Steven Avery
Administrator
Christian Tindall - Contributions to the statistical study of the Codex Sinaiticus (1961)
Jellicoe says NT only.
Jellicoe says NT only.
Christian Tindall - Contributions to the statistical study of the Codex Sinaiticus
- Thread starter Steven Avery
- Start date
Steven Avery
Administrator
Peter Cresswell
https://books.google.com/books?id=aHA8CgAAQBAJ&pg=PT225
Christian Tindall in Contributions to the Statistical Study of the
Codex Sinaiticus, to identify specific passages as added in, at the
point of copying from an exemplar, on the basis of specific columns
with an above average number of characters. As we have found,
there are very few at either extreme, outside of some sections
accounted for by more general explanations, and these are what
might be expected in a normal distribution. So, Tindall’s approach
is flawed at the outset and fails on this ground.
Tindall described twenty instances where he believed that
additional matter had been introduced into the text of Codex
Sinaiticus. This is certainly problematical, even aside from the
fundamental point that in general the variations are what might be
expected. Even if matter were being added, it would be hard to tell
what specific passage related to an increased density of text or
whether, even, the outcome were the net effect of some text being
deleted and some added.
In addition, while it appears scribes were for most of the New
Testament copying from an exemplar of the same average line
length and so presumably similar column width, there is no
evidence that they were constrained to work according to the
exemplar’s overall page layout.5 If copy were being added or
deleted, it should thus almost always have been possible to keep to
the same column width and let the extra be mopped up simply by
going on to the next page. The veiy limited exceptions to this would
have occurred when the scribe was seeking to work within a fixed
extent, by for example fitting a certain amount of text within a
quire. This is the mechanism that could explain the general
compression and stretching of text in Revelation and Barnabas.4
For the rest of the text, there would certainly have been additions
and deletions through for example corrections and the incorporation
of marginal notes. But these, as the text flowed from page to page,
need not have had an impact on column density as Tindall
supposed. The variation observed is primarily the expected,
combined effect of the various influences involved.
The sheets by scribe D could provide possible exceptions. These
show signs of having been written to a fixed extent and, as we have
shown, a cut at the end of Mark did have an impact on column
density. Even with these sheets, however, it will be found that there
is no necessary link between the observed compression and what is
found in the text.
Tindall raised a hostage to fortune in listing his twenty instances,
given that there is some much earlier papyrus evidence. If copy
were being added in, it might be expected that these earlier sources
would lack the passages that Tindall deduced had been interpolated.
deduced had been interpolated. However, this is found not to be
the case. In all four cases, where there is available evidence, the
sections that Tindall argued were missing from the exemplar
and added to Sinaiticus are present in the earlier papyrus
sources.5
It could be that the papyrus sources, P45 and P75 from the
late second to early third century, represent an independent
strand that generated a secondary exemplar, from which the
passages were taken to add to the main exemplar for Sinaiticus.
But this is not at all convincing. What we have are the earlier
papyrus sources and Sinaiticus, both containing the passages that
Tindall thought may have been added during the course of
production. On this evidence, the simplest and clearest
conclusion is that the main exemplar for Sinaiticus contained
these particular passages, just like the earlier papyrus
manuscripts.
Even if it were not invalid on other grounds, Tindall’s method
suffers from another, serious imbedded flaw. There is bound to
be a temptation to choose cut-off points that make passages,
which might be interpolations, fit with the calculated ‘excess’
text. Tindall did thereby sometimes make unsustainable
assumptions. He suggested, for example, that the phrase ‘in the
presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents’ in
Luke 15, 10 is doubtful and may therefore have been added to
the exemplar. It has 49 characters and the column in which it is
located has 679 characters, between 32 and 49 characters more
than the other three columns on the same page. This is all very
neat, except that this phrase could not have been a simple
addition because it is integral with the rest of the sentence of
which it is a part. The opening words of the sentence, ‘Just so, I
tell you, there is joy ... ’ do not stand alone. If the whole sentence
were an addition, then it would have been one of 73 rather than
49 characters. The supposed added phrase is, as it happens, also
present in P75, undermining still further a very shaky argument.
Tindall likewise may sometimes have chosen passages for
comparison, perhaps unconsciously to support what he had
already decided was an interpolation. So, for example, he
compared the whole of the verso of Q78F4, which has Luke’s
description of the transfiguration (Luke 9, 31-37), with the recto
to come up with a difference in terms of characters to match
verses containing an account of a conversation between Moses
and Elijah and Jesus. One section, not present in Mark, is thus
presumed to have been added to Luke in the course of producing
Sinaiticus (though it is also, we note, present in Luke in P45).
The verses in question extend from the bottom of column one
to the top of column two on the verso of Q78F4. But it is only the
third column that has a number of characters significantly above
average. Indeed, the page as a whole is around about the average
in terms of characters, while the recto has fewer characters than
average - and it might be this that has to be explained.6
https://books.google.com/books?id=aHA8CgAAQBAJ&pg=PT225
Christian Tindall in Contributions to the Statistical Study of the
Codex Sinaiticus, to identify specific passages as added in, at the
point of copying from an exemplar, on the basis of specific columns
with an above average number of characters. As we have found,
there are very few at either extreme, outside of some sections
accounted for by more general explanations, and these are what
might be expected in a normal distribution. So, Tindall’s approach
is flawed at the outset and fails on this ground.
Tindall described twenty instances where he believed that
additional matter had been introduced into the text of Codex
Sinaiticus. This is certainly problematical, even aside from the
fundamental point that in general the variations are what might be
expected. Even if matter were being added, it would be hard to tell
what specific passage related to an increased density of text or
whether, even, the outcome were the net effect of some text being
deleted and some added.
In addition, while it appears scribes were for most of the New
Testament copying from an exemplar of the same average line
length and so presumably similar column width, there is no
evidence that they were constrained to work according to the
exemplar’s overall page layout.5 If copy were being added or
deleted, it should thus almost always have been possible to keep to
the same column width and let the extra be mopped up simply by
going on to the next page. The veiy limited exceptions to this would
have occurred when the scribe was seeking to work within a fixed
extent, by for example fitting a certain amount of text within a
quire. This is the mechanism that could explain the general
compression and stretching of text in Revelation and Barnabas.4
For the rest of the text, there would certainly have been additions
and deletions through for example corrections and the incorporation
of marginal notes. But these, as the text flowed from page to page,
need not have had an impact on column density as Tindall
supposed. The variation observed is primarily the expected,
combined effect of the various influences involved.
The sheets by scribe D could provide possible exceptions. These
show signs of having been written to a fixed extent and, as we have
shown, a cut at the end of Mark did have an impact on column
density. Even with these sheets, however, it will be found that there
is no necessary link between the observed compression and what is
found in the text.
Tindall raised a hostage to fortune in listing his twenty instances,
given that there is some much earlier papyrus evidence. If copy
were being added in, it might be expected that these earlier sources
would lack the passages that Tindall deduced had been interpolated.
deduced had been interpolated. However, this is found not to be
the case. In all four cases, where there is available evidence, the
sections that Tindall argued were missing from the exemplar
and added to Sinaiticus are present in the earlier papyrus
sources.5
It could be that the papyrus sources, P45 and P75 from the
late second to early third century, represent an independent
strand that generated a secondary exemplar, from which the
passages were taken to add to the main exemplar for Sinaiticus.
But this is not at all convincing. What we have are the earlier
papyrus sources and Sinaiticus, both containing the passages that
Tindall thought may have been added during the course of
production. On this evidence, the simplest and clearest
conclusion is that the main exemplar for Sinaiticus contained
these particular passages, just like the earlier papyrus
manuscripts.
Even if it were not invalid on other grounds, Tindall’s method
suffers from another, serious imbedded flaw. There is bound to
be a temptation to choose cut-off points that make passages,
which might be interpolations, fit with the calculated ‘excess’
text. Tindall did thereby sometimes make unsustainable
assumptions. He suggested, for example, that the phrase ‘in the
presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents’ in
Luke 15, 10 is doubtful and may therefore have been added to
the exemplar. It has 49 characters and the column in which it is
located has 679 characters, between 32 and 49 characters more
than the other three columns on the same page. This is all very
neat, except that this phrase could not have been a simple
addition because it is integral with the rest of the sentence of
which it is a part. The opening words of the sentence, ‘Just so, I
tell you, there is joy ... ’ do not stand alone. If the whole sentence
were an addition, then it would have been one of 73 rather than
49 characters. The supposed added phrase is, as it happens, also
present in P75, undermining still further a very shaky argument.
Tindall likewise may sometimes have chosen passages for
comparison, perhaps unconsciously to support what he had
already decided was an interpolation. So, for example, he
compared the whole of the verso of Q78F4, which has Luke’s
description of the transfiguration (Luke 9, 31-37), with the recto
to come up with a difference in terms of characters to match
verses containing an account of a conversation between Moses
and Elijah and Jesus. One section, not present in Mark, is thus
presumed to have been added to Luke in the course of producing
Sinaiticus (though it is also, we note, present in Luke in P45).
The verses in question extend from the bottom of column one
to the top of column two on the verso of Q78F4. But it is only the
third column that has a number of characters significantly above
average. Indeed, the page as a whole is around about the average
in terms of characters, while the recto has fewer characters than
average - and it might be this that has to be explained.6
Last edited:
Steven Avery
Administrator
Review
A. F. Parker-Rhodes
(1962)
https://www.jstor.org/stable/23958135
This small book is compiled by T. B. Smith from the posthumous
papers of Christian Tindall, and sets out the latter’s conclusions from
his statistical studies on the text of the Codex Sinaiticus. Part of the
interest of the work lies in the fact that Tindall was one of the pioneers
in the application of statistical techniques to problems of textual analysis.
Although this is today widely accepted as a legitimate tool of the scholar,
it was not so very long ago a daring innovation; and to suggest, as
Tindall did, that one could find out anything about the sources from
which a biblical text was copied, not by the careful comparison of one
manuscript with another but by juggling with figures relating to a
single codex, would by many have been regarded as absurd.
Briefly, the conclusion of this work is that the scribe who wrote the
Jack Finegan
Elliott - bibliography
Metzger-Ehrman
Verheyden
A. F. Parker-Rhodes
(1962)
https://www.jstor.org/stable/23958135
This small book is compiled by T. B. Smith from the posthumous
papers of Christian Tindall, and sets out the latter’s conclusions from
his statistical studies on the text of the Codex Sinaiticus. Part of the
interest of the work lies in the fact that Tindall was one of the pioneers
in the application of statistical techniques to problems of textual analysis.
Although this is today widely accepted as a legitimate tool of the scholar,
it was not so very long ago a daring innovation; and to suggest, as
Tindall did, that one could find out anything about the sources from
which a biblical text was copied, not by the careful comparison of one
manuscript with another but by juggling with figures relating to a
single codex, would by many have been regarded as absurd.
Briefly, the conclusion of this work is that the scribe who wrote the
Jack Finegan
Encountering New Testament Manuscripts
This is a print on demand book and is therefore non- returnable. The field of textual criticism remains an exciting one. Thousands of manuscripts have been recovered in recent years. Using the methods of textual criticism, translators have been able to discern from these manuscripts a probably...
books.google.com
Elliott - bibliography
A Bibliography of Greek New Testament Manuscripts
Facsimiles, photographic reproductions, collations, and studies of the textual character of many of the 5,000 or so manuscripts of the Greek New Testament have been published, but it is only with this book that a much-needed bibliography of them has been made available. This considerably...
books.google.com
Metzger-Ehrman
The Text of New Testament
books.google.com
Verheyden
Lire demain - Reading Tomorrow
books.google.com
Lire demain - Reading Tomorrow
books.google.com
Last edited:
Steven Avery
Administrator
CHRISTIAN TINDALL
CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE STATISTICAL STUDY OF THE CODEX SINAITICUS
(94.55 T4' CHRISTIAN TINDALL''I
OLIVER AND BOYD
EDINBURGH AND LONDON
i g6 i
E7 M OLIVER AND BOYD LTD
k Tweeddate Court
Edinburgh i
39A Welbeck Street
London W.i
First published 1961
© Copyright 1961 T. B. Smith
PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN BY OLIVER AND BOYD LTD, EDINBURGH
Anthony Queen Morton HELPED
Professor Macgregor and of the late Reverend Doctor W. J. Smith
1
I
THE DISCOVERY OF THE CODEX SINAITICUS is as romantic a tale as anyone could wish to read. In
1844 Tischendorf came to the Monastery of St Catherine on Mount Sinai. He was prospecting for
manuscripts, but ordinary methods of inquiry and search in old or abandoned libraries had brought no
result. In the Monastery itself, he accidentally discovered that a basket containing material for firelighting
had in it 43 leaves of an ancient Old Testament in Greek After much entreaty, he was allowed to take
possession of this prize, but further inquiry and persuasion were fruitless. In 1853 he paid a second visit, but
could find no trace of the vellum book from which the leaves had been torn for lighting fires. In 1859 he
returned once more. This time he came armed with an introduction from the Tsar, and in the course of a
conversation on the Septuagint he challenged one of the monks to show him the monastery's copy. There was
brought to him, wrapped in a red cloth, what we now know as the Codex Sinaiticus, the very book from which
the 43 leaves had come. As a result of subsequent negotiations, it was removed to Cairo, and later to St
Petersburg. Eventually, in 1933, the Soviet Government offered it for sale at a price of Cioo,000. This amount
was raised by public subscription, and the Codex is now in the British Museum.
Originally it was a book in two volumes, containing altogether about 730 leaves (1460 of our pages). These were
made from the dressed skins of animals cut to form a double leaf (4 of our pages) measuring about 24 in. by 12
in. overall. Only 390 leaves (780 of our pages) have survived. These contain part of the Old Testament, and all
the books of the New Testament as we have them, with, in addition, a letter of Barnabas and a work entitled The
Shepherd of Hermas (a companion to Revelation);
Though the Codex Sinaiticus is one of the oldest Biblical manuscripts in existence, its exact age is a
perplexing mystery. Certainly it spent some time in the library at Caesarea, and was there collated with others
and corrected; but experts differ by as much as three centuries in fixing the time of its sojourn there.
According to Dr Souter, Eusebius used so many of its readings that he must presumably have been working
from a copy of the same text. As Eusebius died in A.D. 340, this agrees well enough with the general opinion,
which ascribes the Sinaiticus itself to the middle of the fourth century A.D.
In default of any independent evidence concerning the origin of the Codex Sinaiticus, we are here especially
dependent on the findings of the paleographers, who study the handwriting which it contains, and place
it in a sequence of other documents, to some of which it is possible to assign, on other grounds, exact dates of
origin. But it is not only in modern courts of law that the evidence of handwriting experts should be treated with
reserve. Tischendorf himself and Lake (who first photographed and reproduced the book) both saw, or
thought they saw, in its writing and revision, nine different hands ; but the experts who examined it at the
British Museum when it arrived there, came to the conclusion that only three different scribes had worked on
it; and, in the Synoptic Gospels alone, where Tischendorf and Lake postulated thirty-two changes of
writing, the Museum staff considered them to have been right only eight times, and wrong twenty-four. Such
instances of conflict between experts confuse ordinary readers, but serve to show how difficult it is, in such
cases, to reach any settled conclusions. Yet Sir Frederick Kenyon is of opinion that " it is the writing of the
text of the Sinaiticus, rather than the corrections and supplementary apparatus, which is the clue to the
date." In fact the Sinaiticus is unique, and it is in comparison with similar documents that certainty lies for the
palaeographer
CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE STATISTICAL STUDY OF THE CODEX SINAITICUS
(94.55 T4' CHRISTIAN TINDALL''I
OLIVER AND BOYD
EDINBURGH AND LONDON
i g6 i
E7 M OLIVER AND BOYD LTD
k Tweeddate Court
Edinburgh i
39A Welbeck Street
London W.i
First published 1961
© Copyright 1961 T. B. Smith
PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN BY OLIVER AND BOYD LTD, EDINBURGH
Anthony Queen Morton HELPED
Professor Macgregor and of the late Reverend Doctor W. J. Smith
1
I
THE DISCOVERY OF THE CODEX SINAITICUS is as romantic a tale as anyone could wish to read. In
1844 Tischendorf came to the Monastery of St Catherine on Mount Sinai. He was prospecting for
manuscripts, but ordinary methods of inquiry and search in old or abandoned libraries had brought no
result. In the Monastery itself, he accidentally discovered that a basket containing material for firelighting
had in it 43 leaves of an ancient Old Testament in Greek After much entreaty, he was allowed to take
possession of this prize, but further inquiry and persuasion were fruitless. In 1853 he paid a second visit, but
could find no trace of the vellum book from which the leaves had been torn for lighting fires. In 1859 he
returned once more. This time he came armed with an introduction from the Tsar, and in the course of a
conversation on the Septuagint he challenged one of the monks to show him the monastery's copy. There was
brought to him, wrapped in a red cloth, what we now know as the Codex Sinaiticus, the very book from which
the 43 leaves had come. As a result of subsequent negotiations, it was removed to Cairo, and later to St
Petersburg. Eventually, in 1933, the Soviet Government offered it for sale at a price of Cioo,000. This amount
was raised by public subscription, and the Codex is now in the British Museum.
Originally it was a book in two volumes, containing altogether about 730 leaves (1460 of our pages). These were
made from the dressed skins of animals cut to form a double leaf (4 of our pages) measuring about 24 in. by 12
in. overall. Only 390 leaves (780 of our pages) have survived. These contain part of the Old Testament, and all
the books of the New Testament as we have them, with, in addition, a letter of Barnabas and a work entitled The
Shepherd of Hermas (a companion to Revelation);
Though the Codex Sinaiticus is one of the oldest Biblical manuscripts in existence, its exact age is a
perplexing mystery. Certainly it spent some time in the library at Caesarea, and was there collated with others
and corrected; but experts differ by as much as three centuries in fixing the time of its sojourn there.
According to Dr Souter, Eusebius used so many of its readings that he must presumably have been working
from a copy of the same text. As Eusebius died in A.D. 340, this agrees well enough with the general opinion,
which ascribes the Sinaiticus itself to the middle of the fourth century A.D.
In default of any independent evidence concerning the origin of the Codex Sinaiticus, we are here especially
dependent on the findings of the paleographers, who study the handwriting which it contains, and place
it in a sequence of other documents, to some of which it is possible to assign, on other grounds, exact dates of
origin. But it is not only in modern courts of law that the evidence of handwriting experts should be treated with
reserve. Tischendorf himself and Lake (who first photographed and reproduced the book) both saw, or
thought they saw, in its writing and revision, nine different hands ; but the experts who examined it at the
British Museum when it arrived there, came to the conclusion that only three different scribes had worked on
it; and, in the Synoptic Gospels alone, where Tischendorf and Lake postulated thirty-two changes of
writing, the Museum staff considered them to have been right only eight times, and wrong twenty-four. Such
instances of conflict between experts confuse ordinary readers, but serve to show how difficult it is, in such
cases, to reach any settled conclusions. Yet Sir Frederick Kenyon is of opinion that " it is the writing of the
text of the Sinaiticus, rather than the corrections and supplementary apparatus, which is the clue to the
date." In fact the Sinaiticus is unique, and it is in comparison with similar documents that certainty lies for the
palaeographer
Last edited:
Steven Avery
Administrator
One such puzzle arises in connexion with the floating paragraph which contains the story of the woman taken
in adultery. (This does not appear in any of the earliest Mss—including the Sinaiticus—and it may be remarked
in passing that its absence from any MS is generally regarded as indicating a date anterior to the fifth century).
Another—the earliest, the most intricate, and the most significant—arises in connexion with the lost ending of
Mark's Gospel.
In all the early MSS, Mark's Gospel breaks off abruptly at XVI. 8—åöïâïõíôï ãáñ. No such form of words is
used anywhere else in the New Testament to end a sentence or paragraph—let alone a book—and the
grammarians are agreed that the text has been disrupted at this point. The present ending (xvi. 9-19) is purely
conventional, and seems to have been tacked on later, at a date when it could no longer be hoped that the
original ending might still be restored. For unless we are to suppose that the author whimsically (and
ungrammatically) broke off with the words åöïâïõíôï ãáñ, there must originally have been a different ending;
and (as will be shown presently) the most likely hypothesis is that it dropped out accidentally. How did it drop
out? What was its nature? And what happened to it?
in adultery. (This does not appear in any of the earliest Mss—including the Sinaiticus—and it may be remarked
in passing that its absence from any MS is generally regarded as indicating a date anterior to the fifth century).
Another—the earliest, the most intricate, and the most significant—arises in connexion with the lost ending of
Mark's Gospel.
In all the early MSS, Mark's Gospel breaks off abruptly at XVI. 8—åöïâïõíôï ãáñ. No such form of words is
used anywhere else in the New Testament to end a sentence or paragraph—let alone a book—and the
grammarians are agreed that the text has been disrupted at this point. The present ending (xvi. 9-19) is purely
conventional, and seems to have been tacked on later, at a date when it could no longer be hoped that the
original ending might still be restored. For unless we are to suppose that the author whimsically (and
ungrammatically) broke off with the words åöïâïõíôï ãáñ, there must originally have been a different ending;
and (as will be shown presently) the most likely hypothesis is that it dropped out accidentally. How did it drop
out? What was its nature? And what happened to it?
Steven Avery
Administrator
The general appearance of the writing supports the view that Mark's Gospel stood first at the time when the
Sinaiticus was written. In it, the shortest of the Gospels, the letters are clear and self-contained, and the text ends
with a fine and flowery colophon ornamentally written in red and black; in Matthew's Gospel, the letters sprawl
slightly and its colophon is a little black line at the end of a cancel leaf with no title at all.
A close count of the lettering provides the exception that seems to prove the rule. The number of letters in a
column rises gradually throughout the New Testament. In this series the Gospels of Mark and Luke show a jump
over Matthew's. But an examination of the writing shows Mark's, and to a lesser degree Luke's, to have been
written in economical and upright uncials. By the time Matthew's Gospel is reached these have begun to spread
a little, and so the average number in a column falls. In the later stages they spread a little more but also get
smaller until the number in a column is higher than before.'
Now it should be observed that the promotion of Matthew's Gospel from third to first place antedates the
Muratorian catalogue of A.D. 16o, for it gives Luke's as third without identifying the first two. The order here
postulated is the same as the symbols of Revelation—the lion, the calf, the man, and the eagle—which were at
a very early time associated with Mark, Luke, Matthew and John, so much so that it has been suggested that the
Pauline reference to " a gospel of man" is not correctly interpreted as a "man-made gospel," but should be taken
as a reference to Matthew's "man Gospel."
Sinaiticus was written. In it, the shortest of the Gospels, the letters are clear and self-contained, and the text ends
with a fine and flowery colophon ornamentally written in red and black; in Matthew's Gospel, the letters sprawl
slightly and its colophon is a little black line at the end of a cancel leaf with no title at all.
A close count of the lettering provides the exception that seems to prove the rule. The number of letters in a
column rises gradually throughout the New Testament. In this series the Gospels of Mark and Luke show a jump
over Matthew's. But an examination of the writing shows Mark's, and to a lesser degree Luke's, to have been
written in economical and upright uncials. By the time Matthew's Gospel is reached these have begun to spread
a little, and so the average number in a column falls. In the later stages they spread a little more but also get
smaller until the number in a column is higher than before.'
Now it should be observed that the promotion of Matthew's Gospel from third to first place antedates the
Muratorian catalogue of A.D. 16o, for it gives Luke's as third without identifying the first two. The order here
postulated is the same as the symbols of Revelation—the lion, the calf, the man, and the eagle—which were at
a very early time associated with Mark, Luke, Matthew and John, so much so that it has been suggested that the
Pauline reference to " a gospel of man" is not correctly interpreted as a "man-made gospel," but should be taken
as a reference to Matthew's "man Gospel."