Sinaiticus Tobit - examination for Latin vorlage, Donaldson-style Latinisms, Mt. Athos ms source (ms 319 - Vatopedi 513)

Steven Avery

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Sinaiticus Tobit - examination for Latin vorlage, Donaldson-style Latinisms, Athos ms source

The Athos source could leave features along the lines of the homoeoteleutons that show a Claromontanus source.

Compared to most Tobits, Sinaiticus has 1700 extra words in ch. 3 and 6.


Tobit: The Book of Tobit in Codex Sinaiticus (2008)
Robert J. Littman
https://books.google.com/books?id=M01vVo1dfUAC&pg=PR19

Greek Manuscripts
There are two distinct Greek traditions of manuscripts for the book of Tobit, the family of the short version labeled G1, and the family of the long version, labeled GII. The short version consists of two uncial manuscripts, Codex Vaticanus (B) of the 4th century CE and Codex Alexandrinus (a) of the 5th century CE, and their minuscule derivatives, including 990 and the uncial derivative Venetus (V). The long version consists of the uncial Codex Sinaiticus (s) of the 4th century CE and its allied manuscripts, particularly the important minuscule, MS 319, from the Monastery of Mt. Athos, Greece, which contains the lacuna in Tobit 4:7-19. The fragmentary 910 is also in this family. p. xix

The text of MS 319 (4:7-19) is based on a transcription of photos of the manuscript, graciously done for me by Dr. Luciano Bossina of the Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Gottingen Septuaginta-Unternehmen. p. xlvi

MS 319, closely related to Sinaiticus as the GII recension, is at the Vatopedi (Vatopaidi, Βατοπέδι or Βατοπαίδι) monastery on Athos, and would be easily available to Benedict.

MS 319 Athos, Vatopedi 513; written 1021 CE

only runs (today) from 3.6-6.16.


Just how many versions of Tobit are there? Part 01
http://sacrificium-laudis.blogspot.com/2013/12/just-how-many-versions-of-tobit-are.html

Sinaiticus uniquely preserves most of G2 - albeit riddled with scribal errors - except for two lacunae (4:7-19b and 13:7-10b). Fortunately, an 11th century manuscript (Mount Athos, MS 319, aka Vatopedi 913) gives the G2 text from 3:6 to 6:16 (while giving the G1 text for the rest of the book),
(correction in comments) thereby filling one of the two lacunae.

Is The 'World's Oldest Bible' A Fake?
David W. Daniels - , pp. 234-235

Before the mid-20th century, the only other known Greek manuscript in the world that matched Sinaiticus in Tobit was Manuscript 319 from Mt. Athos, Greece, dated 1021 AD. 58 *

*58. See Tobit: the Book of Tobit in Codex Sinaiticus, by Robert J. Littman (Boston: Brill, 2008), pp. xv-xvi. On top of all this, Littman there are not 2, but actually 3 different Greek versions of Tobit. That's not counting any other language.

Codex Sinaiticus Project - Tobit begins with 1844 CFA
http://codexsinaiticus.org/en/manuscript.aspx?book=9&chapter=10&lid=en&side=r&verse=3l&zoomSlider=0

Quickly switches to the British Library section and ends:
http://codexsinaiticus.org/en/manuscript.aspx?folioNo=2&lid=en&quireNo=38&side=r&zoomSlider=0

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

Additional documentary material in the private research forum

https://www.purebibleforum.com/index.php/threads/a.503/post-1000
 
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Steven Avery

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Is The "World's Oldest Bible" A Fake?
By David W. Daniels
https://books.google.com/books?id=Z3JGDwAAQBAJ&pg=PT233
https://books.google.com/books?id=bXJGDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA235

Before the mid-20th century, the only other known Greek manuscript in the world that matched Sinaiticus in Tobit was in
chapters 3-6, found in Manuscript 319 from Mt. Athos, Greece, dated 1021 AD. [61]

61. See Tobit: the Book of Tobit in Codex Sinaiticus, by Robert J. Littman (Boston: Brill, 2008), pp. xv-xvi. On top of all this, according to Robert Littman there are not 2, but actually 3 different Greek versions of Tobit. That’s not counting any other language.

Littman
https://books.google.com/books?id=M01vVo1dfUAC&pg=PR15
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So both the Shepherd of Hermas and Tobit in Sinaiticus have texts that pretty much only match up with manuscripts from Mt. Athos, Greece. And that’s the same place where a guy named Constantine Simonides claimed he created the Sinaiticus.

(61) See the Notes on Tobit 1:4 in the Oxford (RSV) and The New Oxford (NRSV) Annotated Bible. The NRSV New Oxford comment softens the blow.


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Continues to page 240
https://books.google.com/books?id=Z3JGDwAAQBAJ&pg=PT240
 
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Steven Avery

Administrator
Littmann
https://books.google.com/books?id=M01vVo1dfUAC&pg=PR7
(search 319)
https://www.academia.edu/26481039/R..._Codex_Sinaiticus_Septuagint_Commentary_2008_

p. vii
My thanks to Dr. Luciano Bossina, of the Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Gettingen Septuaginta-Unternehmen who on his own volition prepared for me a transcription of MS 319, based on photographs.


p. x
GII Greek recension based on S, MS 319 and 910

p. xv
MS 319 Athos, Βατοπαιδίου 513; written 1021 CE

p. xix
Manuscripts of the book of Tobit exist in nine languages.2
2 Greek, Hebrew, Aramaic, Latin, Syriac, Ethiopic, Sahidic, Armenian and Arabic. For a summary see Hanhart (1983: 8-20). Also Hanhart (1984). Two polygot versions have been published recently, Weeks (2004) and Wagner (2003). Weeks (2004) in his excellent and now indispensable edition, contains texts from the principal ancient and medieval traditions from most of the manuscripts in Aramaic, Hebrew, Greek, Latin, and Syriac. Wagner (2003) contains only the Greek and Latin, but includes MS 319, which is lacking in Weeks.

p. xx
The long version consists of the uncial Codex Sinaiticus (s) of the 4th century CE and its allied manuscripts, particularly the important minuscule, MS 319, from the Monastery of Mt. Athos, Greece, which contains the lacuna in Tobit 4:7-19. The fragmentary 910 is also in this family.

p. xlvi
The text of MS 319 (4:7-19) is based on a transcription of photos of the manuscript, graciously done for me by Dr. Luciano Bossina of the Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Gottingen Septuaginta-Unternehmen.


p. 12
https://books.google.com/books?id=M01vVo1dfUAC&pg=PA12
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p. 13

p. 88
https://books.google.com/books?id=M01vVo1dfUAC&pg=PA88
It appears that the lacuna 4:7-18 has been lost from S, since it appears in MS 319, which belongs to the family of S. Also, it is present in the VL, which generally follows S. G1 also contains the missing verses, as does the Vulgate. The Aramaic text 4Q196 10 and





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p. xx
1672627329810.png
p. xlvi
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Steven Avery

Administrator

According to Fitzmyer, an eleventh century fragmentary miniscule MS 319, housed at Vatopedi monastery on Mt. Athos in Greece, contains GII from Tob 3:6-6:16.38 However, S/GII does not contain verses 7-18 of chap. 4; and for a
large part, MS 319 agrees with Gl, which also contains verses 7-18 of chap. 4.39 VG contains those verses, and thus agrees with Gl and the Qumran fragments on Tobit against GII.
 
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Steven Avery

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Micah D. Kiel
https://books.google.com/books?id=GOYRBwAAQBAJ&pg=PA9
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Stuart Weeks
https://www.academia.edu/3080197/Restoring_the_Greek_Tobit_2013_
The modern consensus that the “Long” text of Tobit is earlier than the “Short” has brought about a paralysis in attempts to restore the Greek, with the very unsatisfactory text in Sinaiticus coming to serve as our de facto best effort. It is important to appreciate that the Long witnesses do not constitute a specific and coherent recension, capable of reconstruction in its own right, but are potentially miscellaneous texts, that happened individually to elude the two major revisions of the tradition. Original readings are preserved in both the revised and unrevised witnesses, and if we are to progress then we need to employ and evaluate all those witnesses. The paper ends with an attempt to reconstruct the original form of 4:7-19, which is lacking in Sinaiticus, as an illustration of the scope for such progress.

https://books.google.com/books?id=q9mvCQAAQBAJ&pg=PA99
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Steven Avery

Administrator
Which edition has the Vatopedi Greek?
3:6 to 6:16 compare with

Sinaiticus that has lacuna in 4:7 - 19b


Littman
https://books.google.com/books?id=M01vVo1dfUAC&pg=PA12

Possibly the Christian J. Wagner Polyglotte?
Yes but hard to get. Is Littman sufficient?

1. There is “depth” to the transmission: when the text is in error, there are sometimes adaptations to the error, as in 4.19, where a long omission that rendered the text unintelligible has led a copyist to change αὐτὸς to αὐτοῖς and δίδωσιν to δώσει so that what is left of the original verse can now serve as a continuation of 4:6. It is difficult to see how this would have happened if not in two or more stages.

printed editions like Sabatier and Blanchini,

4. Quite a lot of the original Semitic version from which the Greek translation was made is preserved in texts from Qumran, not known before the 1950s. The Greek version in Sinaiticus generally corresponds to this version, and sometimes corresponds even where no other Greek or Latin texts do, e.g. at 6.133, where την νυκτα ταυτην is found in no other Greek text, including ms. 319, and in no Latin or Syriac text, but does correspond to ליליא דן in 4Q197. (Muenster?)
 
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Steven Avery

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BCHF
Facebook
PBF


This is Tobit

more diverse list at
https://purebibleforum.com/index.ph...-coslinianus-superb-contacts.2832/#post-11702

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Luciano Bossina - ** Tobit - academia.edu - (transcribed Vatopedi 319 for Littman)
https://unipd.academia.edu/LucianoBossina
https://www.academia.edu/Messages?atid=23486665

Mark Bredin

Jeremy Corley

Damasdi - Tobit - Academia.edu

David W. Daniels - Tobit

Alexander Di Lella- NETS English - Tobit

Susan Doherty

Robert Hanhart (b. 1925) - Tobit

Juan Hernandez

Dirk Jongkind

Micah D. Kiel

Robert J. Littman - Tobit - Academia.edu - use littman@hawaii.edu

Tobias Nicklas - use email
https://brill.com/view/journals/jsj/40/3/article-p432_33.xml?language=en

Francis M. Macatangay - Tobit Academia

Emmanuel Nshimbi

Benedict Otzen

Patrick

Albert Pietersma

Chris Pinto

Charles van der Poole

James Snapp

Christian J. Wagner

Stuart Weeks - Tobit Academia.edu
Gathercole Stuckenbruck

Wieland Willker

Michal Wojciechowski

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

Sabatier

Blanchini


Tischendorf & Charles Short

James Rendel Harris

Swete

Kenyon

David Capell Simpson

Joseph A. Fitzmyer (1920-2016)
 
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Steven Avery

Administrator
Tischendorf on Tobit and Zosima
https://books.google.com/books?id=gnstAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA234#v=onepage&q&f=false

“ Trinity College, Cambridge, Jan. 17, 1863. W. A. Wkight.
“P.S.—I add a translation of part of Tischendorf’s letter to the Altgemeine Zeitung of 22nd Dec., 1862, in reference to the claim put forward by Simonides:—
‘“The splendid four-volume edition of the MS. just published .... will convince every sceptic who is capable of forming a conclusion on the question that Simonides could have selected no more unfortunate object for his daring inventions. He professes to have taken a Moscow edition of the Bible as the groundwork of comparison with the MSS. of Mount Athos. But, in the New Testament alone, the Sinaitic text differs in many thousand places from all the Moscow editions, and from all MSS. written in the last thousand years; while it stands in some instances alone, and in others has for its companions only the Vatican and Cambridge MSS., and contains many readings which must have appeared gross heresies in a copy prepared for the orthodox Czar. But in the Old Testment, for example, the text of Tobit and Judith is of an entirely different recension, which is still preserved, particularly in old Latin and old Syriac documents. How were these formed from the Moscow edition, or how were they introduced into it?’ ”

Tischendorf (1863)
https://books.google.com/books?id=uuFUAAAAcAAJ&pg=PA13

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Steven Avery

Administrator
The Wisdom Instructions in the Book of Tobit - (2011)
https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.1515/9783110255355.7/pdf
more
https://books.google.com/books?id=7zDLjpuzVeoC&pg=PA4
more text
https://vdoc.pub/documents/the-wisdom-instructions-in-the-book-of-tobit-6hj63uamqd40

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2.1.3

A Case of Scribal Error in Transmission

The absence of Tob 4:7-19b in Sinaiticus can be attributed not to redactional intentions but to accident in transmission. That Sinaiticus may have had a similarly detailed collection of instructions can be partly demonstrated by MS 319. This eleventh century minuscule, which also belongs to the GII family of recensions, contains the verses of Tob 4:719b omitted in Sinaiticus. The Vetus Latina, which closely follows Sinaiticus, also contains these missing verses.19 The Hebrew Qumran fragment 4Q200, which also bears family resemblance to the long Greek version, witnesses likewise to the presence of some lost verses, namely Tob 4:3-9.
51

Further, the textual witness of G I reports the presence of a long collection of exhortations. If this textual tradition of Tobit is indeed an abridgement of the long Greek version, it is odd that the collection was not subjected to scribal scissors. In other words, MS 319 may in fact reflect, or even preserve, the intact state of the Greek long text before the said verses accidentally fell away from the manuscript. All of this may well conspire to indicate that the omission of Tob 4:7-19 in the Sinaiticus could have been simply due to a copying error or “scribal carelessness.”20 What might the error have been? In a possible instance of homoioteleuton, it is likely that the copyist got confused and his eyes mistakenly jumped from one verse to another, since euvodwqh,sontai is in Tob 4:6 and the same verb euvodwqw/sin is in Tob 4:19.21 In the same way, the scribe could have simply associated the objective fact stated in kai. pa/sin toi/j poiou/sin th.n dikaiosu,nhn in Tob 4:6 with the subjective reason for such act expressed in dw,sei ku,rioj auvtoi/j boulh.n avgaqh,n in verse 19.22 Such may explain why vv. 7-19 dropped and disappeared from the Sinaiticus text. Looking at Tob 4:3-19, 21 in both GI and GII recensions, one notices that, on the whole, the collection of instructions is similar. The organization of the sayings in both recensions are not entirely or remarkably different. In fact, the entirety of Tobit’s counsels in G I are found in GII via MS 319 with the sole exception of the instruction on

20 Cf. WEEKS/GATHERCOLE/STUCKENBROOK, The Book of Tobit, 13. According to Hanhart, the lacunae in the Sinaiticus seem to be a copying error, a “Fehler eines Abschreibers,” which can be filled and consequently restored using the Old Latin and MS 319. HANHART, Text und Textgeschichte, n.2, 17. Littman comments that “in general MS 319 omits iota subscripts, and has a number of incorrect accents when h stands alone. Because of iotaization, epsilon iota is often rendered with an iota. It is uncertain why S neglected to copy this section.’ LITTMAN, Tobit, 89. See also FITZMYER, Tobit (CEJL), 169-178. Interestingly, Schüngel-Straumann uses GI rather than MS 319 to translate Tobit 4 in her commentary. SCHÜNGEL-STRAUMANN, Tobit, 97. For a critical evaluation of this commentary, cf. SCHMITT, Ein Kommentar zum Buch Tobit, 28-32. 21 Cf. LITTMAN, Tobit, 89. The author hastens to add that it is possible that Tob 4:7-19 did not originally belong to the narrative, having been “simply inserted since it contained additional maxims on righteousness.” To the mind of this writer, however, there are good reasons as mentioned above that decrease the likelihood of such possibility. 22 Cf. SIMPSON, The Book of Tobit, 1:211. The author also entertains the possibility of a lost mss page.

31 A detailed discussion of the various mss and textual traditions of Tobit falls beyond the scope of the study. Fitzmyer provides a readable and easy to follow discussion of the scholarship on the textual history of Tobit in his commentary. FITZMYER, Tobit (CEJL), 3-17. Also helpful are accounts in SCHÜRER, The History of the Jewish People, 3:227-230; MOORE, Tobit, 53-64; OTZEN, Tobit and Judith, 60-65; LITTMAN, Tobit, xixxxv; ZAPPELLA, Tobit, 26-29. For recent treatments, see the monographs of TOLONI, L’originale del libro di Tobia and HALLERMAYER, Text und Überlieferung des Buches Tobit. 32 FITZMYER, Tobit (CEJL), 5. 33 Cf. NICKLAS/WAGNER, Thesen zur textlichen Vielfalt im Tobitbuch, 141-153. The authors have compared the papyrus fragment 910, GI and GII of Tob 2:2-5, 8 and concluded that few of the Greek mss have special types of readings. For further discussions of GIII, cf. WEEKS, Some Neglected Texts of Tobit, 12-42. 34 Cf. RABENAU, Studien zum Buch Tobit, 7: “Die generelle Linie des Bearbeiters liegt in einer Textkürzung.“ Cf. also THOMAS, The Greek Text of Tobit, 468-469.

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

2.1.3
A Case of Scribal Error in Transmission
The absence of Tob 4:7-19b in Sinaiticus can be attributed not to redactional intentions but to accident in transmission. That Sinaiticus may have had a similarly detailed collection of instructions can be partly demonstrated by MS 319. This eleventh century minuscule, which also belongs to the GII family of recensions, contains the verses of Tob 4:719b omitted in Sinaiticus. The Vetus Latina, which closely follows Sinaiticus, also contains these missing verses.19 The Hebrew Qumran fragment 4Q200, which also bears family resemblance to the long Greek version, witnesses likewise to the presence of some lost verses, namely Tob 4:3-9.
 
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Steven Avery

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Tobit
https://www.purebibleforum.com/inde...style-latinisms-athos-ms-source.501/#post-997

https://www.purebibleforum.com/inde...-athos-vatopedi-913-song-of-songs-tobit.2883/

https://www.purebibleforum.com/inde...first-hand-letters-are-square-not-round.2889/

https://www.purebibleforum.com/inde...fend-authenticity-of-sinaiticus.468/#post-953

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Sinaiticus Tobit - examination for Latin vorlage, Donaldson-style Latinisms, Mt. Athos ms source (ms 319 - Vatopedi 513)
https://www.purebibleforum.com/inde...onaldson-style-latinisms-athos-ms-source.501/

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Just how many versions of Tobit are there? Part 01
http://sacrificium-laudis.blogspot.com/2013/12/just-how-many-versions-of-tobit-are.html
Just how many versions of Tobit are there? Part 02
https://sacrificium-laudis.blogspot.com/2013/12/just-how-many-versions-of-tobit-are_16.html

======

The Book of Tobit and its Recensions - Patrick
https://www.thepostil.com/the-book-of-tobit-and-its-recensions/

The Book of Tobit and its Recensions - Part 02 - Patrick
https://www.thepostil.com/the-book-of-tobit-and-its-recensions-part-2/

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some have error of 913 not 513

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Aside from G1, Sinaiticus, and the Vulgate, people before the mid-20th century were aware of a number of other versions of the book in Hebrew (and one in Aramaic), although all of these were late, medieval texts that are deritative of the Greek or the Vulgate versions.

  1. The Münster text (HM), first published in 1516 in Constantinople, then reprinted in Basel by Sebastian Münster in 1542. Said to be a 5th century version, this text is generally based on G2. This version was reproduced in the London Polyglot.
  2. The Fagius text (HF), said to date from the 12th century and first published in 1519 (reprinted by Paul Fagius in 1542). This version is also found in the 1657 London Polyglot. This text is usually judged to be a paraphrastic translation or a free recasting of a Greek text like G1 made by a medieval Jew from Western Europe. This version is noted for its introduction of OT phraseology into the text. The Haydock Commentary often alludes to this version along with the other ones named here.
  3. Gaster's text (HG), another translation derived from from a 15th century Midrash on the Pentateuch that condenses and greatly abbreviates the narrative found in the medieval Aramaic text, with which it otherwise largely agrees. The narrative in 1:1-3:6 is again in the third person; much of the dialogue and the prayers are eliminated. The text lays a huge emphasis on tithing, a reason why it was introduced into the pentateuchal midrash.
  4. Cairo Genizah T-S A 45.25, 45.26 and 45.29 (Cambridge University Library): Fragmentary texts dating from the 13th-14th century. The earliest of these, 45.26 is of the same recension as the 1516 Constantinople text, while the latter two agree with Fagius' versio
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Fortunately, an 11th century manuscript (Mount Athos, MS 319, aka Vatopedi 513) gives the G2 text from 3:6 to 6:16 (while giving the G1 text for the rest of the book), thereby filling one of the two lacunae

From the blog on Tobit, sent correction.
 
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Steven Avery

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Vatopedi - Daniels

So both the Shepherd of Hermas and Tobit in Sinaiticus have texts that pretty much only match up with manuscripts from Mt. Athos, Greece. And that’s the same place where a guy named Constantine Simonides claimed he created the Sinaiticus.

Could that be a coincidence?
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Steven Avery

Administrator
Facebook - NT Textual Criticism

When the Vaticanus and Sinaiticus shared scribes theories are developed, and the same scriptorium theories:
.
Is it pointed out that their texts of Tobit are totally different? Sinaiticus has a text that is akin to the longer Old Latin transmission lines:
.
"in the Old Testament, for example, the text of Tobit and Judith is of an entirely different recension, which is still preserved, particularly in old Latin and old Syriac documents.", Constantine Tischendorf, quoted in the Journal of Sacred Literature,and Biblical Record, Volume 3, 1863, p. 234
.
This is pointed out, usually emphasizing the Latin confluence, by the modern writers (who could consider the simpler explanation, that the medieval Latin influenced the Sinaiticus text) like Stuart D. Weeks of Durham University and Robert J. Littam of the University of Hawaii and Albert Pietersma of the University of Toronto.
.
This should be easier for them to see in Tobit, since that is one of the spots where you have "the tale of two manuscripts" the checkerboard, Tobit starts as a modern, pristine, no stains white parchment, (Codex Friderico-Augustanus, 1844 to Leipzig) and then in chapter 2 moves to the yellow with age and stains rest of Sinaiticus, of 1859 Tischendorf vintage. The picture is rather glaring.
.
Returning to the Greek ms. line, Vaticanus has the standard text that is throughout the Greek line, all uncials (Vaticanus, Alexandrinus and Venetus are mentioned in NETS) and all cursives except 319. Sinaiticus, with 319, is oddball.
.
As I expected ms. 319 is from Mt. Athos (no surprise there
🙂
since Sinaiticus Hermas and Barnabas appear to be traced there as well, with medieval Latin influences, as pointed out by the learned Scottish scholar James Donaldson, 1831-1915) and Weeks says "Ms. 319 is properly (Batopaidioj) 513 from Mt Athos; it dates from the eleventh century, and has ‘Long’ readings in 3.6-6.16." You can get the Greek font from:
.
Some Neglected Texts of Tobit: the Third Greek Version (2006)
Stuart Weeks
https://www.academia.edu/.../Some_neglected_texts_of...
.
Papyrus Oxvrhynchus 1594 joins the standard Tobit line, while 1076 is equated with the longer Latin line, except that the whole text is only five verses, making such an identification a bit of an extrapolation. The five Qumran fragments, four in Aramaic, one in Hebrew, do equate better to the Latin tradition (plus Sinaiticus, which however is often noted as unsatisfactory and corrupt and subject to many scribal errors) than the traditional Greek.
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Ironically, the textual theorists properly use the opposite of lectio brevior praeferenda, the far more sensible longer reading, in favor of the longer (Hebrew and Latin) recension.
.
"Internal evidence also favors G11 as the basis of G1; see, for example, 2.3 where one would be hard put to imagine how the fourteen Greek words of G1 ("And he came and said, 'Father, one of our race has been strangled and thrown into the marketplace.' ") could possibly have been the source of the thirty-nine Greek words found in G11 ("So Tobias went to seek some poor person of our kindred. And on his return he said, 'Father!' And I said, 'Here I am, my child.' Then in reply he said, 'Father, behold, one of our people has been murdered and thrown into the marketplace and now lies strangled there' "). One can readily see how the translator of G1 has condensed the narrative and the dialogue between Tobias and Tobit."
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Substitute "the scribe of the Alexandrian recension" for the "the translator of G1" for many NT applications.
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NT Lectio brevior theory in essence is a special pleading and illogical application, designed to support the abbreviated Vaticanus-primacy text, and frequently the opposite of what is accepted in real textual analysis.
.
Steven Avery


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https://www.facebook.com/james.e.sn...nT5jU3YiW7nrDvpiatpnT0yaO_1hnDTKk&__tn__=R]-R
James E Snapp Jr
Di Lella's analytical comparison of the two text-forms of Tobit is at
http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/nets/edition/19-tobit-nets.pdf .


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lectio brevior - one of the hortian-metzgerian fabrications
.
=======================
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Thanks on Tobit. This is covered by others in addition to Alexander A. Di Lella, however he does maybe the one fine compact study in that NETS intro. Di Lella has been writing on these topics for 50 years!
.
=======================
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Returning to lectio brevior:
.
Scribal Habits in Early Greek New Testament Papyri
Papers from the 2008 SBL Panel Review Session
Juan Hernandez Jr, Peter M. Head, Dirk Jongkind, and James R. Royse
Review by Juan Hernandez p. 1-8
Review by Peter M. Head p. 8-13
Review by Dirk Jongkind p. 13-18
Response by James R. Royse 18-22
.
====
.
Juan Hernandez
.
There is a lot here about Royse and Colwell and lectio brevior and related items. A good description of the Royse work is on p. 4. and some high praise, worth reading, for his methodology.
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One conceptual struggle for Hernandez, he comes up with a bit of first a muddle-speak::
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"'The inversion here of Griesbach's lectio brevior potior is not a denial of the venerable canon as much as it is a statement that the burden of proof has shifted with this study." - p. 6.
.
If the burden of proof is on the other side, the:
** canon is kaput **.
Please, face the facts.
🙂

.
(Note: Hernandez has done interesting work on Revelation that is hard to reconcile with early Sinaiticus conjectures.)
.
================================
Peter M. Head.
"I suppose it is worth noting the wider issue that Royse is attempting to revise the traditional canons—developed on the basis of medieval manuscripts and generalizations about scribal habits from them—on the basis of singular readings in the early papyri, which by definition made no impact on the wider scribal and textual tradition. On this question I think we still need to do some more thinking. Scribal habits determined on the basis of singular readings do
I think (cf. Jongkind) reveal something about scribal behaviour, but may not be so clear about the general tendency of the textual tradition.." p. 13
.
And I remain skeptical about the "developed on the basis of medieval manuscripts and generalizations" claim. Which scholars, based on what? (And how would they apply to the New Testament?) Remember, when we looked at Martin Litchfield West (b. 1937) we found a big gap between real textual analysis and NT textual criticism.
.
========================
.
Dirk Jongkind
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"One of the problems in the use of singular readings as a window on scribal activity is the problem of the origin of a singular reading. Was it created by the scribe of our manuscript or did the scribe correctly copy a reading from his Vorlage which was created by a previous scribe but is labelled as a singular reading because the Vorlage or any other copy did not survive? Or in other words, when we have a singular reading are we dealing with the accumulation of errors of various scribes or of only one scribe?" p. 14
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reasonable question, conceptually the p. 14-15 section is significant.
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It is funny that they don't realize that the exceptions of Griesbach turn his own rule upside down (we had some TC-Alternate talk on this, Jongkind here is quite helpful.
.
==
.
- Griesbach prefers the shorter reading.
- However he lists exceptions to the rule.
- These exceptions are the following, which means that the longer reading has to be preferred in the following cases:
1. homoeoteleuton
2. what was omitted does not appear correct to the scribe (for a whole range of reasons)
3. what is lacking does not harm the sense or the structure of the sentence
4. if the longer reading is more in accord with the authors style
5. if the shorter reading makes no sense
6. if harmonisation to parallel passages plays a role.
- Most of the omissions which Royse has found fall under the first three of Griesbach's exceptions.
- Therefore Griesbach's canon still stands; the only thing Royse did was to flesh out Griesbach's exceptions; Griesbach was mainly talking about the real, substantial variants, not about the stuff that tends to fill up the category of singular readings. p. 16
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Then to Eusebius Ad Marinum and the Mark ending p. 17. Regular Markan priority presumption nonsense also on p. 17 and a funny reference to "Vaticanus .. too clean a text".
.
==
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3. Royse and Griesbach: The Shorter Reading?
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"Yet, ultimately, I have to agree with Royse on Griesbach's canon. Royse is absolutely correct in dismissing the short and even the more nuanced version of the lectio brevior lectio potior canon; it puts us on the wrong foot. Every canon should in my opinion start with an awareness of the hazardous nature of copying and the many types of complicated clerical errors that can arise. Instead of formulating the canon in terms of the shorter reading, the term "expansionary" might be better. A reading which appears to be an expansion of an alternative reading should not be preferred, thus bringing the actual content of the extra words into play. But more remains to be said here and though Royse made a start in his book, I am not sure we are there" p. 17


That is better. Then he

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

James Ronald Royse

" We have to keep in mind that the vast majority of textual variants do not involve (as it seems) theological corruption. So, while most textual variants may have arisen early, the comparatively few theological corruptions could have been late on the scene. Of course, others have thought to find theologically motivated readings in, say, P46, I have not been inclined to agree, but in any case the numbers of such readings would be, I believe, comparatively small; but that doesn't mean that they didn't exist." p. 19
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"Jongkind is correct in reminding us that Griesbach's first canon is a much more nuanced, and much more complicated, piece of advice than the principle of simply preferring the shorter reading. Indeed, suspect that the nuances and the complications are precisely what have caused it to be replaced in many subsequent lists of canons by simpler and more direct principles of some kind or other. And for that purpose simple, direct principles are the most useful. For example: "Prefer the reading of Vaticanus and Sinaiticus." "Prefer the reading that is not. harmonized." "Prefer the shorter reading." Those are the sorts of principles that inform most modern texts. Indeed, we have on record in Metzger's Textual Commentary the principles used to construct, or at least to justify, our current "standard" text in Nestle-Aland. And we see there nothing like Griesbach's first canon. ... " p. 21-22
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"Finally, I should note that Jongkind's own study of Codex Sinaiticus has provided yet further evidence that early scribes tended to omit rather than to add. This adds to my conviction that the preference for the shorter reading is fundamentally mistaken. And I wonder if there is, or really ever was, any evidence at all that scribes tended to add. In any case, there is increasing evidence, from the work of Hernandez on Revelation, of Head on the early less extensive papyri, and of Jongkind on Codex Sinaiticus, that omission was more common than addition, and thus that the scribal tendency underlying the preference for the shorter reading is illusory."
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** An excellent conclusion! ** worth noting
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(Royse downgrades it a bit with more allusion to Markan priority nonsense.)
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"Again, I thank all of the panelists for their insightful and stimulating remarks."
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Amen!
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Steven Avery
 
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Steven Avery

Administrator
G1 G11 an Semitic Urtext

Original Language of Tobit ?


The Wisdom Instructions in the Book of Tobit
Francis M. Macatangay
1677940394122.png


2.1 The Textual Situation of Tobit 4

Codex Vaticanus treats Tobit as a wisdom book while Codex Sinaiticus
regards it as an historical one.' Conceivably, chapter four's more co-
pious collection of sapiential exhortations in Vaticanus, which belongs
to the G1 group of textual recensions, is a factor that may explain the
divergence in the placement of Tobit in the said codices. Sinaiticus is
the preferred text for analysis because it is judged to be closer to the Se-
mitic Urtcxt of Tobit.
The said codex is the long Greek recension with
the shorter version of the fourth chapter of Tobit, as it omits some of
the sapiential instructions.6 The GH recension has two textual lacunae,
namely Tob 4:7-19b and 13:6-10b.
 
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Steven Avery

Administrator
Tischendorf
Die Anfechtungen der Sinai-Bibel - (Assaults on the Sinai Bible)

Assaults PBF can be redone and improved

Und wenn ich nun, mit Uebergehung aller aus meiner >>Notitia « bei dem Fabelschmied geflossenen Missverständnisse, weiter reden wollte von den in beiden Ueberbleibseln vorhandenen 15-18,000 alten Correcturen, die ich auf wenigstens sieben verschiedene im Zeitraum eines Jahrtausend thätige Verfasser zurückgeführt, oder davon dass die griechischen Texte von den Büchern Tobit und Judith, wie sie im Anschluss an altlateinische und syrische Urkunden im Sinaiticus stehen, bis jetzt noch gar nicht vorhanden waren, oder von den wunderbarsten Erscheinungen im Neutestamentlichen Texte, die denselben vor allen vorhandenen gedruckten und ungedruckten Texten durch die ältesten Kirchenväter als einen Zeitgenossen des Eusebius (340) beglaubigen lassen, sogar auch ausschliesslich durch ihre eigene innere Evidenz den apostolischen Urtext herstellen: würde das vermögend sein, unwissende Schwätzer, die nun einmal das Wort ergriffen, zu beschwichtigen, die in ihrer unbequemen Löwenhaut ausser sich gerathenen Gentlemen mit und ohne Paläographie, hüben und drüben, über die Simonidische Schreckenskunde zu beruhigen?

Gelingt aber trotz alledem das fast Unglaubliche, bricht in der That sogar über die armen Blinden, denen das harte Schicksal die Ehrenrettung deutscher Wissenschaft aufgebürdet, die Sonne eines heiteren Morgens an, nun so bleiben wir noch immer und um so mehr der östlichen, der Tatarenbotschaft von der Erzkezerei des Codex Sinaiticus preisgegeben.


Und wenn ich nun, mit Uebergehung aller aus meiner „Notitia“ bei dem Fabelschmied geflossenen Missverständnisse, weiter reden wollte von den in beiden Ueberbleibseln vorhandenen 45-48,000 alten Correcturen, die ich auf wenigstens sieben verschiedene im Zeitraum eines Jahrtausend thätige Verfasser zurückgeführt, oder davon dass die griechischen Texte von den Büchern Tobit und Judith, wie sie im Anschluss an altlateinische und syrische Urkunden im Sinaiticus stehen, bis jetzt noch gar nicht vorhanden waren, oder von den wunderbarsten Erscheinungen im Neutestamentlichen Texte, die denselben vor allen vorhandenen gedruckten und ungedruckten Texten durch die ältesten Kirchenväter als einen Zeitgenossen des Eusebius († 340) beglaubigen lassen, sogar auch ausschliesslich durch ihre eigene innere Evidenz den apostolischen Urtext herstellen: würde das vermögend sein, unwissende Schwätzer, die nun einmal das Wort ergriffen, zu beschwichtigen, die in ihrer unbequemen Löwenhaut ausser sich gerathenen Gentlemen mit und ohne Paläographie, hüben und drüben, über die Simonidische Schreckenskunde zu beruhigen?



Gelingt aber trotz alledem das fast Unglaubliche, bricht in der That sogar über die armen Blinden, denen das harte Schicksal die Ehrenrettung deutscher Wissenschaft aufgebürdet, die Sonne eines heiteren Morgens an, nun so bleiben wir noch immer und um so mehr der östlichen, der Tatarenbotschaft von der Erzkezerei des Codex Sinaiticus preisgegeben.



And if I now, ignoring all the misunderstandings that flowed from my “Notitia” with the fable smith, wanted to go on talking about the 15-18,000 old corrections in both remains, which I traced back to at least seven different authors active in the period of a millennium, or from the fact that the Greek texts from the books of Tobit and Judith, as they stand in connection with the old Latin and Syriac documents in the Sinaiticus, were not yet available, or from the most wonderful appearances in the New Testament texts, which preceded all existing printed and unprinted ones Having the texts authenticated by the oldest church fathers as a contemporary of Eusebius (340), even producing the original apostolic text exclusively through their own inner evidence: would that be able to appease ignorant gossips who just took the floor, who in their uncomfortable lion's skin beside himself gents with and without palaeography, here and there, about the Simonidean lore?
 

Steven Avery

Administrator
The Book of Tobit in early Christianity: Greek and Latin interpretations from the 2nd to the 5th century CE (2020)
Chris L. De Wet.
http://www.scielo.org.za/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S0259-94222020000400045

Department of Biblical and Ancient Studies, Faculty of Human Sciences, University of South Africa, Pretoria, South Africa
Australian Lutheran College, University of Divinity, Adelaide, Australia

1 . For the ease of reading, when referring to verses in Tobit, I will use the verse divisions from the New Revised Standard Version (NRSV) of the Bible, which is based on the text from Codex Sinaiticus.
2 . There is a useful website that provides a list of Patristic commentaries on the Book of Tobit (Patristic Bible Commentary n.d.). The online Biblia Patristica (1975-1982) database is also very useful when searching for individual comments on each verse of Tobit. In this article, when directly quoting an early Christian source, I will provide an English translation, along with the original Greek or Latin text (with its edition). When simply referring to early Christian works, without direct quotations, I will only cite the relevant English translation of the work, or where there is no translation, the critical edition of the text, if any.
3 . Christian authors, at times, use different names for the Book of Tobit and the characters of Tobit and Tobias. Jerome, for instance, calls the father and son 'Tobias' (Littman 2008:54-55). Bede later attributed different allegorical significance to the different names in the book.
4 . These Quaestiones were traditionally attributed to Pseudo-Augustine, but today it is accepted that they are written by the figure known as Ambrosiaster (see also Patristic Bible Commentary n.d.).
5 . See also Online Patristic Bible Commentary (n.d.).
6 . At the time of writing, there was no critical Latin text of the Opus imperfectum published. For more on the manuscript tradition of this work, see Van Banning (1988) and Oden and Kellerman (2010:xvii-xxvi).

Jerome was not overly excited about translating Tobit into Latin (he dedicated only one day to translating it, although he has the short version of the text),

It also appears in Codices Alexandrinus (Greek; 5th century CE), Venetus (c. 10th century CE) and Amiatinus (Latin Vulgate; 8th century CE); Tobit (in Greek) is also present in two fragmentary papyri, 990 and 910, of the 3rd and 6th centuries, respectively (Gallagher & Meade 2017:283).

The long version is represented by Codex Sinaiticus and the short version is represented by Codex Vaticanus. The majority of scholars argue that the short version is a later recension of the long version. In the Latin manuscript tradition, there is a long version in the Vetus Latina, whilst Jerome's Vulgate version of Tobit represents the short version (for more details, see Hanhart 1984; Weeks, Gathercole & Stuckenbruck 2004).1

Skemp, V.T.M., 2000, The Vulgate of Tobit Compared with Other Ancient Witnesses, Society of Biblical Literature, Atlanta. [ Links ]

A simple search in the Biblia Patristica shows that numerous other Christian authors, including Pseudo-Clement of Rome, Tertullian, Clement of Alexandria, Didymus of Alexandria, Origen, Ambrose, Ambrosiaster and Gregory of Nazianzus, refer multiple times to this text in Tobit 4:15. And although this study focuses on Greek and Latin Christian authors from the 2nd to the 5th century, Tobit was also known to Syriac Christian authors of late antiquity, such as Ephrem of Nisibis (306-373 CE) and the 4th-century Syriac Liber graduum. The Liber graduum (Memrā 7.1, 30.26; trans. Kitchen & Parmentier 2004:65, 360) refers to Tobit 4:15 twice, whilst Philoxenus of Mabbug (440-523 CE) refers to it three times in his Memrē [discourses] to Syrian monks (see Memrā 9.56, 9.68, 12.62; trans. Kitchen 2013:259, 269, 473).
 
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