Sinaiticus 4th-century apologist Jacob M. Peterson of the CSNTM flunks Logic 101 - "demonstrably untrue" !!!????

Steven Avery

Administrator
One of the most off-base brazen fabrications from Sinaiticus defenders came from Jacob M. Peterson.

The emphasis is in the original.


Jacob Peterson
the leaves in Leipzig .... It is demonstrably untrue that those leaves are drastically different from those in London.

Amazing.

First we know what he can see on the Codex Sinaiticus Project site, for which you can see good examples on:

Parchment Colour
http://www.sinaiticus.net/four contiguous points.html

And they are in fact drastically and radically (Jacob uses various words, the point is clear) different.

Just the fact that the Leipzig pages are "notable for their whiteness", as Gavin Moorhead of the British Library pointed out, makes them drastically different. And this is before we get into the other areas of difference.

Leipzig vs BL.jpg


Jacob should retract this totally false claim, with a careful correction, before it is pointed out publicly to the CSNTM. As a logically untrue statement about manuscripts from a CSNTM professional. A "stain", if you will, on the CSNTM professionalism.

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Remember, Jacob never saw either section, and never even contacted the Libraries or the CSP professionals, before making the claim.

And the British Library conservator Gavin Moorhead, involved in the CSP, wrote that the Leipzig pages are “notable for their whiteness”. Which by itself alone disproves what the CSNTM professional says is demonstrably true.


Looking at the CSP photograghs, every British Library leaf is yellowed.

Although, curiously, their actual condition is “phenomenally good” per Helen Shenton of the British Library. And a very helpful BBC Four "Beauty of Books" video showing the pages turning smoothly and easily. As if it were like-new parchment.


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Two Reasons were given for this claim

1) storage conditions
2) photography variation.

As to what can be demonstrated, the answer from one, storage conditions is .... nothing. There is not one smidgen of evidence that either part of the manuscript changed colours significantly from 1844 to 2018. And surely, most all of the colour of aging would have occurred in the hot dry desert in the supposed 1500 years from 350 AD.

So storage conditions can NOT be used for what is supposed to be "demonstrably true".

What about photography variation? Jacob made a decent case that the off-white Leipzig pages might be a slightly different, slightly darker shade of off-white (based on the colour bars, something has long been noted). Jacob did not offer any correction attempts, and the differences, assuming they exist, may be barely noticeable visually. He demonstrated nothing about the degree of difference and what the final result would be.

Obviously that does not justify the bogus claim:


Jacob Peterson

the leaves in Leipzig .... It is demonstrably untrue that those leaves are drastically different from those in London.

Jacob appears to be very weak in logic, again. Does this false assertion (for whatever reason, personal pride, Sinaiticus simpatico) reflect poorly on the CSNTM?

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Steven Avery

Administrator
Sinaiticus 4th-century apologist Jacob M. Petetrson of the CSNTM flunks Logic 101 - "demonstrably untrue" !!!????

Euthymius from BVDB liked this quote from Jacob O. Peterson on the NT Textual Criticism Forum.

"Where is any evidence that your or your tinfoil conspirators have any credentials, credibility, or clue that you know what you’re talking about?"

We clearly know much more about Codex Sinaiticus than Jacob M. Peterson. And his attempt with James Snapp was really a silly joke, based on hyper-conjectural speculation. Easily refuted by pointing out his logic deficiency, also on the practical side by the Ute Feller picture. On one Facebook forum I put it like this:


This was somewhat of a silly attempt to try to say "don't believe your eyes, we experts know better, listen to all our hyper-conjectures."

It is easily refuted simply by looking at this picture of a Leipzig page done separately from the Codex Sinaiticus Project.

This is Ute Feller of the Leipzig University Library:

„Codex Sinaiticus" in Leipzig: Ausstellung zeigt 1800 Jahre altes Bibelmanuskript
http://www.lvz.de/.../Codex-Sinaiticus-in-Leipzig...

In point of fact, the 1844 Leipzig is off-white parchment, consistent, sans stains .. while the British Library 1859 is varying yellowed stain and streaky.

The simple, best and obvious conclusion, matching the historical forensics:

Tampering was done to make it yellow in between 1844 and 1859, exactly as reported from Sinai in the early 1860s authenticity and production controversies.
 
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