat out of the bag! Anyone could see how the bulk of the manuscript was actually made “yellow with age”, as described by Scrivener.
Thus nobody in the 1860s was able to check out the rather amazing evidence in support of the manuscript tampering claim brought public from Sinai by Simonides! A simple comparison of one leaf from Leipzig with one from St. Petersburg would have likely ended the controversy in favor of Simonides. At the very least it would put a screeching halt to Tischendorf’s rush to 4th-century judgement.
Tischendorf also offered a number of weak supports for his 4th century Sinaiticus claim, which were easily countered. There were also specific arguments made against the c. 1840 Athos-Simonides production claim, such as the unusual vorlage of Tobit and Judith.
Tischendorf also had a major supporters in Westcott and Hort, who were working on their new textual recension and used the 1860s to include Sinaiticus as a major pillar of their theories.
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In the 1860s there were astute comments made by many, including:
Porfiry Uspensky (emphasis on his 1865 letter to Tischendorf)
Adolph Hilgenfeld
Benjamin Harris Cowper
Causidicicus in Parthenon
Die Grenzboten (1863 analysis of Causidicus)
The Literary.Churchman
Constantine Simonides
Sinai reports from Kallinikos
John Eliot Hodgkin
James Donaldson (1860s and 1870s)
=============
The first independent direct description of the physical condition comes about 50 years later by the Russian scientist:
Nikolai Alexandrovich Morozov (1854-1946). He also discussed how crafty Tischendorf had been to make manuscript access so difficult.
The main purpose of this thread is to note the 1860s back-and-forth
Tischendorf took the position that his $$$ facsimile 4-volume book, which hid the actual condition of parchment and ink, and also hid the true differences between the two sections, should be used for any discussion. Curiously, he managed to get major support from the generally respected Frederick Henry Ambrose Scrivener, even when Scrivener had not seen or handled even one page of either section of the manuscript! Vert crafty.
The lack of even true pictures of the manuscript continued until the superb 2009 Codex Sinaiticus Project online unification of the manuscript. Even in 2011 the $$$ Hendrickson printed edition deliberately smoothed out the true colour variance between the manuscript sections. However, the online CSP had let the colouring and tampering cat out of the bag! Anyone could see how the bulk of the manuscript was actually made “yellow with age”, as described by Scrivener.
Thus nobody in the 1860s was able to check out the rather amazing evidence in support of the manuscript tampering claim brought public from Sinai by Simonides! A simple comparison of one leaf from Leipzig with one from St. Petersburg would have likely ended the controversy in favor of Simonides. At the very least it would put a screeching halt to Tischendorf’s rush to 4th-century judgement.
Tischendorf also offered a number of weak supports for his 4th century Sinaiticus claim, which were easily countered. There were also specific arguments made against the c. 1840 Athos-Simonides production claim, such as the unusual vorlage of Tobit and Judith.
Tischendorf also had a major supporters in Westcott and Hort, who were working on their new textual recension and used the 1860s to include Sinaiticus as a major pillar of their theories.
=============
In the 1860s there were astute comments made by many, including:
Porfiry Uspensky (emphasis on his 1865 letter to Tischendorf)
Adolph Hilgenfeld
Benjamin Harris Cowper
Causidicicus in Parthenon
Die Grenzboten (1863 analysis of Causidicus)
The Literary.Churchman
Constantine Simonides
Sinai reports from Kallinikos
John Eliot Hodgkin
James Donaldson (1860s and 1870s)
=============
The first independent direct description of the physical condition comes about 50 years later by the Russian scientist:
Nikolai Alexandrovich Morozov (1854-1946). He also discussed how crafty Tischendorf had been to make manuscript access so difficult.
The main purpose of this thread is to note the 1860s back-and-forth