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[Steven Avery]

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Oct 2, 2023
In Acts, there are two embedded epistles which end with ερρωσθαι/ερρωσο ("farewell, goodbye") in 15:23-29 and 23:26-30 In both epistle endings, Codex Sinaiticus centers the farewell on its own line, before continuing with the text of Acts

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In Acts, there are two embedded epistles which end with ερρωσθαι/ερρωσο ("farewell, goodbye") in 15:23-29 and 23:26-30 In both epistle endings, Codex Sinaiticus centers the farewell on its own line, before continuing with the text of Acts

scriptio continua
short text lines in Codex Sinaiticus, particularly in specialized sections like New Testament lists or genealogies, are often referred to as cola et commata (or colometry), meaning "clauses and phrases". This layout arranges text in sense-lines, where each unit of meaning gets its own line, rather than filling the entire page width.

 

[Steven Avery]

"scriptio continua"

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Nelson Hsieh
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·
Oct 2, 2023


In Acts, there are two embedded epistles which end with ερρωσθαι/ερρωσο ("farewell, goodbye") in 15:23-29 and 23:26-30 In both epistle endings, Codex Sinaiticus centers the farewell on its own line, before continuing with the text of Acts










Nelson Hsieh
@nelson_hsieh7
·
Oct 2, 2023

In total for the entire New Testament of Codex Sinaiticus, I found this kind of formatting 37x, plus twice in Barnabas (19:4; 20:1) But some lists like Rom 1:29-31, Phil 4:8, Jas 3:17 were NOT formatted this way


Nelson Hsieh
@nelson_hsieh7
·
Oct 2, 2023
Thanks for reading! If you find threads like this helpful, follow me
@nelson_hsieh7
for more on ancient manuscripts and the Greek NT And like/repost the beginning of this thread if you can:

Nelson Hsieh
@nelson_hsieh7·
Oct 2, 2023
Ancient manuscripts were usually written without spaces between words ("scriptio continua"), so scribes created neat, tightly packed rectangular columns with very little blank space But Codex Sinaiticus breaks from this usual pattern when writing long lists and I think...






















Stuart Weeks

@StuartWeeks
·Oct 3, 2023
I wonder if this isn't similar to the 'bricking'/'half-bricking' technique used in Masoretic Hebrew mss, at, e.g. Ecc 3.2-8, Est 9.7-9 and Josh 12.9-21. There it seems to be a scribal way of avoiding errors in repetitious lists by making them easier to follow/copy.


Nelson Hsieh
@nelson_hsieh7
Oct 3, 2023
Yes, that’s true, it could be partly to help the scribe in copying. there are a few places where the scribe of Sinaitcus begins normally then shifts to this kind of formatting about midway through a long list, so it was a deliberate choice but not always followed.

Nerdy Biblical Language Majors | Ancient manuscripts were usually written without spaces between words ("scriptio continua"), so scribes created neat, tightly packed rectangular colum... | Facebook

Ancient manuscripts were usually written without spaces between words ("scriptio continua"), so scribes created neat, tightly packed rectangular columns with very little blank space (see 1st image...

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Nelson Hsieh ·

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Ancient manuscripts were usually written without spaces between words ("scriptio continua"), so scribes created neat, tightly packed rectangular columns with very little blank space (see 1st image below).

But Codex Sinaiticus breaks from this usual pattern when writing long lists…

(Twitter version of this post is easier to follow because there’s lot of images:
https://bit.ly/3REmgkz ).

The 2nd image below is Luke's geneaology in Luke 3, which stands out dramatically from the usual way of writing in neat, tightly packed columns.

I think the effect of Codex Sinaiticus's "breathing room" is to slow down the reader since we often read quickly through long lists.

The 3rd image below is the famous passage on love in 1 Cor 13:4-7 in Codex Sinaiticus; and compare what the same passage looks like in Codex Alexandrinus and Codex Vaticanus (see 4th and 5th images below).

Sinaiticus looks a bit "messy," but the change of formatting still draws attention to itself.

In the 6th image below is 2 Peter 1:5-7, where it's not quite a list, but a series of prepositional phrases:
"make every effort to supplement your faith with virtue, and virtue with knowledge, and knowledge with self-control, etc..."
so Sinaiticus uses the paragraphus mark (a horizontal bar) as well to mark off each prepositional phrase.

In Acts, there are two embedded epistles which end with ερρωσθαι/ερρωσο ("farewell, goodbye") in 15:23-29 and 23:26-30.

In both epistle endings, Codex Sinaiticus centers the farewell on its own line, before continuing with the text of Acts (see 7th and 8th images below).

In total for the entire New Testament of Codex Sinaiticus, I found this kind of formatting 37x, plus twice in Barnabas (19:4; 20:1)
But some lists like Rom 1:29-31, Phil 4:8, Jas 3:17 were NOT formatted this way.
It’s helpful to see these different kinds of formatting, even if it’s just scribal interpretation. It encourages us to read slower and more thoughtfully when encountering long lists.

 

[Steven Avery]

tiny letters that frequently occur at the end of the line

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Nerdy Biblical Language Majors​

Павло Кілометренко ·rnospSotde0u1bt6r7mv0N2852o5e1 4m07iugfe438f3105i13h29 m0,u2 ·

Matthew 13:15b in Codex Sinaiticus.
What is the deal with the tiny letters that frequently occur at the end of the line?

Byron G. Curtis
Those letters are part of the Greek text. The words are incomplete without them. After the main work of copying, a careful crew of scribes had the new text reviewed and corrected. In the case of Codex Sinaiticus, a meticulous text, there were 12-14 letters per column, all in capitals, omitting all spacing, with about 40 lines per column, and usually four columns per page. The idea was that no changes could be made that weren't obvious: no sneakily corrupting the text! The hand of the corrector is therefore obvious: smaller letters, and often in different handwriting. A text like Sinaiticus was not made for public reading, but to serve as a master text for copyists.

Павло Кілометренко
Thanks!
If I understand, you're saying that the original omitted these letters intentionally, and then they were added in there later not as corrections, but as clarifications? In other words, the original guy did not accidentally omit all of these letters by mistake.

Jeff Miller
Small letters often end a line, in various manuscripts not only Sinaiticus, to more or less justify the right margin (Metzger, MSS of the Gk Bible pg. 80). However, they often don't result in justification, at least by our standards, so it seems that these curiously small line-ending letters were considered elegant/calligraphic even though we instead see them as oddities. I don't think the explanation above (if I understand it correctly) pans out, for if the small line-ending letters are from correctors then hundreds of lines in various mss end with corrections.

Павло Кілометренко
In the above picture, the 4th line has 12 full sized characters and enough space for a full-sized epsilon, but he stops short and continues on the next line. It looks like there might be a few rules colliding together to get a tiny epsilon in a big space

Tyler Archibald
Павло Кілометренко maybe he realized that the enormous Ψ wasn't going to fit after all

 

[Steven Avery]

William Varner

Nerdy Biblical Language Majors | This morning I finished reading Acts 1-28 in Codex Sinaiticus | Facebook

This morning I finished reading Acts 1-28 in Codex Sinaiticus. I tried to make it a devotional as well as an academic experience. I was struck this time not only with the alternative spellings due to...

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William Varner ·
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This morning I finished reading Acts 1-28 in Codex Sinaiticus. I tried to make it a devotional as well as an academic experience. I was struck this time not only with the alternative spellings due to iotacism, but with the many simple misspellings on the part of the scribe(s). He found some of his mistakes and a later corrector also did. But some slipped through. Reminds me of proofing a manuscript today before publication! By the way, in addition to the online Sinaiticus, courtesy of the British Library, Logos also has it.

 

[Steven Avery]

Ending of Mark
Robert Dunn
https://www.facebook.com/groups/11404207692/posts/10161601343492693/

NA28 without Vat or Sin
Jeff Cate
https://www.facebook.com/groups/11404207692/posts/10161246035127693/

British Library PIC
David Yuen
https://www.facebook.com/groups/11404207692/posts/10160883993427693/
Codex Sinaiticus currently open to John 20:1 - 21:25— at British Library.

https://www.facebook.com/groups/11404207692/posts/10159530673112693/
Codex Sinaiticus open to the end of Lamentations and the beginning of Song of Songs.
Codex Alexandrinus open to the end of Luke and the beginning of John.

Nelson Hsieh
Psalm 151
https://www.facebook.com/groups/11404207692/posts/10160254948412693/
PSALM 151?
Today, I recorded a podcast on the Reformation & Textual Criticism; one of the debates with the Catholic Church was over the canon and the Apocrypha like Tobit, Maccabees, Psalm 151.
I've always wondered about how Codices Sinaiticus and Vaticanus contain non-canonical books, not just for the Old Testament Apocrypha, but Sinaiticus also has Epistle of Barnabas and Shepherd of Hermas.
So I wanted to see if the scribes had any canon consciousness and if they visually differentiated non-canonical material.
It's interesting how Codex Sinaiticus and Vaticanus handle so-called "Psalm 151"
If you know the Book of Psalms, it's supposed to only have 150 psalms. But both Codex Sinaiticus and Codex Vaticanus include Psalm 151.
But they present it differently...
After Psalm 151, Codex Sinaiticus has a subscription:
"The Psalms of David, 151"
However, Codex Sinaiticus gives a number to each psalm, but does NOT label Psalm 151 with the numeral 151.
Was this an intentional withholding? Or the scribe forgot?
In contrast, Codex Vaticanus clearly separates Psalm 150 & 151.
After Ps 150, a subscription reads:
"The Book of Psalms, 150"
The scribes leaves the rest of the column blank, then gives Psalm 151 on the next page.
Is there a canon consciousness here, that Psalm 151 doesn't belong?
I think so, at least more so in Vaticanus.
How else to explain the differentiation visually (in Vaticanus, the subscription is between Psalms 150 and 151, and the total count is 150) and paratextually (Sinaiticus withholds its usual marginal numeration from Psalm 151)?
How do you make sense of Sinaiticus and Vaticanus have non-canonical material?

 

[Steven Avery]

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Juan Hernandez Jr.​

The ECM Rev's new apparatus now includes a singular reading from Sinaiticus-Rev 21:17 once universally thought to be nonsense (and excluded) until it was found to be a sensible reading reflecting an itacism. Some commentaries have already started to take note (e.g., Koester, Huber). Original argument here: https://www.academia.edu/.../A_Scribal_Solution_to_a...— with Christian Askeland 3 others

A Scribal Solution to a Problematic Measurement in the Apocalypse

Orthographic variation within the manuscripts of the Greek NT is seldom a cause célèbre beyond the ranks of diehard textual critics. Even among these most will concede that orthographic irregularities amount to little more than evidence of scribal

www.academia.edu

All reactions:
2525

 

[Steven Avery]

https://www.facebook.com/groups/11404207692/posts/10159769621117693/
Clark Bates
Andrew Patton reminded me of this wonderful article by Patrick Andrist on the codicology of the endings of Mark in the major Pandects and I thought I would share it here:

Physical Discontinuities in the Transitions between the Gospels: Reassessing the Ending of Mark in Codex Sinaiticus, Vaticanus and Alexandrinus
Andrist, Patrick

Physical Discontinuities in the Transitions between the Gospels: Reassessing the Ending of Mark in Codex Sinaiticus, Vaticanus and Alexandrinus

It is widely recognized that the ending of Mark in the Codex Sinaiticus, Vaticanus and Alexandrinus presents some physical peculiarities in terms of the layout, quire structure and handwriting. This paper reconsiders these peculiarities from a codicological perspective. The main focus is on the...

www.fdr.uni-hamburg.de

 

[Steven Avery]

New Testament Textual Criticism | Anyone know of any specific studies of how much % the Westcott and Hort text was made up of the readings of | Facebook

Anyone know of any specific studies of how much % the Westcott and Hort text was made up of the readings of Vaticanus Siniaticus Vaticanus and Sinaiticus Other Regards

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LJ Thriepland
Anyone know of any specific studies of how much % the Westcott and Hort text was made up of the readings of
Vaticanus
Siniaticus
Vaticanus and Sinaiticus
Other

 

[Steven Avery]

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Rex Howe​

odSpeorntsth228,m0u1i3u4g8145Acm5i alrp861092 a6at31m47i74hl ·

Has anyone written about the tendencies of the overwriting corrector D in Codex Sinaiticus? I’m working through nomina sacra in Isaiah. It appears that there is a tendency not to overwrite text surrounding the nomina sacra OR to not overwrite the overline/overbar, with a couple of (possible) exceptions for θεος (hard to tell from the Codex Sinaiticus Project images).

https://www.facebook.com/groups/11404207692/posts/10159095620422693/
ARTICLE NEEDED:
Does anyone has a pdf version of the following article:
Eldon Jay Epp, Codex Sinaiticus: Its Entrance into the Mid-Nineteenth Century Text-Critical Environment and Its Impact on the New Testament Text in Perspectives on New Testament Textual Criticism, Volume 2, (Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill, 30 Nov. 2020)

 

[Steven Avery]

New Testament Textual Criticism | A brief, popular level review of punctuation in Rev-Codex Sinaiticus, written as it was read (Holley Hull Lecture @ Samford) and which may be of inter... | Facebook

A brief, popular level review of punctuation in Rev-Codex Sinaiticus, written as it was read (Holley Hull Lecture @ Samford) and which may be of interest to this group:

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[Steven Avery]

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