more on New Finds thread
>
Perhaps the question I asked here ... what are those Sinaiticus<-->ancient papyri agreement variants? ... that do not show up anywhere else (or almost nowhere else) ... will be answered by James White. In my studies I remember an occasional variant where the papyri agreed with Sinaiticus contra Vaticanus, however not as an orphan reading. So that should be interesting.
In his first speaking, James White gave two verses, while sort of claiming thousands.
Here is one of the two that he specifically discussed:
Matthew 14:30 (AV)
But when he saw the wind boisterous, he was afraid;
and beginning to sink, he cried, saying, Lord, save me.
"boisterous" is omitted in the original text of Sinaiticus, then corrected. Also omitted in Vaticanus, a few Greek manuscripts, a minority of Vulgate manuscripts, and most all Coptic manuscripts.
Omissions are by nature hard to use to make a point of uniqueness, since they occur so easily. Especially in a manuscript that abounds in omissions. An interesting evidence, but far from the type of variant that James was claiming "anticipating papyri" (about 54:00).
Ironically, this ultra-minority reading omission, which is considered so oddball, you will now find in the ASV, RSV, NASV, NIV among the modern versions, while the NETBible and the NRSV have strong winds, and the NLT has high waves. Another example where the modern versionist simply does not know what the is the actual Bible text.
The other verse is:
John 1:18 (AV)
No man hath seen God at any time;
the only begotten Son,
which is in the bosom of the Father,
he hath declared him.
Which I will plan on getting back to on a subsequent post.
I'm listening to the debate. James White is clearly not informed on the Simonides history issues. So he is upset with general aspects of Tares Among the Wheat (the Jesuit emphasis) and its characterization of Tischendorf.
Anyway, so far it is interesting. One reasonable point from James White now has to do with the multiple initial scribes.
Many of his other points are fudgy. e.g. Right now James White is talking about collation of manuscripts being a major undertaking, however that is assuming that a formal collation was involved. It also ignores the fact that Sinaiticus is largley a blunderama manuscript, and much could have been done in a haphazard or poor scribe fashion (one theory is a training manuscript).
Two rounds done. Q&A now beginning.
Also Chris Pinto is mentioning that his uncle Benedict could have been involved in the prep work. That is the current discussion, about 1:08, and interesting back-and forth.
(I am using the real time of 6:00 as the starting point.)
Now (1:18) James is trying real hard to attack the Reformation Bible, using an anachronistic attack approach. (Did they understand the Alexandrian text type?). Here Chris is doing very well, my only criticism is that he in some cases he takes a bit too much "A"nswer time to a "Q"uestion.
Now the interesting Vitaliano Donati reference is the discussion, which we discussed earlier, there is a quote box in the OP.
Now the issue (1:22) is whether Chris Pinto should have included more of the critical quotes of Simonides, especially from Farrer and Elliott. These points are handled in Answer rather easily by Chris Pinto.
At 1:28 closing arguments begin, Chris Pinto first, saying that the possibility that Simonides wrote the manuscript is an "unsolved mystery" (from Farrer) of history.
James White says the Pericope Adultera is not found until the fifth century, a typically absurd position, the type of blunder we normally get from Ehrman in deceptive public presentations. White falls back on his animus towards the TR and AV to try to play to the contra audience.
More when you listen. Total time 1:40.
==============================
Originally Posted by Steven Avery
James White says the Pericope Adultera is not found until the fifth century, a typically absurd position, the type of blunder we normally get from Ehrman in deceptive public presentations.
Just first using LaParola, to which much could be added, earlier evidences include:
the Old Latin line (majority of extant mss corroborated by ECW refs)
the Vulgate line (based on Jerome working with early Latin and Greek mss)
ECW
Didascalia Ambrosiaster Faustus-Milevis Apostolic Constitutionsvid Pacian Ambrose Rufinus Jerome
And Didymus the Blind is a well-known addition.
When you get into the fifth century, many more ECW are added.
Augustine in the early 5th century even specifically discusses the reason why the Pericope was being omitted in some manuscripts in earlier centuries, a very powerful evidence of the story being scripture from apostolic days. See also the pointed Ambrose 4th-century comment. And Jerome specifically mentions Greek and Latin manuscripts with the verse, which is 4th century and the manuscripts would be earlier.
The early evidences for the Pericope are wide-ranging and strong (unlike many Hortian variants that James White supports, that have little beyond Vaticanus).
The blunder of James White in the debate was typical of Hortian deception attempts to misrepresent the support of the pure Bible texts.
And the James White agitprop book omits all mention of the supporting ECW evidences, in the typical Metzgerian-Wallacian word parsing deception style, and then James White adds:
"the passage is omitted by ... Latin versions",
King James Only Controversy (2009) p. 328
a truly Whitian blunder.
==============================
If any sensible, readable, iron sharpeneth posters want to give their positions against the Received Text and Reformation Bible, we can always go into that more.
Note that I emphasize the Pericope here, because afaik it was the only straight blunder by either side in the debate.
==============================
Luke 23:34 Then said Jesus, Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do.
And the Pericope was a major aspect of their discussion, towards the end, the highlight example, about how the Bible has been mangled through the 19th century Tischendorf-Hortian fiasco (Jesuit or not).
My memory: on verses Chris Pinto first mentioned Luke 23:34:
Luke 23:34
Then said Jesus, Father, forgive them;
for they know not what they do.
And they parted his raiment, and cast lots.
Understandably, James White did not want to discuss that well-known, powerful and majestic verse. Since the omission is clearly a Vaticanus-Hortian ultra-minority blunder. And White has acknowledged that the verse has:
"profound theological implications" - KJV Only Controversy p. 321
and has given a bunch of equivocal hybrid version nothing verbiage .. e.g. "a high amount of doubt" in the youtube video .. about the verse, put up by the islamists to show corruption in the Bible, taking advantage of White's confusions.
All this is highlighted by Will Kinney here:
James White on Luke 23:34-Jesus Didn’t Forgive Them
<Edit per Mod>
Also, since the original Sinaiticus text has the verse, it was contra his basic theory that the original text of Sinaiticus agrees with the papyri (P75 in this case).
==============================
btw, if anyone wants to claim that Tischendorf was not a liar, they should discuss all the evidences about the 1844 theft from the monastery and his 1859 "myth" (Rendel Harris and Daniel Wallace) trash burning cover story. In his radio show Chris Pinto pointed out that the attempt of Wallace to allow this myth to be an honest error on Tischendorf's part were clearly and decisively contradicted by Tischendorf's own words. And I would add, also the fact that the myth was fabricated 15 years later, for the itching ears of the Russians who worked with his theft, and elements of the public from whom he was seeking to get support, honor, praise, laurels and lucre.
==============================
As for my doofus comment about James White, how else would you describe his classic comment?
any "scholar" who can't even get this story straight is not really worth reading, to be honest
- James White 3/15/2006 - aomin blog, discussing the Tischendorf trash basket history
When James White himself has not gotten the story straight for 20 years. Chris Pinto mentioned his foibles on the trash can story on the most recent radio show, given above.
The comment wins the Boomerang Award.
==============================
As for the apparatus and textual descriptions of Metzger, Ehrman, Wallace, and White being deceptive, that has been trivially easy to demonstrate, time and again. All you do is compare their descriptions with the actual evidences. Two examples are given right above.
==============================
John 1:18 - No man hath seen God at any time Hi,
John 1:18 (AV)
No man hath seen God at any time;
the only begotten Son,
which is in the bosom of the Father,
he hath declared him.
Which I will plan on getting back to on a subsequent post.
Here the question is why a 19th century Sinaiticus scribe would come up with the "only begotten God" corruption (the mistranslation to unique God is another story, discussed in the Biblical Languages section).
Here it is true that the Greek and Latin manuscripts overwhelmingly support "Son". So you might first wonder why your versions have the corruption "God", if you are a modern versionite or hybridite.
Anyway, beyond the papyri and Vaticanus support (the usual suspects) both readings have ECW support. And ms C, L and 33 are referenced for "God" and a small pct (up to 5%) of the Greek mss with "God" against the mass of Greek manuscripts, uncials and cursives. The "God" corruption does have Syriac Peshitta support, and some reference in Coptic and Georgian and the Arabic Diatessaron.
The Coptic support is notable because Simonides was very much involved in Egyptian hieroglyphics (one point in the debate about the manuscript that was not mentioned). In those studies, it is reasonabe that he would have worked with Coptic manuscripts. A check of his bio and works would help here.
So, John 1:18 is a much better example (there is a change with the article "the" which I am bypassing for now) than the Matthew verse. However, far from the claims of James White.
As expected, the James White overblown claims of readings that only arose in subsequently-found (to Simonides) papyri was a fabrication, and James White gave zero support to that in the debate. James even threw in comments about "thousands" of readings that were of some specialized type, however often the actual claim was fudged. Here I am focusing on his claim, repeated a few times on the radio program and the debate, that Sinaiticus was rife with readings that only appeared in later found papyri. This was simply false. Arguably, if I could pull out his exact words, it would qualify for blunder #1, putting the Pericope blunder down to #2.
To be fair, even though the James White claim was overblown, unsupported and bogus, that does not mean that there are not actual arguments in there for Sinaiticus antiquity based on the corrections. And based on the paucity of support for Sinaiticus variants in the mass of Greek manuscripts (bogus ultra-minority corruptions that you can often find in your modern versions). It simply means that the major attempt of White, his specific claim, was flawed, failed and flunked.
==============================
George Salmon and John William Burgon on Luke 23:34 Originally Posted by
Steven Avery
Luke 23:34
Then said Jesus, Father, forgive them;
for they know not what they do.
And they parted his raiment, and cast lots.
Understandably, James White did not want to discuss that well-known, powerful and majestic verse. Since the omission is clearly a Vaticanus-Hortian ultra-minority blunder. And White has acknowledged that the verse has:
"profound theological implications" - KJV Only Controversy p. 321
and has given a bunch of equivocal hybrid version nothing verbiage .. e.g. "a high amount of doubt" in the youtube video .. about the verse, put up by the islamists to show corruption in the Bible, taking advantage of White's confusions.
All this is highlighted by Will Kinney here:
James White on Luke 23:34-Jesus Didn’t Forgive Them
<Edit per Mod>
Also, since the original Sinaiticus text has the verse, it was contra his basic theory that the original text of Sinaiticus agrees with the papyri (P75 in this case).
George Salmon (1819-1904) highlighted some of the textual absurdity of the Hortian-Whitian mindset.
Textual criticism of the New Testament (1897)
George Salmon
http://books.google.com/books?id=UEA1AQAAIAAJ&pg=PA25
From St Luke's Gospel we are taught to erase the story of the Bloody Sweat, and the divine words on the cross, " Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do." That is to say, we are not forbidden to believe that our Lord spoke these words, but only that we have Luke's authority for so believing. In these and several other cases of omission, a student who examines the evidence for himself, without having mastered WH's principles of dealing with it, would be likely to think that a bad reading had been adopted in the teeth of evidence, overpowering both in respect of the number and the antiquity of the witnesses in favour of the reading which the Church for many centuries had received. Nay, it would seem as if in the judgment of the new editors any evidence was good enough to justify an omission.
George Salmon makes good reading for those who seek to understand the Hortian fiasco.
As for the technical aspects of the verse evidences, and more insightful study, see John William Burgon:
Revision Revised (1883)
John William Burgon
http://books.google.com/books?id=nXkw1TAatV8C&pg=PA82
...How could our Revisionists dare to insinuate doubts into wavering hearts and unlearned heads, where (as here) they were bound to know, there exists no manner of doubt at all ? p. 82-85
Today that Hortian doubt and confusion is institutionalized and error is institutionalized and personified in the movement against the purity of the AV and gentlemen like James White.
The penetrating words of John William Burgon above were, in essence, a key point of the Chris Pinto summation.
==============================
Hi,
Originally Posted by
TripleZ
Who teaches us about the Bloody Sweat anyway, I only heard that from the RCs.
Maybe check your Bible
Luke 22:43-44 (AV)
And there appeared an angel unto him from heaven,
strengthening him.
And being in an agony he prayed more earnestly:
and his sweat was as it were great drops of blood falling down to the ground.
The learned John Gill (1797-1771) has a neat commentary on verse 44, including the textual aspects (astutely discussing why the verses may have dropped from some manuscripts, even including the possibility of orthodox corruption, pre-Burgon, pre-Ehrman) that begins:
This account of Christ's bloody sweat is only given by Luke, who being a physician, as is thought, more diligently recorded things which belonged to his profession to take cognizance of ...
http://www.biblestudytools.com/comme...uke-22-44.html
(Although I am not sure that Luke the beloved physician, Colossians 4:14, was Luke the Gospel author.)
===================
Interestingly, these verses are another example of where the James White discussion of Sinaiticus agreeing with the papyri and invariably having thousands of Alexandrian-->Byzantine corrections has great difficulties.
While these verses are omitted in Vaticanus and papyri and the Old Syriac Sinaitic ms and the Coptic mss, they are included in the original Sinaiticus. And then "corrected" to omission (possibly, in current Sinaiticus theory, at the scriptorium) and then corrected once again to inclusion.
Yet the original text is contra the papyri omission. The original text agrees with the overwhelming Byzantine and Old Latin and Vulgate and Peshitta evidences, supported by the majority ECW. The overwhelmingly clear, powerful and majestict pure Bible text.
We note that, not surprisingly, the Westcott-Hort and the later Critical Texts have been totally confused, using a variety pack of brackets to indicate their perplexity and the uncertainty they want you to have about God's word.
Oh, let's point out here that the ultra-corrupt Old Syriac Sinaitic palimpsest mss, agreeing with many Sinaiticus corruptions, either from first hand or corrector, was found at ... St. Catherine's monastery.
hmmm. The soup thickens (Just having fun here, dear readers, on a point though that should not be missed.)
===================
In the debate, James White was repeatedly concerned that there was too much conjecture or speculation when Chris Pinto discusses the scribal and textual aspects of Sinaiticus. However all theories of the development of Sinaiticus, 4th-century antiquity or recent creation, must jump over a high bar of conjecture and speculation.
Especially on the weird, wild and woolly textual aspects. And also on the historical and provenance aspects. On top of which their are various anomalies and the question of how the manuscript ended up in four places, with a good chunk still missing.
Remember, Kallinikos said that Tischendorf had "mutilated and tampered" with the ms, and the Kallinikos track record on Tischendorf is quite good.
Chris Pinto believes that there is enough documented difficulty that some solid scientific study and examination should be done while referencing the specific Simonides-Kallinikos claims as part of the research base. And I agree.
==============================
James White blunder on the Pericope Adultera and Latin versions Hi,
The Pericope Adultera is supported by the large majority of Old Latin and Vulgate mss, so White's disaster claim is simply bogus, with or without the word "majority" in front of "Latin versions".
Which was ambiguous in White's writing, however majority looks to be modifying lectionaries.
Pericope Adultera
James White Blunder or Deception - "Latin versions"
"Externally, we note that the passage is omitted by a truly diverse group of ancient manuscripts, including P66, P75, Aleph, B, L, N T W Delta, Psi 0141 33 157 565 1241 1333* 1424, the majority of lectionaries, Latin versions, and Syriac versions."
Just as a point of English, majority does not look to be modifying Latin versions or Syriac versions. Grammatically it is somewhat ambiguous (thus it is an interesting techie point) but since there are four distinct groups:
Greek manuscrpts (listing individually from the minority omitting the section)
lectionaries (discussed nicely by Burgon)
Latin versions
Syriac versions
Normative English would not presume majority to extend to three groups.
Else you would write:
the majority of lectionaries and Latin and Syriac versions.
Now that would apply majority to all three.
English 101.
More precisely (since there are nuances) you would, if wanting to be ultra-precise, apply majority directly in front of any place it is meant to apply. So that you deal with the question of whether the majority is of the individual element or the combined elements.
Actually, White's claim might be remotely more supportable without "majority" in front of Latin versions by a tricky word-parsing attempt. e.g. If you managed to divide the Old Latin and Latin Vulgate into a dozen "versions", you might try to say that two or three of them of them support the omission of the Pericope. They would not be a majority but they would be "Latin versions". Yes, contras do get that deceptive. It would not be as deceptive if they tell you the specific Latin versions, like "Italic" (that won't work here) or "Nova Vulgata" (which is a Latin version based on the Greek critical text.)
Really, though, it looks like James White simply blundered. Or he was following, perhaps without thinking, a writer who used that deceptive technique described right above. And then James made it worse by leaving the deceptive "Latin versions" when the "Latin versions" FAVOR inclusion of the Pericope.
====================
The prince of word-parsing deception is Bruce Metzger. The crafty fella in the TCGNT, 1971 simply omitted the Vulgate, despite its huge historical significance and despite his mentioning many less significant evidences.
Then, on the Old Latin, he wrote:
the passage is absent from ... several Old Latin manuscripts (ita.l*.q).
And omitted the inclusion in (using Laparola):
itaur itc itd ite itff2 itj itl(mg) itr1
How do you know when a Metzgerite or Wallacian or a Whitian is deceiving on Bible textual evidences?
All and all, sort of humorous.
======================
And the contras here are woefully inconsistent in discussing issues like what is a 2nd or 3rd century evidence. Anybody who wants to try to understand these issues, I suggest first reviewing:
Luk 2:33 And Joseph and his mother marvelled at those things which were spoken of him
http://forums.carm.org/vbb/showthread.php?169894-Luk-2-33-And-Joseph-and-his-mother-marvelled-at-those-things-which-were-spoken-of-him/page2
And lest we forget:
Originally Posted by
Robert_V_Frazier
I sincerely believe with conviction that the Pericope Adultera is part of the word of God, it is Scripture.
=====================
Nothing else above except some reportable stuff and diversions.
Readable posters who like dialog iron sharpeneth are welcome to see if there is anything they want to extract. I hope we can keep the two threads principally focused on the Simonides and Sinaiticus issues. Although it was interesting to find and point out the James White Pericope Adultera blunder.
======================
==============================
James White blunder/deception on Pericope Adultera "Latin versions" Hi,
Originally Posted by
Steven Avery
James White Blunder or Deception - "Latin versions"
"Externally, we note that the passage is omitted by a truly diverse group of ancient manuscripts, including P66, P75, Aleph, B, L, N T W Delta, Psi 0141 33 157 565 1241 1333* 1424, the majority of lectionaries, Latin versions, and Syriac versions."
And I will challenge any sensible poster who reads any of James White material, book, debate, blog posts, anything ... to tell us what are the specific Latin versions, or if you prefer dubious English grammar, the majority of Latin versions, o which this blunder about the Pericope Adultera refers.
"we note that the passage is omitted by ... Latin versions"
Note: since the "defense" here of the James White blunder is itself humorous, I will start a new thread, to keep this one free.
==============================
the transparent inconsistency of modern version apologists Hi,
That is a good example of the islamic approach to Codex Sinaiticus.
Assuming for a minute the typical idea of Sinaiticus as 4th century:
If a Christian apologist wants to argue the significance of the Sinaiticus as a ms from the 4th century, the proper approach is to point out that the Alexandrian region had a terrible text, this is easily demonstrable by the ECW and the mass of Greek and Latin mss. And that gnosticism had made inroads in that region even by the 2nd century (as pointed out by even Kurt Aland). And that Sinaiticus is a text that is filled with obvious omissions and blunders and is simply not relevant to our pure Bible. Simply a bumbling nothing. The ms. is interesting more as a curiousity, and it shows a bit that there were full New Testament texts circulating as one unit by the 4th century. (i.e. If the traditional approach is true.)
Very simple.
By talking about 1,000s of New Testament mss on one hand, and then consistently rejecting those thousands of mss for a weakly supported variant in one or two ultra-corrupt early mss (noting that Vaticanus is scribally not a mess in the same way as Sinaiticus) an apologist like James White is easy pickens for the skeptics, islamists, atheists, Ehrmanites and other ilkies.
This is a little off-topic from the "New Finds", but it is on-topic to the general theme of the White-Pinto debate and the post above by J316.
You can see this topic was recently discussed in dorightchristians in a blog post from Dec 12 with the title:
Chris Pinto Vs James White by James Ach
Where I have a post in the comments emphasizing these points.
James Ach
“It is ironic that White assails the Majority Text, but scholars like White, Wallace, McDowell, et al. will use the 5000 plus manuscripts that support the King James when arguing against atheists, and then criticize those same texts and give more weight to the critical text (less than 100 total manuscripts) when debating a King James Onlyist. THAT is some lopsided apologetics!”
Steven Avery
While the numbers vary depending whether papyri fragments are considered a manuscript like a full Bible, and whether lectionaries count, and it is wrong in many cases to only think of Greek when Latin manuscripts and the ECW and even the Syriac Peshitta are also significant — the point above is 100% right, and it is the shell game of the Whitian apologists.
They will talk about the “thousands of manuscripts” that verify the New Testament text when talking to islamists, skeptics, mormons, Ehrmanites and other ilkies … then they turn around and say, again and again and again and again, that the thousands of manuscripts are not to be trusted, because the “oldest and most reliable manuscripts” (code-word for Vaticanus and a smidgen more, sometimes Sinaiticus) tell them the New Testament text. The ilkies above are not fooled, nor should the TR and AV defenders be fooled, by this shell game.
==============================
Hi,
Originally Posted by
marke
The closer the observation of the facts surrounding Sinaiticus the more it looks like someone pulled off a major hoax on the religious world through Tischendorf and Westcott and Hort.
At the very least, as to the authenticity of Sinaiticus, we see that the proper approach is:
"case open"
==============================
AV variants only from the Latin? Hi,
Originally Posted by
marke
Excellent, well reasoned and supported post!
Thanks !
While it is a bit off-topic for this thread, James Price is the main person today claiming that the AV has a number of variants that are only in the Latin text, with no Greek support. (Greek support in this context includes Greek TR editions, including the Complutensian Polyglot.)
So I would invite anybody who has actually looked at the variant evidences to give what they think are such examples. (Preferably do your own checking before quoting Price.) In my checking a couple of years back, Price was consistently mistaken.
However this would do better on its own thread. Let us try to keep this one on topics related to:
the New Finds, a sealed room with Sinaiticus leaves before Tischendorf and Simonides?
Thanks.
==============================
End of p. 11 of 11
==============================
==============================