Steven Avery
Administrator
Note that in discussing the quire numbers, the 2nd quire numbering is given as later, with one factor being the difference in ink.
Very little information is given about the first set of quire numbers, two immediate questions would be:
a) are they uniform ink (also type, nature, etc)
b) are they uniform writing.
c) Also, could the script really be palaeographically dated to the 4th century? (As an example, look at the Hermas quire numbers, in the NT there is only one set.)
"the writer [SA: talking of the first set, but likely all quire numbers] cannot be identified with any of the scribes of the text."
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Note also that the three crosses note having to do with the bumbling duplicate Chronicles section is not considered as part of the original text.
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Scribes and Correctors is only put in piece-meal. (1/11/2016 - now full text available). Assistance rounding out important sections from someone with the book would be appreciated.
Scribes and Correctors of the Codex Sinaiticus (1938)
Herbert John Mansfield Milne, Theodore Cressy Skeat, Douglas Cockerell
Thus the original numeration allows for a whole quire (no. 73) between the Old and New Testament* as we see them to-day. By about the eighth century, however, the gap had been closed by renumbering the quires continuously. Of such an anomaly several explanations are possible:
(a) A simple mistake in the original numeration (so Tischendorf, Prolegomena n. 10. But assumption of a mistake is always undesirable; and in this case the Old Testament and New Testament were certainly numbered at different times, since the signatures in the Old Testament are a yellow-brown colour while those of the New Testament have a reddish tint. In such circumstances a mistake becomes difficult to understand.
(b) A whole quire between Job and Matthew has disappeared, and never been replaced. . This solution has been widely adopted, usually on the supposition (cf. Lake, O.T., p. xx) that the lost quire contained the Eusebian canon-tables, with, perhaps, the Letter to Carpianus.
.....
For this purpose we have compared the Codex with the Vaticanus and the Alexandrinus, both of which contain the Old Testament almost complete. By taking the books which are extant in all three manuscripts and contrasting the space they occupy in each, we can calculate the probable contents of the lost portions of the Sinaiticus, the two other manuscripts providing a double check. We would, however, emphasize the number of unanswerable questions — whether the lost quires of the Sinaiticus all uniformly consisted of eight leaves ; whether certain passages such as the long genealogical tables were written continuously, or with one item to each line, as frequently elsewhere in the manuscript; how much space was left blank at the end of each book; and so on.
ORIGINAL CONTENTS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT
The portions or the Old Testament covered by the Codex in its present condition are specified in the table printed on pp. 94-112 below: here an attempt will be made to determine the probable
==
I . THE LOST INITIAL QUIRES - The intrusive section of 1 Chronicles
Before we consider the contents of the lost beginning it is necessary to explain the anomaly with which the extant portion of the manuscript opens. The first five consecutive leaves contain I Chronicles ix. 117—xix. 17, but at the end of this passnge, in line 36 of the last column on the verso of the fifth leaf, the text skips without warning into the midst of 2 Esdras ix. 9, and continues normally from that point onwards of the page in which the change-over occurs (see Fig. 2), a scribe of perhaps the seventh or eighth century (certainly not the corrector C* as is generally stated) has written three crosses and, in the vacant space below the text, the following note: (pic of 3 crosses with Greek)
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New Testament Manuscripts: Their Texts and Their World (2006)
edited by Thomas J. Kraus, Tobias Nicklas
One Codex, Three Scribes, and Many Books: Struggles with Space in Codex Sinaiticus, (2006) -p. 121-136
Dirk Jongkind
=======
P. 121
When the British Museum acquired Codex Sinaiticus in the 1930s, it was decided that a thorough study of the paleographical and codicological features should be made. The task was assigned to H.J.M. Milne and T.C. Skeat and resulted in the 1938 monograph Scribes and Correctors of the Codex Sinaiticus.1 The study of the scribal hands led to the identification of three main scribes; this was in contrast to Tischendorf, who determined four different hands.2 The work originally attributed to scribe C was assigned to scribes A and D, with the result that the remaining; labels of the scribal hands were A, B, and D.3 Also the numerous corrections of the text were reassigned by Milne and Skeat, resulting in all the early corrections (pre-'C corrector') being attributed to one of the scribes of the main text.
The codicological description of the Sinaiticus is an invaluable aspect of Scribes and Correctors. As it was decided that the codex should be rebound into two volumes, part of the evidence regarding earlier bindings and the formation of the quires was destroyed. p. 121
in some cases we have to rely upon the description by Milne and Skeat as the original data cannot be checked any longer p. 122 ... (SA Note: Thank you, David Cockerell)
2 ...The first verses of the New Testament were not published by Tischendorf but by the archimandrite Porfiri Uspenski who has included a plate of parts of 1 Corinthians 13 in a book on his travels to the Middle East (P. Porfiri, Vostok khristianskii: Egipet i Sinai; bidy, ocherki, plany i nadpisi. 2 vols. [St. Petersburg 1857]). p. 121
5 ... Though this suggests that one quire was lost between Job and Matthew, Milne and Skeat have argued that this so-called 'missing quire' never existed but was only intended to be included later on. p. 122 ...
The basic physical unit of the codex is the quaternion, a gathering or quire of four sheets folded together. Thus, each quire consists of four sheets and eight folios, what makes 16 pages.4 Assuming that Hermas was the last book included in the original codex, it must have contained around 95 quires, of which 50 survive almost completely. Not all the extant quires are regular. Three quires, which started their life as standard eight-folio quires, have their last one or two folios cut out, apparently because these were left blank. 5 Three other quires have less folios, because they were formed by using only one, two or three sheets.6 p. 122
... The almost monotonous feel of page after page of the same lay-out is only broken by the transition from one book to the other and by the many corrections, most of which derive from a period of time two or three centuries after the writing of the original text. p. 122
5
Quire 58 (the end of the Dodekapropheton; two folios removed), quire 78 (the end of Luke; one folio removed), and quire 80 (the end of John; two folios removed). In the New Testament the count of the secondary quire numbering, which was added a few centuries after the making of the manuscript, is one number lower than the original numbering. Though this suggests that one quire was lost between Job and Matthew, Milne and Skeat have argued that this so-called 'missing quire' never existed but was only intended to be included later on. In this paper we follow the secondary quire numbering. See Milne—Skeat, Scribes and Correctors, 7-9. Throughout this paper, individual folios of Sinaiticus are numbered according to their place in a quire and the numbering in the two facsimile volumes by Lake ...
6
Namely quires 40, 90 and 91.
....It is impossible to prove any of the three explanations above empirically. Yet the common element in each of these suggestions is that Sinaiticus does not display a level of professionalism that one would expect in a scriptorium that produces such volumes on a regular basis. p. 130
The picture that emerges from our brief enquiry into the relationship between quires and changes of scribal hands is that, as would be expected, the scribes worked concurrently on various parts of the manuscript, but that this splitting up of the work was not executed with the fluency one might expect in an established and experienced scriptorium (as we know it, e.g. from early medieval monasteries). This can be explained in two ways: either the phenomenon of producing a codex of this size was so new that the scriptorium was still experimenting with the correct approach,27 or the codex was produced outside a major centre and at a locality where there was demand for a large Bible but where one lacked the experience to produce one. .. p. 134-135
27 This view is more or less implied in Skeat, "The 'Codex Sinaiticus', the 'Codex Vaticanus' and Constantine," 583—598.
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Scribal Habits of Codex Sinaiticus
Dirk Jongkind
"A feature of Sinaiticus which has escaped notice so far is set of markings in the outer margins of both pages of many of the central openings of the quires.. these markings can only have served the binders of the manuscript. However, given the heavy hue of the ink it is unlikely that the markings come from the original scriptorium. It is more likely that they belong to the rebinding of the manuscript, possibly connected with the so-called C correctors who worked sometime between the fifth and eight centuries" 11 p. 32 (squiggles on CSP site)
11 Brigitte Mondrain mentions two examples of codices in which the centre of a quire is marked ... Her examples date from the fourteenth and fifteenth century.
2011.06.05 | Dirk Jongkind. Scribal Habits of Codex Sinaiticus. Texts and Studies 5; Piscataway, NJ: Gorgias, 2007. Pp. xvii + 323. ISBN: 9781593334222. Hardback Reviewed by Dan Batovici, University of St Andrews.
http://rbecs.org/2011/06/02/scribal-habits-of-codex-sinaiticus/
https://docs.google.com/viewer?url=...ta/publicatii/sacra_scripta/2011/jongkind.pdf
.. Jongkind finds Milne and Skeat's argument (with regards to the use of red ink in Psalms) that scribes were not able to calculate the space required by a given text 'dubious' (38) and sets out to prove that the evidence supports the opposite view. It is then perhaps surprising that the explanation offered for the peculiar situation of Barnabas' quires involves a several-pages-long wrong estimation of the space needed for the text (50-1).
As an aside, Jongkind noticed the marks "which have escaped notice so far" (32) on the middle folios of each quire. They are thought to have served in the binding of the manuscript and are now referred to as squiqqles on the Codex Sinaiticus website.
....The analysis of ihe Eusebian apparatus reveals that it 'betrays a corruption in the transmission history of the apparatus between its inception and inclusion in Sinaiticus' (120), being, thus perhaps a generation remove from the original. ....Furthermore, the not that pure form of the Eusebian apparatus seems to "suggest a certain distance from its source" (253).
As a note, in the numbering of the quires, Jongkind follows Milne-Skeat in using the number "visible in the top right corner of the first page of each quire" (2). The Codex Sinaiticus Project website numbers the quires according to the top left comer numbering of the same first quire page. This means that, beyond the Old Testament books, the reader will have to add 1 to Jongkind's quire number to find it on the website.
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Codicology: the history of the structural features of the Codex Sinaiticus
Flavio Marzo
http://codexsinaiticus.org/en/project/conservation_codicology.aspx
Codex Sinaiticus in the past
There are not many clear signs or indications about the structure of the Codex Sinaiticus during its more then 1600 years of existence.
Some of the Russian fragments (like some of the New Finds in the Saint Catherine Monastery)[8] show evidences of folded lines that may suggest they were reused as cover material (picture 10).
[8] Twelve leaves and forty fragments remain at Saint Catherine's Monastery, recovered by the monks from the northern wall of the monastery in June 1975.
Codex Sinaiticus and hypothesis of previous sewing structures
There are several questions which arise from the history of the Codex. Why was the manuscript not bound at the time Tischendorf saw it in the Monastery? Why was the manuscript not bound until the one given to it by Cockerell in the 20th century? These are important and interesting questions related not only to the structural features of the book but to the history of the use of the Codex.
For the second question there may be an easy answer. After the Codex was removed from the St. Catherine's Monastery there were many studies carried out on it and all addressed to the textual and palaeographical part of the manuscript. The first published version of Codex Sinaiticus dated 1862, was a full size facsimile in specially cut type ordered by Tischendorf. After this edition there is the publication of two photographic facsimiles the first one dated 1911 (New Testament) and the other dated 1922 (Old Testament) by Kirsopp Lake, an English biblical scholar (1872-1946).
This may be the reason why the manuscript was dis-bound and kept unbound, to allow for an easier consultation and reproduction of the text for all these different publications. Also, the fact that the book was kept in a metal box (pictures 11 to 15) specially made for the Codex itself suggests an intention to keep it unbound for a quite long time.
SA: All of this is predicated on accepting the tissuedorfs. More likely: Tischendorf took the 43 leaves from a bound manuscript in 1844, seen by Uspensky in 1845, disbound in the mutilations of Tischendorf in the 1850s.
In 1938 ... report Douglas Cockerel... He removed many fragments of thread from the gutter of the sections, many of these threads coming from repairs made on the gutters (overcasting sewing) and some that he assigned to previous sewing,[10] some of these are now housed in a bound book kept in the British Library as part of his archive.[11]
He identified at least two different kinds of thread that he ascribes to two different sewing structures.[12]He is assuming that the "second" and last sewing was made in the work shop in the Saint Catherine's Monastery, after the first visit of Tischendorf but in some way never finished,[13] this was just assumed because there were no sign of board attachments that were may be removed when the manuscript was took to Russia. .... In his report Douglas Cockerell described the "last sewing" as a supported sewing. There is no evidence from his report or the collected fragments of threads[16] (picture 26) of any remaining of cords or other material that could be recognised as supports. It is very difficult to say anything for certain as the current bound state of the Codex does not give the opportunity to check the spine and to recognise visible signs of sewing stations but it is possible to add some more hypotheses. In Douglas Cockerell's report there are some interesting pictures of the spine with 4 irregular lines of marks on the outer side of the gutter, presumably, corresponding with the last sewing stations (pictures 27 and 28). ... an unsupported sewing done without a lot of care
This kind of sewing structure was first studied and described by Guy Petherbridge[19] in the Patmos Monastery Library and by Konstantinos Houlis[20].
What is more difficult to understand is why Tischendorf describe finding the Codex split in many different locations in the Monastery. Could be possible that the Codex, at the time the German scholar saw it, was kept unbound for some reason?
SA: Wake up, little Suzies.
the good condition of the manuscript pages.
SA: consistent with a recent manuscript
33: Detail of overcasting sewing (thread and parchment) on the New Finds, Saint Catherine's Monastery[22]
[12] "There is conclusive evidence of at least two bindings. The first and probably the original binding was sewn by single threads of loosely twisted hemp. Only a few fragments of this have survived and there is not enough evidence to show how the leaves were sewn … The quires in the later binding were sewn with thick double hempen threads, some of witch were twisted together and some straight. This thread is indistinguishable in texture from the remaining fragments of the earlier single thread sewing. Some fragments from lightly twisted flax thread were also found, in one case knotted to the hempen thread of the later sewing." (Cockerell, Scribes and correctors, p. 82-83.
[13] "It is quite possible that this later binding was never actually completed." (Cockerell, Scribes and correctors, p. 83).
One obvious question. If the thread was "indistinguishable in texture", and there are only a few fragments of residue of the first, how sensible is it that they are thought to be totally different bindings separated by centuries?
And thus, where is the supposed conclusive evidence of two pre-Cockerell book bindings?
... the Codex was, at least for the last part of its life before arriving to Russia, bound together....
SA: this would be consistent with the binding seen by Uspensky before a Tischendorf mutilation.
but even with many repairs to the spine, sign of use, the Codex Sinaiticus does not bear an equal deterioration of the textual area, moreover sometimes it is possible to find stains on a page that are not showing visible offset on the following one, like on page 41 verso of the Old Testament compared to the following one on the recto and on page 73 verso compared to 74 recto
SA: Stain anomalies
Unfortunately the careful repairs made by Douglas Cockerell hided all these features at the point that was impossible to collect significant information from the inside of the text block.
Interestingly the text block still has what would be called the original fasciculation at the top left corner of many of the first page of the sections, this is a very small and close to the edges writing and usually, after the binding of a manuscript, was easily trimmed away.
This could indicate again that the edges, although certainly trimmed once, may not have been trimmed more than that. Another interesting feature related with the trimming of the fore-edge is the fore-edge "squiggle" (picture 19a-b).
This is an ink mark traced in the middle of each section almost in the centre of the fore edge of the pages, between the areas f and g in the reference grid used for the location of the areas on the pages.[15]
SA: Remember, Jongkind says the squiggles are not original
The previous binding was in a "Byzantine" style and that it was never sewn on supports as suggested by Douglas Cockerell.
SA: Thus, there is no real evidence of any pre-Byzantine binding.
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This report is also on the "no testing of materials or ink!" post. The focus here is rebinding.
Report on the different inks used in Codex Sinaiticus and assessment of their condition
Sara Mazzarino
http://codexsinaiticus.org/en/project/conservation_ink.aspx
Quire numbers are marks generally placed at the beginning or the end of a section to help maintain the right sequence of text in a manuscript. In Codex Sinaiticus, these marks appear, written in Greek numerals, on the top left side of the first folium on each quire. They are also repeated at the top right side of the same folium.Tischendorf suggested that the number on the left is the original, while the one on the right may be a later addition of the 8th century.[30]
Primary quire numbering
It is not clear who wrote these numbers or when in the history of the manuscript they were written.[31] However, it is possible that they were placed before the text was written in order to help the scribes calculate the distribution of their text. It is also possible that they have been added after the text was written, in order to assemble the sections correctly, before the book was bound.
[31] Milne and Skeat have suggested that the primary numbering is the original one, although not inserted by the scribes of the main text, while the secondary sequence was dated to the 8th century H.J.M. MILNE, T.C. SKEAT 1938, p.7. Kirsopp Lake as well gives the same interpretation in his facsimile of Codex Sinaiticus New Testament. See K. LAKE, H. LAKE, 1911, p. xviii.
SA Note: This means that, on the other hand, the text could have been fully complete before any quire numbers were put in. And that there a separate quire numbering does not by any means necessitate a separate binding.
The numbering is continuous from the Old Testament to the New Testament. However, the ink used for the Old Testament quire numbers and the one used for the New Testament have a different appearance. For this reason, they will be examined separately.
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more CSP
new 2009 conference book
(see my linkman with quire)
Note: the quires were considered proof of antiquity by Henry Bradshaw.
Very little information is given about the first set of quire numbers, two immediate questions would be:
a) are they uniform ink (also type, nature, etc)
b) are they uniform writing.
c) Also, could the script really be palaeographically dated to the 4th century? (As an example, look at the Hermas quire numbers, in the NT there is only one set.)
"the writer [SA: talking of the first set, but likely all quire numbers] cannot be identified with any of the scribes of the text."
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Note also that the three crosses note having to do with the bumbling duplicate Chronicles section is not considered as part of the original text.
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Scribes and Correctors is only put in piece-meal. (1/11/2016 - now full text available). Assistance rounding out important sections from someone with the book would be appreciated.
Scribes and Correctors of the Codex Sinaiticus (1938)
Herbert John Mansfield Milne, Theodore Cressy Skeat, Douglas Cockerell
Thus the original numeration allows for a whole quire (no. 73) between the Old and New Testament* as we see them to-day. By about the eighth century, however, the gap had been closed by renumbering the quires continuously. Of such an anomaly several explanations are possible:
(a) A simple mistake in the original numeration (so Tischendorf, Prolegomena n. 10. But assumption of a mistake is always undesirable; and in this case the Old Testament and New Testament were certainly numbered at different times, since the signatures in the Old Testament are a yellow-brown colour while those of the New Testament have a reddish tint. In such circumstances a mistake becomes difficult to understand.
(b) A whole quire between Job and Matthew has disappeared, and never been replaced. . This solution has been widely adopted, usually on the supposition (cf. Lake, O.T., p. xx) that the lost quire contained the Eusebian canon-tables, with, perhaps, the Letter to Carpianus.
.....
For this purpose we have compared the Codex with the Vaticanus and the Alexandrinus, both of which contain the Old Testament almost complete. By taking the books which are extant in all three manuscripts and contrasting the space they occupy in each, we can calculate the probable contents of the lost portions of the Sinaiticus, the two other manuscripts providing a double check. We would, however, emphasize the number of unanswerable questions — whether the lost quires of the Sinaiticus all uniformly consisted of eight leaves ; whether certain passages such as the long genealogical tables were written continuously, or with one item to each line, as frequently elsewhere in the manuscript; how much space was left blank at the end of each book; and so on.
ORIGINAL CONTENTS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT
The portions or the Old Testament covered by the Codex in its present condition are specified in the table printed on pp. 94-112 below: here an attempt will be made to determine the probable
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I . THE LOST INITIAL QUIRES - The intrusive section of 1 Chronicles
Before we consider the contents of the lost beginning it is necessary to explain the anomaly with which the extant portion of the manuscript opens. The first five consecutive leaves contain I Chronicles ix. 117—xix. 17, but at the end of this passnge, in line 36 of the last column on the verso of the fifth leaf, the text skips without warning into the midst of 2 Esdras ix. 9, and continues normally from that point onwards of the page in which the change-over occurs (see Fig. 2), a scribe of perhaps the seventh or eighth century (certainly not the corrector C* as is generally stated) has written three crosses and, in the vacant space below the text, the following note: (pic of 3 crosses with Greek)
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New Testament Manuscripts: Their Texts and Their World (2006)
edited by Thomas J. Kraus, Tobias Nicklas
One Codex, Three Scribes, and Many Books: Struggles with Space in Codex Sinaiticus, (2006) -p. 121-136
Dirk Jongkind
=======
P. 121
When the British Museum acquired Codex Sinaiticus in the 1930s, it was decided that a thorough study of the paleographical and codicological features should be made. The task was assigned to H.J.M. Milne and T.C. Skeat and resulted in the 1938 monograph Scribes and Correctors of the Codex Sinaiticus.1 The study of the scribal hands led to the identification of three main scribes; this was in contrast to Tischendorf, who determined four different hands.2 The work originally attributed to scribe C was assigned to scribes A and D, with the result that the remaining; labels of the scribal hands were A, B, and D.3 Also the numerous corrections of the text were reassigned by Milne and Skeat, resulting in all the early corrections (pre-'C corrector') being attributed to one of the scribes of the main text.
The codicological description of the Sinaiticus is an invaluable aspect of Scribes and Correctors. As it was decided that the codex should be rebound into two volumes, part of the evidence regarding earlier bindings and the formation of the quires was destroyed. p. 121
in some cases we have to rely upon the description by Milne and Skeat as the original data cannot be checked any longer p. 122 ... (SA Note: Thank you, David Cockerell)
2 ...The first verses of the New Testament were not published by Tischendorf but by the archimandrite Porfiri Uspenski who has included a plate of parts of 1 Corinthians 13 in a book on his travels to the Middle East (P. Porfiri, Vostok khristianskii: Egipet i Sinai; bidy, ocherki, plany i nadpisi. 2 vols. [St. Petersburg 1857]). p. 121
5 ... Though this suggests that one quire was lost between Job and Matthew, Milne and Skeat have argued that this so-called 'missing quire' never existed but was only intended to be included later on. p. 122 ...
The basic physical unit of the codex is the quaternion, a gathering or quire of four sheets folded together. Thus, each quire consists of four sheets and eight folios, what makes 16 pages.4 Assuming that Hermas was the last book included in the original codex, it must have contained around 95 quires, of which 50 survive almost completely. Not all the extant quires are regular. Three quires, which started their life as standard eight-folio quires, have their last one or two folios cut out, apparently because these were left blank. 5 Three other quires have less folios, because they were formed by using only one, two or three sheets.6 p. 122
... The almost monotonous feel of page after page of the same lay-out is only broken by the transition from one book to the other and by the many corrections, most of which derive from a period of time two or three centuries after the writing of the original text. p. 122
5
Quire 58 (the end of the Dodekapropheton; two folios removed), quire 78 (the end of Luke; one folio removed), and quire 80 (the end of John; two folios removed). In the New Testament the count of the secondary quire numbering, which was added a few centuries after the making of the manuscript, is one number lower than the original numbering. Though this suggests that one quire was lost between Job and Matthew, Milne and Skeat have argued that this so-called 'missing quire' never existed but was only intended to be included later on. In this paper we follow the secondary quire numbering. See Milne—Skeat, Scribes and Correctors, 7-9. Throughout this paper, individual folios of Sinaiticus are numbered according to their place in a quire and the numbering in the two facsimile volumes by Lake ...
6
Namely quires 40, 90 and 91.
....It is impossible to prove any of the three explanations above empirically. Yet the common element in each of these suggestions is that Sinaiticus does not display a level of professionalism that one would expect in a scriptorium that produces such volumes on a regular basis. p. 130
The picture that emerges from our brief enquiry into the relationship between quires and changes of scribal hands is that, as would be expected, the scribes worked concurrently on various parts of the manuscript, but that this splitting up of the work was not executed with the fluency one might expect in an established and experienced scriptorium (as we know it, e.g. from early medieval monasteries). This can be explained in two ways: either the phenomenon of producing a codex of this size was so new that the scriptorium was still experimenting with the correct approach,27 or the codex was produced outside a major centre and at a locality where there was demand for a large Bible but where one lacked the experience to produce one. .. p. 134-135
27 This view is more or less implied in Skeat, "The 'Codex Sinaiticus', the 'Codex Vaticanus' and Constantine," 583—598.
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Scribal Habits of Codex Sinaiticus
Dirk Jongkind
"A feature of Sinaiticus which has escaped notice so far is set of markings in the outer margins of both pages of many of the central openings of the quires.. these markings can only have served the binders of the manuscript. However, given the heavy hue of the ink it is unlikely that the markings come from the original scriptorium. It is more likely that they belong to the rebinding of the manuscript, possibly connected with the so-called C correctors who worked sometime between the fifth and eight centuries" 11 p. 32 (squiggles on CSP site)
11 Brigitte Mondrain mentions two examples of codices in which the centre of a quire is marked ... Her examples date from the fourteenth and fifteenth century.
2011.06.05 | Dirk Jongkind. Scribal Habits of Codex Sinaiticus. Texts and Studies 5; Piscataway, NJ: Gorgias, 2007. Pp. xvii + 323. ISBN: 9781593334222. Hardback Reviewed by Dan Batovici, University of St Andrews.
http://rbecs.org/2011/06/02/scribal-habits-of-codex-sinaiticus/
https://docs.google.com/viewer?url=...ta/publicatii/sacra_scripta/2011/jongkind.pdf
.. Jongkind finds Milne and Skeat's argument (with regards to the use of red ink in Psalms) that scribes were not able to calculate the space required by a given text 'dubious' (38) and sets out to prove that the evidence supports the opposite view. It is then perhaps surprising that the explanation offered for the peculiar situation of Barnabas' quires involves a several-pages-long wrong estimation of the space needed for the text (50-1).
As an aside, Jongkind noticed the marks "which have escaped notice so far" (32) on the middle folios of each quire. They are thought to have served in the binding of the manuscript and are now referred to as squiqqles on the Codex Sinaiticus website.
....The analysis of ihe Eusebian apparatus reveals that it 'betrays a corruption in the transmission history of the apparatus between its inception and inclusion in Sinaiticus' (120), being, thus perhaps a generation remove from the original. ....Furthermore, the not that pure form of the Eusebian apparatus seems to "suggest a certain distance from its source" (253).
As a note, in the numbering of the quires, Jongkind follows Milne-Skeat in using the number "visible in the top right corner of the first page of each quire" (2). The Codex Sinaiticus Project website numbers the quires according to the top left comer numbering of the same first quire page. This means that, beyond the Old Testament books, the reader will have to add 1 to Jongkind's quire number to find it on the website.
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Codicology: the history of the structural features of the Codex Sinaiticus
Flavio Marzo
http://codexsinaiticus.org/en/project/conservation_codicology.aspx
Codex Sinaiticus in the past
There are not many clear signs or indications about the structure of the Codex Sinaiticus during its more then 1600 years of existence.
Some of the Russian fragments (like some of the New Finds in the Saint Catherine Monastery)[8] show evidences of folded lines that may suggest they were reused as cover material (picture 10).
[8] Twelve leaves and forty fragments remain at Saint Catherine's Monastery, recovered by the monks from the northern wall of the monastery in June 1975.
Codex Sinaiticus and hypothesis of previous sewing structures
There are several questions which arise from the history of the Codex. Why was the manuscript not bound at the time Tischendorf saw it in the Monastery? Why was the manuscript not bound until the one given to it by Cockerell in the 20th century? These are important and interesting questions related not only to the structural features of the book but to the history of the use of the Codex.
For the second question there may be an easy answer. After the Codex was removed from the St. Catherine's Monastery there were many studies carried out on it and all addressed to the textual and palaeographical part of the manuscript. The first published version of Codex Sinaiticus dated 1862, was a full size facsimile in specially cut type ordered by Tischendorf. After this edition there is the publication of two photographic facsimiles the first one dated 1911 (New Testament) and the other dated 1922 (Old Testament) by Kirsopp Lake, an English biblical scholar (1872-1946).
This may be the reason why the manuscript was dis-bound and kept unbound, to allow for an easier consultation and reproduction of the text for all these different publications. Also, the fact that the book was kept in a metal box (pictures 11 to 15) specially made for the Codex itself suggests an intention to keep it unbound for a quite long time.
SA: All of this is predicated on accepting the tissuedorfs. More likely: Tischendorf took the 43 leaves from a bound manuscript in 1844, seen by Uspensky in 1845, disbound in the mutilations of Tischendorf in the 1850s.
In 1938 ... report Douglas Cockerel... He removed many fragments of thread from the gutter of the sections, many of these threads coming from repairs made on the gutters (overcasting sewing) and some that he assigned to previous sewing,[10] some of these are now housed in a bound book kept in the British Library as part of his archive.[11]
He identified at least two different kinds of thread that he ascribes to two different sewing structures.[12]He is assuming that the "second" and last sewing was made in the work shop in the Saint Catherine's Monastery, after the first visit of Tischendorf but in some way never finished,[13] this was just assumed because there were no sign of board attachments that were may be removed when the manuscript was took to Russia. .... In his report Douglas Cockerell described the "last sewing" as a supported sewing. There is no evidence from his report or the collected fragments of threads[16] (picture 26) of any remaining of cords or other material that could be recognised as supports. It is very difficult to say anything for certain as the current bound state of the Codex does not give the opportunity to check the spine and to recognise visible signs of sewing stations but it is possible to add some more hypotheses. In Douglas Cockerell's report there are some interesting pictures of the spine with 4 irregular lines of marks on the outer side of the gutter, presumably, corresponding with the last sewing stations (pictures 27 and 28). ... an unsupported sewing done without a lot of care
This kind of sewing structure was first studied and described by Guy Petherbridge[19] in the Patmos Monastery Library and by Konstantinos Houlis[20].
What is more difficult to understand is why Tischendorf describe finding the Codex split in many different locations in the Monastery. Could be possible that the Codex, at the time the German scholar saw it, was kept unbound for some reason?
SA: Wake up, little Suzies.
the good condition of the manuscript pages.
SA: consistent with a recent manuscript
33: Detail of overcasting sewing (thread and parchment) on the New Finds, Saint Catherine's Monastery[22]
[12] "There is conclusive evidence of at least two bindings. The first and probably the original binding was sewn by single threads of loosely twisted hemp. Only a few fragments of this have survived and there is not enough evidence to show how the leaves were sewn … The quires in the later binding were sewn with thick double hempen threads, some of witch were twisted together and some straight. This thread is indistinguishable in texture from the remaining fragments of the earlier single thread sewing. Some fragments from lightly twisted flax thread were also found, in one case knotted to the hempen thread of the later sewing." (Cockerell, Scribes and correctors, p. 82-83.
[13] "It is quite possible that this later binding was never actually completed." (Cockerell, Scribes and correctors, p. 83).
One obvious question. If the thread was "indistinguishable in texture", and there are only a few fragments of residue of the first, how sensible is it that they are thought to be totally different bindings separated by centuries?
And thus, where is the supposed conclusive evidence of two pre-Cockerell book bindings?
... the Codex was, at least for the last part of its life before arriving to Russia, bound together....
SA: this would be consistent with the binding seen by Uspensky before a Tischendorf mutilation.
but even with many repairs to the spine, sign of use, the Codex Sinaiticus does not bear an equal deterioration of the textual area, moreover sometimes it is possible to find stains on a page that are not showing visible offset on the following one, like on page 41 verso of the Old Testament compared to the following one on the recto and on page 73 verso compared to 74 recto
SA: Stain anomalies
Unfortunately the careful repairs made by Douglas Cockerell hided all these features at the point that was impossible to collect significant information from the inside of the text block.
Interestingly the text block still has what would be called the original fasciculation at the top left corner of many of the first page of the sections, this is a very small and close to the edges writing and usually, after the binding of a manuscript, was easily trimmed away.
This could indicate again that the edges, although certainly trimmed once, may not have been trimmed more than that. Another interesting feature related with the trimming of the fore-edge is the fore-edge "squiggle" (picture 19a-b).
This is an ink mark traced in the middle of each section almost in the centre of the fore edge of the pages, between the areas f and g in the reference grid used for the location of the areas on the pages.[15]
SA: Remember, Jongkind says the squiggles are not original
The previous binding was in a "Byzantine" style and that it was never sewn on supports as suggested by Douglas Cockerell.
SA: Thus, there is no real evidence of any pre-Byzantine binding.
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This report is also on the "no testing of materials or ink!" post. The focus here is rebinding.
Report on the different inks used in Codex Sinaiticus and assessment of their condition
Sara Mazzarino
http://codexsinaiticus.org/en/project/conservation_ink.aspx
1.2 Quire numbering
Quire numbers are marks generally placed at the beginning or the end of a section to help maintain the right sequence of text in a manuscript. In Codex Sinaiticus, these marks appear, written in Greek numerals, on the top left side of the first folium on each quire. They are also repeated at the top right side of the same folium.Tischendorf suggested that the number on the left is the original, while the one on the right may be a later addition of the 8th century.[30]
Primary quire numbering
It is not clear who wrote these numbers or when in the history of the manuscript they were written.[31] However, it is possible that they were placed before the text was written in order to help the scribes calculate the distribution of their text. It is also possible that they have been added after the text was written, in order to assemble the sections correctly, before the book was bound.
[31] Milne and Skeat have suggested that the primary numbering is the original one, although not inserted by the scribes of the main text, while the secondary sequence was dated to the 8th century H.J.M. MILNE, T.C. SKEAT 1938, p.7. Kirsopp Lake as well gives the same interpretation in his facsimile of Codex Sinaiticus New Testament. See K. LAKE, H. LAKE, 1911, p. xviii.
SA Note: This means that, on the other hand, the text could have been fully complete before any quire numbers were put in. And that there a separate quire numbering does not by any means necessitate a separate binding.
The numbering is continuous from the Old Testament to the New Testament. However, the ink used for the Old Testament quire numbers and the one used for the New Testament have a different appearance. For this reason, they will be examined separately.
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more CSP
new 2009 conference book
(see my linkman with quire)
Note: the quires were considered proof of antiquity by Henry Bradshaw.
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