Steven Avery
Administrator
This is an explanation and call to action to those involved in manuscript conservation.
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Today, I would like to share some questions about a famous manuscript, one where the superb digitization project of 2009 (the year it was placed online), the Codex Sinaiticus Project, helped reveal some amazing elements.
First, allow me to explain that the Codex Sinaiticus has a:
The digitization revealed the fact that the two sections of the manuscript were different, in ways that are major anomalies.
1844 - 43 leaves - Leipzig - Codex Friderico-Augustanus - pristine white parchment - all leaves the same colour
1859 - 347 leaves - St. Petersburg-->England- - "yellow with age" - unusual colour variance in the leaves
A gentleman named David R. Smith has been studying Codex Fuldensis (it might be a couple of hundreds years later than commonly accepted) and made a salient comment:
Here is manuscript science 101, parchment manuscripts yellow with age and use:
This white parchment anomaly alone should ring loud alarm bells, and should cause a full reappraisal of the dating of Sinaiticus. Then you add the flexible and supple condition, and then you add the colouring discussed below.
Note that there had been tests planned on these Leipzig pages for April 2015. Testings by BAM, Bundesanstalt f?r Materialforschung und -pr?fung in Berlin, a group which studied the Dead Sea Scrolls. Leipzig cancelled those plans. Leipzig does not want to discuss anything at all about the manuscript condition and history of conservation. (The British Library, to their credit, has engaged in open discussion, with various theories and conjectures about the unusual elements of the manuscript. Although for them the possibility of non-antiquity is an elephant in the living room that simply can not be there and can not be discussed
.)
So where does this leave us today?
Here you can see the wonderful condition of Sinaiticus. Flexible, supple, not at all brittles.
The Codex Sinaiticus: The Oldest Surviving Christian New Testament - The Beauty of Books - BBC Four
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U4Xkv2gjzZw
Sinaiticus in some cases used as the exemplar for parchment and ink longevity. If Sinaiticus is actually a modern production, the discipline and integrity of parchment conservation science is compromised. Thus, even if textual critics, a somewhat cloistered group with their own peculiar areas of emphasis, are not particularly concerned, the professionals in manuscript conservation and the sciences of the chemical processes are the ones who I believe should have the greatest concern.
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Another major point. I have barely referenced the compelling evidence that the British pages taken from Sinai in 1859 were coloured by hand, perhaps using lemon-juice, matching the 1860s accusation. That was actually the first point that glared out at us as researchers. Why was there such a marked difference between Leipzig and the British Library pages? If you look at the:
Codex Sinaiticus Authenticity Research
http://www.sinaiticus.net/
Sinaiticus - authentic antiquity or modern?
http://purebibleforum.com/forumdisplay.php?f=65
you can learn a lot about the rather obvious colouring.
=========
One of the difficulties here is that the evidences are so simple, clear and compelling.
This is difficult for those in the scholarly and academic realms!
All feedback from the manuscript experts welcome!
Thanks!
===============================
Today, I would like to share some questions about a famous manuscript, one where the superb digitization project of 2009 (the year it was placed online), the Codex Sinaiticus Project, helped reveal some amazing elements.
First, allow me to explain that the Codex Sinaiticus has a:
highly problematical provenance with no substance before the 1840s
allegations in the 1860s that it was a modern manuscript,
allegations in the 1860s that there had been colouring of the ms in the 1850s to make it look older
creative and suspicious fabrications surround its discovery and procurement.
And Sinaiticus has an unusual palaeographic dating history. The 4th-century date was pushed very aggressively, with minimal science, by its "discoverer" Constantine Tischendorf. This dating was quickly "set in stone" in textual circles by 1870-1880 despite various objections, minor and major. The palaeographic dating was based almost entirely on the pictures and descriptions in facsimile book editions, editions by Tischendorf that omitted salient facts about the manuscript's condition. It also included lots of theorizing on soft evidences, the script (a standard easy-to-emulate script) and the textual components. Hardly anybody was actually viewing and handling the manuscript. This situation is still true today, except that the Codex Sinaiticus Project allowed for viewing the ms. online and included solid numerical representations about items like colour and thickness and numerous other features. allegations in the 1860s that it was a modern manuscript,
allegations in the 1860s that there had been colouring of the ms in the 1850s to make it look older
creative and suspicious fabrications surround its discovery and procurement.
The digitization revealed the fact that the two sections of the manuscript were different, in ways that are major anomalies.
1844 - 43 leaves - Leipzig - Codex Friderico-Augustanus - pristine white parchment - all leaves the same colour
1859 - 347 leaves - St. Petersburg-->England- - "yellow with age" - unusual colour variance in the leaves
A gentleman named David R. Smith has been studying Codex Fuldensis (it might be a couple of hundreds years later than commonly accepted) and made a salient comment:
Palaeography is a non-symmetrical discipline, in terms of time chronology. Some professional palaeographers, especially Brent Nongbri, have been making this point on the common early papyri dating, that the range of years is often far too restrictive (in that case the issue is usually a couple of hundred years of range.) And all the researchers involved in identifying forgeries and replicas are very aware of this basic fact. However, in Bible textual manuscript dating, it is often left out of view."I do not trust palaeography to prove an old date, but I do trust it to disprove such a date.
It is easy to imitate what is antique, but impossible to predict what will be novel."
Here is manuscript science 101, parchment manuscripts yellow with age and use:
Now we get to a key point. Leipzig is white parchment, it "forgot" to yellow. Overturning the known chemical processes. This was hidden from view publicly until after 2009, it was never mentioned in the Sinaiticus literature. (Porfiry Uspensky references this about the 1845 full manuscript before it was separated to two major sections, and Ernst von Dobsch?tz mentioned the Leipzig section as snow-white parchment in one publication in 1910.) This was never mentioned in the context of all the literature about palaeographic dating, from Tischendorf to Lake to Skeat & Milne to Parker and others today.Gavin Moorhead:
The colour of parchment varies with animal type, making process and condition or state of decline. New parchment can be near white but as it ages or is exposed to detrimental factors it will start to yellow and go brown-black if left to degrade completely. The colour change can also be influenced by the type of degradation and degree of gelatinization
This white parchment anomaly alone should ring loud alarm bells, and should cause a full reappraisal of the dating of Sinaiticus. Then you add the flexible and supple condition, and then you add the colouring discussed below.
Note that there had been tests planned on these Leipzig pages for April 2015. Testings by BAM, Bundesanstalt f?r Materialforschung und -pr?fung in Berlin, a group which studied the Dead Sea Scrolls. Leipzig cancelled those plans. Leipzig does not want to discuss anything at all about the manuscript condition and history of conservation. (The British Library, to their credit, has engaged in open discussion, with various theories and conjectures about the unusual elements of the manuscript. Although for them the possibility of non-antiquity is an elephant in the living room that simply can not be there and can not be discussed
So where does this leave us today?
Here you can see the wonderful condition of Sinaiticus. Flexible, supple, not at all brittles.
The Codex Sinaiticus: The Oldest Surviving Christian New Testament - The Beauty of Books - BBC Four
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U4Xkv2gjzZw
Sinaiticus in some cases used as the exemplar for parchment and ink longevity. If Sinaiticus is actually a modern production, the discipline and integrity of parchment conservation science is compromised. Thus, even if textual critics, a somewhat cloistered group with their own peculiar areas of emphasis, are not particularly concerned, the professionals in manuscript conservation and the sciences of the chemical processes are the ones who I believe should have the greatest concern.
=========
Another major point. I have barely referenced the compelling evidence that the British pages taken from Sinai in 1859 were coloured by hand, perhaps using lemon-juice, matching the 1860s accusation. That was actually the first point that glared out at us as researchers. Why was there such a marked difference between Leipzig and the British Library pages? If you look at the:
Codex Sinaiticus Authenticity Research
http://www.sinaiticus.net/
Sinaiticus - authentic antiquity or modern?
http://purebibleforum.com/forumdisplay.php?f=65
you can learn a lot about the rather obvious colouring.
=========
One of the difficulties here is that the evidences are so simple, clear and compelling.
This is difficult for those in the scholarly and academic realms!
All feedback from the manuscript experts welcome!
Thanks!