Sinaticus problematicus

[Scott Pitta]

Dr. James White has a MA from Fuller, which is commendable. His other grad school degrees are not from accredited universities.

The other guy is a radio personality.

I really don't have an hour for that.

How about a debate from 2 actual scholars whose focus is textual criticism or papyrology ?? There are plenty around.

Assessing ancient manuscripts is best left to the real experts.

[Steven Avery]

Originally Posted by Esaias

The genetic fallacy

Thank you for the explanation to der Alte.

Originally Posted by Scott Pitta

I discount testimony of comic book publishers when they are discussing topics that are beyond their training or expertise. Textual criticism, especially papyrology, is rather technical and is best left to the real experts. Any fool can produce a video. The scholars have examined the evidence. I leave it in their hands.

You clearly do not know the issues involved. Come back when you come up to speed. Or interact with the issues to try to understand. I would be happy to help fill in the gaps.

Thanks!

Oh, do you leave the question of evolution and creation to the hands of the supposed consensus of so-called scholars?

Originally Posted by Evang.Benincasa

Alberto Rivera was teaching how the Latin language was the language of Satan.

David W. Daniels has been involved with studies in Greek and Latin, has good skills, and I have never heard anything remotely along this line. Recently he was going through the 1846 book of Tischendorf on the Codex Frederico-Augustanus, written in Latin.

Generally he is way ahead of the textual criticism scholars in understanding the Sinaiticus issues.

My view is that the pure Reformation Bible (from the Received Text scholarship) worked with scriptural preservation in both the Greek and Latin lines, in effect a providential synthesis was involved. And this led to the excellent Geneva and the majestic and pure Authorized Version, and superb Bibles in languages all over the world.

Originally Posted by votivesoul

Sophomoric attempts at expertise get us nowhere.

Do you actually know anything at all about the Sinaiticus authenticity issues?

Originally Posted by Esaias

Does anyone have information refuting the documentation in this thread, or in the links that were provided?

Good question.
Yes, the docuentation is 100% accurate.

There are areas where David is expressing sensible reconstructions that fit the evidence, but every detail can not be demonstrated as historically proven.

And I would recommend the:

Codex Sinaiticus Authenticity Research
http://www.sinaiticus.net/

site as a starting point. And I have placed a bit of material at:

Sinaiticus - authentic antiquity or modern?
http://www.purebibleforum.com/forumd...uity-or-modern

There are two forums on Facebook that are especially helpful in iron sharpeneth discussion. One is called Sinaiticus, the other PureBible.

Originally Posted by Scott Pitta

codexsinaiticus.org would be a great place to start.

Yes, this is the Codex Sinaiticus Project. It was their superb photography that opened up the exposure that the 1859 sheets that were taken to St. Petersburg had been artificially coloured. Matching the precise public accusation that had been made in 1862-1864, with the colouring having taken place in the 1850s.

Today we can see the BEFORE and AFTER, as the section in Germany was extracted in 1844, before the colouring. Rarely do you ever get such an amazing, visible evidence of manuscript tampering or forgery.

Originally Posted by Evang.Benincasa

The Codex is so plagued with scribal errors that quite a few younger manuscripts are more accurate. It doesn't mean that Tishchendof fabricated the Codex.

True, but that is really a separate issue than the question of authenticity.

Originally Posted by Evang.Benincasa

https://archive.org/details/whenwereourgospe00tisc Here is Tischendorf's story in English.

Yep. It is a helpful piece of the puzzle to get up to speed with his thefts and mangling of manuscripts, and his self-serving lies that he used to cover the thefts.

Originally Posted by Scott Pitta

Scribal errors ? Every Greek manuscript of the NT has scribal errors. How many is too many ? This manuscript had editors or correctors. Others did not.

Burgon wrote well about the degree of scribal corruption in the NT. However, it is a separate issue than authenticity.

Originally Posted by Evang.Benincasa

It is like this, I myself don't believe the Sinaiticus is a forgery,...I mean, this is just a LXX codex.

The "LXX" part of Sinaiticus is relatively unimportant. This is because one of its major sources was an edition of the OT largely based on Alexandrinus that had been published in 1821.

However, the NT is very important, and that is not "LXX".

If you actually studied the evidences, I believe you would understand that it is not an authentic antiquity manuscript. However, it may have been designed more as a replica than a forgery.

Originally Posted by Evang.Benincasa

https://books.google.com/books?id=u6gQAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA139

This article by Rendel Harris is quite interesting. He was one of the few who discussed the Uspenky aspect.

Originally Posted by Evang.Benincasa

If anyone has a hour to kill?

Chris Pinto did pioneer this issue in the USA in the last decade. However, at the time of the debate, the evidences were far less clear than they are today. The colouring of the manuscript, the 1843 Barnabas, the Uspensky translation, the Claromontanus homoeoteleutons, the Zosimas OT edition, and much more has been discovered.

You can see a picture of Chris, David, myself, and a few others involved in these studies on the banner of the Facebook Sinaiticus group. The pic was taken in Saskatoon last year.

Originally Posted by Scott Pitta

How about a debate from 2 actual scholars whose focus is textual criticism or papyrology ??

Why?
Neither of these fields has much to do with Sinaiticus authenticity.

[votivesoul]

Originally Posted by votivesoul

Sophomoric attempts at expertise get us nowhere.

Do you actually know anything at all about the Sinaiticus authenticity issues?

Yes. And I also know that arguing circumstantial evidence never leads to a verdict, let alone an indictment. The proof of the issue is going to be found in the codex itself, not in the circumstances surrounding its discovery and whether someone was being fully honest or not.

That being the case, people who haven't handled the actual codex, or even been in the same room with it, who can't read Koine Greek, who aren't properly vetted textual critics, who have no training in paleography, regardless of how well they seem to understand the surrounding circumstances, are not qualified to make credible judgments about its authenticity. It's amateurish and not worth considering.

It's why we pay attention, for example, to actual archaeologists like Dr. Eliat Mazar, and not to people like Ron Wyatt. There's nothing different here.

[Scott Pitta]

Agreed.

[rdp]

Originally Posted by votivesoul

That being the case, people who haven't handled the actual codex, or even been in the same room with it, who can't read Koine Greek, who aren't properly vetted textual critics, who have no training in paleography, regardless of how well they seem to understand the surrounding circumstances, are not qualified to make credible judgments about its authenticity. It's amateurish and not worth considering.

It's why we pay attention, for example, to actual archaeologists like Dr. Eliat Mazar, and not to people like Ron Wyatt. There's nothing different here.

*Exactly! Think I'll stick w. the men who actually handle the ancient papyri.

*For the life of me I cannot believe there are serious-thinking people out there who advocate for KJVO. It is an absurd position to take. I & the church I pastor do not even take such claims seriously. In fact, we were joking about it tonight after church .

[Steven Avery]

Originally Posted by votivesoul

The proof of the issue is going to be found in the codex itself

While testing of the materials would be very helpful, none has ever been done.

Leipzig planned testing in 2015, to be done by Dr. Ira Rabin and the group (Bundesanstalt für Materialforschung und -prüfung, Berlin).

Those tests were canceled.

Originally Posted by votivesoul

not in the circumstances surrounding its discovery and whether someone was being fully honest or not.

Provenance issues are one of the most significant aspects of any study of authenticity. And is a fundamental part of palaeography.

Originally Posted by votivesoul

who aren't properly vetted textual critics

Textual criticism is largely a circular discipline which starts with the presumption that we do not have the pure word of God. And most textual criticism arguments for the authenticity of Sinaiticus are very weak.

On the other hand, if textual scholars examined the 1800s edition that Simonides said was used in the Sinaiticus OT (like they examined the Buttmann 1861 Vaticanus edition that was used in making the formerly "Category 1" Archaic Mark (ms. 2427), they would likely determine that Sinaiticus was produced in the 1800s. However, afawk not one has ever examined the edition.

Originally Posted by votivesoul

who can't read Koine Greek,

Both David W. Daniels and Rohan Meyer are solid in Koine Greek. Rohan showed the Claromontanus source to Sinaiticus target homoeoteleutons and now he is studying another fascinating connection.

Originally Posted by votivesoul

who have no training in paleography,

The palaeography of Sinaiticus was established by Tischendorf, who clearly was not an objective party. Very few independent observers have ever even compared the sections in Leipzig to the sections in St. Petersburg. This changed with the Codex Sinaiticus Project of 2009.

Originally Posted by votivesoul

It's why we pay attention, for example, to actual archaeologists like Dr. Eliat Mazar, and not to people like Ron Wyatt.

"I work with the Bible in one hand and the tools of excavation in the other" - Dr. Eilat Mazar

This leads to a lot of criticism from the other archaeologists, and is consistent with the Ron Wyatt approach.

Do you accept the approach of the minimalists like Israel Finkelstein, because he is an actual archaeologist?

And do you have some comments of interest by Eliat Mazar on Sodom and Gomorrah, the Exodus site, Noah's Ark and other spots that were an emphasis of Ron Wyatt?

Steven

[Steven Avery]

Originally Posted by rdp

*For the life of me I cannot believe there are serious-thinking people out there who advocate for KJVO. It is an absurd position to take.

We disagree. However, on this question of Sinaiticus authenticity, it is just the genetic fallacy once again.

The issue is the massive evidence that shows that Sinaiticus was an 1800s creation, starting with the amazing BEFORE and AFTER colouring that any layman can see and understand.

For those enmeshed in the false religion of textual criticism, it might be a bit more difficult to see and understand. However, really there is no reason why they should struggle.

Steven

[Evang.Benincasa]

Originally Posted by Steven Avery

We disagree. However, on this question of Sinaiticus authenticity, it is just the genetic fallacy once again.

The issue is the massive evidence that shows that Sinaiticus was an 1800s creation, starting with the amazing BEFORE and AFTER colouring that any layman can see and understand.

For those enmeshed in the false religion of textual criticism, it might be a bit more difficult to see and understand. However, really there is no reason why they should struggle.

Steven

Wait a minute, do you see what you just did? You just set it up that if anyone disagrees with you on this subject they are enmeshed in false religion?

How is that scholarly?

[Steven Avery]

Originally Posted by Evang.Benincasa

Wait a minute, do you see what you just did? You just set it up that if anyone disagrees with you on this subject they are enmeshed in false religion? How is that scholarly?

No, I simply said that it is especially difficult for the textual criticism religionists to simply consider the evidences. That is a fact that I have observed, and is one of the reasons I often publish the forum conversations.

One scholar wrote that the difficulty of the modern scholars would be that they have "deeply entrenched scholarship."

Individually, however, each case is distinct. Some textual criticism people might really consider the evidences. Some Reformation Bible defenders might be skeptical of there being an authenticity issue.

Until I knew the evidences, which really came a few years after the 2009 CSP, I defended Sinaiticus authenticity, listing a few points that I thought were strong. I was being faithful to what I knew and understood at the time.

Steven

[Esaias]

Originally Posted by Scott Pitta

Assessing ancient manuscripts is best left to the real experts.

Transl.: "Let the others tell us what to think. No need to get uppity and think YOU might need to examine the claims put before you."