debunking maybe the sinaiticus-simonides connection - Steven Avery on TC-Alternate

Steven Avery

Administrator
October, 2013. - thought Bill Brown put it into BVDB as well, checking to see if I got an email.
 
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Steven Avery

Administrator
Hi,

Subject was:
[TC-Alternate-list] Daniel Wallace and Chris Pinto on Sinaiticus and Simonides - the Vitaliano Donati 1761 report

Mike

James, You comments are much appreciated. Is there a thread or article you have written with this information? I would be very interested.

Steven
Afaik, the best info is in this forum. Maybe James will write his summary paper.

These two were two of the original James Snapp contributions, when Ben was very sympathetic to the Simonides idea and active with interesting resources.

[TC-Alternate-list] Sinaiticus Is Not a Forgery
James Snapp
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/TC-Alternate-list/message/4718 Nov 18, 2011
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/TC-Alternate-list/message/4740 Nov 20, 2011 - a summary of difficulties

And I added some similar thoughts here.

[TC-Alternate-list] Sinaiticus-Tischendorf and the Simonides scribal claims, the Uspenski opposition, the integrity issues all around
Steven Avery - Nov 21, 2011
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/TC-Alternate-list/message/4748
... I am curious if James agrees that my list can be added to the five or so that he gives, in which case the list will start with about 10 major problems.

Note that I used some of the concerns in my post at the bottom here, however it was just a blog, so not much was included:

Answering Dr. Daniel Wallace on Codex Sinaiticus & the Simonides Affair
Wed. October 2. 2013 - NOTRADIO
http://www.noiseofthunder.com/artic...wallace-on-codex-sinaiticus-the-simonide.html
http://www.noiseofthunder.com/artic...wallace-on-codex-sinaiticus-the-simonide.html
Then we have the list from James below:

the cancel-sheets, the notes about the Pamphilian exemplar, the differences in handwriting, the stages of correction, the supplemental binding, the exceptionally obscure readings, the quirks in the Eusebian Section-numbers, etc., etc.

Generally, the weaker points are the ones brought up by Daniel Wallace, answered by Chris Pinto. Some points that are raised by James seem to have been addressed in various ways during the debate. e.g. Simonides specifically claimed three or four people had mucked around with the manuscript and named them (whether the names wash is another debate). The exceptionally obscure readings (including the blunderama aspect of the manuscript) can be argued for various historical and scribal possibilities, some conspiratorial. Even the issue of calling the manuscript a claimed forgery, when the Simonides claim was not that of a forgery, is complex.

Personally I remain interested, not convinced of anything. There are so many strange anomalies involved. The 1975 discoveries only added a layer of fascinating perplexity. I asked whether the James Keith Elliott book (about $75) really contributes much to the evidence, or is it basically a rehash of the earlier debate, much of which is on the net. Also I wonder if Dirk Jongkind's scribal habits book on Sinaiticus can be used for any potentially probative arguments.

James did a far better critique of the Chris Pinto emphasis than Daniel Wallace.

Plus, on this forum there are a number of posts on the Tischendorf-Sinaiticus issues, his deception and trickery in procuring the Sinaiticus manuscript, without necessarily having a direct connection to Simonides. Yet all the anomalies involving Tischendorf definitely are fuel for counter-theories.

Possibly separate from Chris Pinto, the poster here in 2012 raised some interesting issues, the mindset is a tad conspiratorial.

rejoice44 - Norm
http://bibleforums.org/showthread.php/236213-Which-translation-is-correct?p=2826517#post2826517
From p. 8 to 14

The question about the textual corruption/addition in Sinaiticus and Alexandrinus on 1 John 5:6 is fascinating.

Oh, in our archives we have the related James White boomerang bombast.

James White (any "scholar") myths about Codex Sinaiticus - Alan Kurschner redux
Steven Avery - August 10, 2013
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/TC-Alternate-list/message/5760
any "scholar" who can't even get this story straight is not really worth reading, to be honest
- James White 3/15/2006

Archived at:

[TC-Alternate-list] debunking, maybe, the Sinaiticus-Simonides connection
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/TC-Alternate-list/message/5834
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/TC-Alternate-list/message/5834
Shalom,
Steven Avery
Bayside, NY

==============================

James Snapp
Monday, October 7, 2013 12:21 PM

Mike,

Burgon believed that the Byzantine Text was the closest representative to the original NT text. He regarded the Alexandrian Text to be largely the result of a combination of editorial tampering and scribal incompetence. But he did not regard Codex Sinaiticus as a counterfeit created by Constantine Simonides. By "fabricated text," Burgon meant that the text had been produced via intentional editing prior to the mid-300's, not by anyone in the 1800's.

It looks to me like Chris Pinto is determined to take the theory that Sinaiticus was created by Simonides into his coming debate with James White, which would invite disaster, and squander a golden opportunity to showcase some of the weak points in White's promotions of the Alexandrian Text. I have tried to show him the materials that plainly show that Simonides cannot be the producer of Sinaiticus -- the cancel-sheets, the notes about the Pamphilian exemplar, the differences in handwriting, the stages of correction, the supplemental binding, the exceptionally obscure readings, the quirks in the Eusebian Section-numbers, etc., etc. Nevertheless, as far as I can tell, he has not abandoned the forgery-theory. Others are welcome to invest their time and energy into the effort -- but I am not sure that Chris Pinto is making his best effort to understand the evidence against the theory (because if he were, he would abandon the theory).

What Pinto should focus on, when considering Wallace's video-lecture, is that Wallace's account of how Tischendorf acquired (parts of) Codex Sinaiticus collides hard with White's account as presented in "The KJV-Only Controversy."

Mike,
Friends, I was reading some of this great info, and I came across something interesting. Not every scholar and Church minister was delighted about the codex. Burgon, a supporter of the Textus Receptus, suggested that Codex Sinaiticus, as well as codices Vaticanus and Codex Bezae, were the most corrupt documents extant. Each of these three codices "clearly exhibits a fabricated text – is the result of arbiitrary and reckless recension." The two most weighty of these three codices, × and B, he likens to the "two false witnesses" of Matthew 26:60 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Codex_Sinaiticus#Simonides

From: Steven Avery
Sent: Saturday, October 5, 2013 9:21 AM
Subject: [TC-Alternate-list] Daniel Wallace and Chris Pinto on Sinaiticus and Simonides - the Vitaliano Donati 1761 report

The radio show Noise of Thunder:
Noise of Thunder-The Pope, Spurgeon & Dr. Daniel Wallace - 10.4.13
The Pope, Spurgeon & Dr. Daniel Wallace
http://www.noiseofthunder.com/show-downloads/

has a radio broadcast from yesterday where Chris Pinto answers Daniel Wallace. The Daniel Wallace presentation I think is on utube, part of a talk he gave, not an article. And I don't see it on a quick check, the points made by Wallace seem to be fairly encapsulated in the Chris Pinto response (I did see it a while back).

The column with a similar presentation from Chris Pinto is here:

Answering Dr. Daniel Wallace on Codex Sinaiticus & the Simonides Affair
Wednesday, October 2, 2013 - NOTRADIO
http://www.noiseofthunder.com/artic...wallace-on-codex-sinaiticus-the-simonide.html

You can see a post of mine at the bottom there.
In the radio broadcast, I did notice that Chris did not give the full text from Vitaliano Donati in 1761, which is given online as:

Codex Sinaiticus
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Codex_Sinaiticus

"In questo monastero ritrovai una quantità grandissima di codici membranacei... ve ne sono alcuni che mi sembravano anteriori al settimo secolo, ed in ispecie una Bibbia in membrane bellissime, assai grandi, sottili, e quadre, scritta in carattere rotondo e belissimo; conservano poi in chiesa un Evangelistario greco in caractere d'oro rotondo, che dovrebbe pur essere assai antico".

In this monastery I found a great number of parchment codices ... there are some which seemed to be written before the seventh century, and especially a Bible (made) of beautiful vellum, very large, thin and square parchments, written in round and very beautiful letters; moreover there are also in the church a Greek Evangelistarium in gold and round letters, it should be very old.

Most importantly, Chris omitted "which seemed to be written before the seventh century". This should have been included, although his response may still be valid, that there it is very far from a definite identification of Codex Sinaiticus. Which could easily have included notes about specific Sinaiticus features.

And I did find the Donati words online from 1873 at:

Atti della Reale Accademia delle scienze di Torino, Volume 8 (1873)

In 1922 the Donati word history is discussed, connected to Sinaiticus

The Periodical, Volume 8, Issue 116
Codex Sinaiticus (1922)
http://books.google.com/books?id=IL7fAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA22

That in this way Teschendorf rightly earned the fame of discovering this valuable MS. would be denied by no one; but M. Seymour de Ricci, in the Revue Archéologique, 1909, pointed out that it was probably seen as early as 1761 by the Italian traveller, Vitaliano Donati, in his visit to Mt. Sinai. Donati's diary is still unpublished, but extracts were made from it by G. Lumbroso in the Atti della R. Accademia dei Lincei in 1879, in which the following statement is found:

"In questo monastero ritrovai una quantità grandissima di codici membranacei... ve ne sono alcuni che mi sembravano anteriori al settimo secolo, ed in ispecie una Bibbia in membrane bellissime, assai grandi, sottili, e quadre, scritta in carattere rotondo e belissimo; conservano poi in chiesa un Evangelistario greco in caractere d'oro rotondo, che dovrebbe pur essere assai antico".

The MS. in gold letters is no doubt the Evangelistarium Aureum (Gregory Evst. 300) which is still shown to travellers, and the "Bibbia" may well be, as M. de Ricci suggests, the Codex Sinaitieus.


This is taken from Kirsopp and Helen Lake, it says "to be published by", yet this has an earlier date of 1911. Here is the addition from the book that is not in the article above:

Codex Sinaiticus Petropolitanus: The New Testament The Epistle of Barnabas and the Shepherd of Hermas (1911)
Kirsopp Lake

The objection the script is described as 'rotondo' is adequately met by the fact that the Evangelistariam Aureum, which is also 'rotondo' is an uncial: no doubt Donati meant to distinguish the script from the narrow contracted type of uncial found in some late MSS.

Archived at:

[TC-Alternate-list] Daniel Wallace and Chris Pinto on Sinaiticus and Simonides - the Vitaliano Donati 1761 report
 
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Steven Avery

Administrator
(Avery stated on November 20, 2011 - "However, personal I really do not see any mileage in the Simonides -->Sinaiticus position. The obstacles are just too huge. Sometimes issues are, in fact, clear cut."
 

Steven Avery

Administrator
Bill Brown again, still trying to defend the absurd boomerang attack of James White:
https://www.tapatalk.com/groups/bib...-debate-the-world-s-old-t6308-s60.html#p81403
" (I will never understand why you pretend to not get that White's point - that Stauffer conveniently didn't mention - was the red cloth. You pretending like White doesn't know the CFA is part of Aleph may make you feel intellectually superior to White (although your narcissism already does so anyway despite the fact you have no reason to think this way), but you not getting what he's saying doesn't really commend you). "

Who cares if Stauffer was 100% right or 100% complete or not? Secondary issue.
In fact I wrote specifically that he was wrong:

Stauffer’s statement is incorrect, not only because Tischendorf’s story that he found pages from Codex Sinaiticus in a basket, about to be burned, is extremely dubious, but because Tischendorf’s first encounter with pages from Codex Sinaiticus occurred in 1844, not in 1859.

======================

Then we get to the James White super-blunder, attacking anyone who does not get the Sinaiticus discovery story right:

James White boomerang - any 'scholar' who can't even get this story straight ...
https://www.purebibleforum.com/inde...ar-who-cant-even-get-this-story-straight.286/


And the first specific post:
https://www.purebibleforum.com/inde...nt-even-get-this-story-straight.286/#post-612

“Any “scholar” who can’t even get this story straight is not really worth reading”

James White dropped all discussion of his blunder.
So we have the Bill Brown shill.
 
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