Song of Songs - speakers identified in the text - Jay Curry Treat, Louis Francis, Tremper Longman, Stéphane Simonnin

[Steven Avery]

various notes also in the Private research section (restricted access)

Zosima Studies
http://www.purebibleforum.com/showthread.php?568-Zosimas-studies

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

Is this something that was done in Greek "LXX" writing in the early centuries?
Or is really something that came later, in more sophisticated Bible copying times, and when parchment space was less a concern?

Can we find it in later printed editions?

This page will put any historical information as to this unusual feature of the Sinaiticus text.

 

[Steven Avery]

This was noted in the 1860s as not consistent with an early text, see this thread.

healthy skepticism of 1860s scholar about Song of Solomon - and the complete NT - "not a word is wanting"
https://www.purebibleforum.com/index.php/threads/a.641

Now we have a paper that specifically shows that Sinaiticus has later Vulgate features.

 

[Steven Avery]

Ockham -> the rubrics of Sinaiticus came from Latin Vulgate rubrics

Abstract - "rubrics of Codex Sinaiticus bear a literary relationship with rubrics in several later Latin manuscripts."

Lost Keys: Text and Interpretation in Old Greek "Song of Songs" and Its Earliest Manuscript Witnesses (1996)
Jay Curry Treat - University of Pennsylvania, jtreat@upenn.edu
https://repository.upenn.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2990&context=edissertations
http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.738.4768&rep=rep1&type=pdf

Chapter Two examines the Old Greek text for its characteristics. It finds that the translation appears to have been a relatively serious attempt to represent each element in its Hebrew Vorlage by a corresponding formal equivalent in Greek. There are no indications that its translator interpreted the text allegorically, but its consistent formal equivalence with the Hebrew resulted in a Greek text that was just as multivalent as the Hebrew — open to allegorical interpretation on a wide variety of levels. It was the work of a Jewish translator of modest skill, working about the beginning of the common era. Some of its scribes provided aids for the use of readers: divisions of sense-units and rubrics (headings in redink) to identify changes in speaker. For example, Codex Sinaiticus, a fourth-century Old Greek manuscript, uses rubrics to indicate speakers such as “The Bride” or “The Groom’s Companions.” - p. 18-19

S Codex Sinaiticus = א. London: British Museum, Additional Ms. 43725. 37

Description: fourth-century parchment. Rubrics are indented from the right. Stichi are arranged in wide columns. Each stich is written on one or two lines; the first line extends to the left margin and is 20-28 letters long (mean length: 24 letters); the rest of the stich (if any) is indented on the next line below. The initial letter in each stich is the same size as the other letters.

According to Milne and Skeat’s analysis, Song of Songs was written by Scribe A but corrected by scribe D (the most careful of the Sinaiticus scribes) before it left the scriptorium.38 p. 29

4. Coptic, Latin, and Syriac Manuscripts

LaW Latin manuscript, Stuttgart, Württembergische Landesbibliothek, HB. 11,35 = Z in DE BRUYNE = W in Schulz-Flügel (about 800 C.E.).53

This edition uses LaW and LaF only as Latin witnesses to the rubrics of the Sinaiticus tradition. Therefore S-LaW-LaF often appear together in rubrics. The text of LaW-LaF is a Vulgate text with a very few OL elements.54 p. 35

Discussion of Sinaiticus variants on p. 361, 366, 384 - numeral of division 389-393.

The following four Greek manuscripts have rubrics in Song of Songs: Sinaiticus, Alexandrinus, Venetus, and 161. There are surely other rubricated manuscripts of Song of Songs that have not yet been published.2 The following manuscripts do not have rubrics: Codex Vaticanus, Codex Ephraemi, PHam, 952,924, PBer, PDam, 147, and 502. p. 400

This chapter looks briefly at the rubrics in these four Greek manuscripts. The Sinaiticus set is a special case, because we also have Latin witnesses to the same tradition. Chapter Four will provide a fuller text, translation, and discussion of the Sinaiticus rubric-tradition. p 400

2 These four Greek manuscripts have been published. Erich Klostermann, “Eine alte Rollenverteilung zum Hohenliede,” Zeitschrift für die alttestamentliche Wissenschaft 19 (1899): 158, implies that there are many Greek and Latin manuscripts of Song of Songs with rubrics. Regarding Latin manuscripts of Song of Songs with rubrics, see below in section “F. Latin Rubrics.”

Next is describing the simple and sparse rubrics of Alexandrinus and Codex 161 "fairly simple and are rather sparsely distributed throughout the Song." p. 401-403. Then to Sinaitcus, p. 404-407

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

Regardless of how one may evaluate the possibilities, it tums out that the Codex Sinaiticus is the earliest document we know to mark every speech of a dialogue by writing the name or role of the Speaker in full on a line by itself before the speech. It appears possible that some scribe working on Song of Songs was the first person to write full attributions in this manner. There were earlier forms of the rubrics, and their exact form is lost to us. The rubrics in Codex Alexandrinus probably represent a very early stage in the development of Song of Songs rubrics. In its rubrics, not every Speech is attributed, but each attribution is unabbreviated and (in principle though not in practice) on a line by itself.80 I would expect the first Song of Songs rubrics to be similar. p. 431

More on p. 434 and later, a key question is what are the dates of the Vulgate mss that are very close to Sinaiticus.

It looks like it is from 800 AD and later : LaW-LaF

And this type of complex rubrication likely arose in that medieval period around 800 AD.

 

[Steven Avery]

Rubrics in Codex Sinaiticus - Jay Curry Treat webpage

Rubrics in Codex Sinaiticus
https://www.sas.upenn.edu/~jtreat/song/sinai.html
This is Song of Songs 1:1-4 in Old Greek from the Codex Sinaiticus. Codex Sinaiticus dates from about 360 CE.The rubrics (the writing in red ink) serve to provide a narrative framework and to distribute portions of the Song to various speakers.

This is Awesome Screenshot

The next one is Nimbus

�
For more information, see Jay Treat, Lost Keys: Text and Interpretation in Old Greek Song of Songs and its Earliest Manuscript Witnesses, Ph.D. Dissertation (University of Pennsylvania, 1996), chapters 3 and 4.

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

 

[Steven Avery]

The Song of Songs from the Codex Sinaiticus
Louis Francis
http://www.reshistoriaeantiqua.co.uk/SONG SINAITICUS.html
Author Profile
http://www.reshistoriaeantiqua.co.uk/LuciusPR.htm

An accompanying Greek text is available for comparison and it should be noted that this version found in the Codex Sinaiticus is annotated with Rubrics, which seem to have been added to the original Hebrew/Greek translation at a later date. Though obviously intended to clarify the text, they do a disservice by allocating identities to the speakers which are not reflected in the text itself. Therefore, although the terms ,‘brother’ or ‘sister’, are freely intermingled within the Greek text together with the terms ‘beloved’ or ‘lover’, the Rubrics have be consistently translated as above, and the ‘Daughters of Jerusalem’ likewise always translated as the’Women of the Harem’. It is hoped that this approach will clarify the translation for the reader.

Noting the Latin tradition, and the complexity, probably a much later date than the supposed 350 AD of Sinaiticus. Benedict likely picked it up from the Vulgate tradition.

 

[Steven Avery]

Tremper Longman - "not in the original Hebrew text and are added by the translator/interpreter."

Song of Songs (2001)
Tremper Longman
https://books.google.com/books?id=PDnMuOcIUjEC&pg=PA42
https://books.google.com/books?id=02RyCgAAQBAJ&pg=PT47

Tremper Longman (b. 1952)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tremper_Longman
Westmont College
https://www.westmont.edu/people/tremper-longman-iii-phd

... the Song is composed of dialogue with absolutely no stage directions. There is no narrative voice that guides readers as they process the speeches of the characters. As a matter of fact, even the rubrics that label the speakers are not in the original Hebrew text and are added by the translator/interpreter.121 As a matter of fact, as the commentary below will make explicit, we cannot be absolutely certain who is speaking in about 10 percent of the cases.

 

[Steven Avery]

The Song of Songs in its Context. Words for Love, Love for Words (2020)
New Perspectives
Pierre Van Hecke
https://books.google.com/books?id=UeiyEAAAQBAJ&pg=PR19

Jean-Marie Auwers

verse, as the interlocutors are not explicitly marked in the text.

For this reason, Auwers consults the stage directions found in the Greek manuscripts of the Song. These manuscripts differ greatly, however, in the number of (groups of) participants they recognize in the text, ranging from two in the Alexandrinus to no less than eight in the Sinaiticus, which leaves Auwers with the task of determining who exactly is speaking in the Song, besides the female and male protagonist of the book.

 

[Steven Avery]

p. 14
Old Greek Song of Songs survives in its entirety with many witnesses.

p. 19
For example, Codex Sinaiticus, a fourth-century Old Greek manuscript, uses rubrics to indicate speakers such as “The Bride” or ‘The Groom’s Companions.”

Chapter Four examines the rubrics of the Codex Sinaiticus in more detail. These rubrics bear a literary relationship with rubrics in several later Latin manuscripts.

p. 21
In 1823, James Parsons produced a critical edition of the Song of Songs as part of the monumental edition of the OG begun by Robert Holmes.4 For its main text, the Holmes-Parsons edition (HP) adopted the text of the Sixtine edition. The Sixtine text itself was based on Codex Vaticanus (B). Against the Sixtine text, Parsons collated the variants evidenced in the two uncial codices Codex Alexandrinus (A) and Codex Venetus (V),5 in fifteen minuscule manuscripts,6 and in citations by seven church writers.7 In addition to the text of the Sixtine edition, Holmes-Parsons included variants from other major editions: the Complutensian Polyglot (1517), the Aldine edition (1518 or 1519), Grabe’s edition of Codex Alexandrinus (1707-1720), and the Catena of Nicephorus (1772-1773).

4Robert Holmes and James Parsons, ed., Vefys Testamentum Grcecum cum Variis Lectionibus, Tomus Tertius (Oxford: The Clarendon Press, 1823).

5Holmes-Parsons mistakenly numbered Codex Venetus as if it were a minuscule manuscript.

6Holmes-Parsons lists the manuscripts it used on unnumbered pages at the very end of vol. 5
(the first and second page of Folio 4Y). Using today’s sigla, they are: B, A, V, 68, 106, 147, 155,
157, 159. 161, 248, 252, 253, 254, 296, 297, 300, 311, 487. In chapter one only, HP also used 125 and 311. See our list in section B, pp. 26-34 below.

7Origen (Delarue’s edition), Athanasius (Montfaucon’s edition of 1777), Basil the Great
(Parisian edition of 1721), John Chrysostom (Montfaucon’s edition), Isidore of Pelusium (Parisian
edition of 1638), Cyril of Alexandria (Aubertus’s edition of 1638), and Theodoret (J. L. Schulze’s
edition of 1769).


P. 22
The present edition contains all of the information supplied by Holmes-Parsons, and such other manuscript evidence as has been published up to the present.14 Klostermann has corrected some of the collations in Holmes-Parsons,15 and I have incorporated these corrections into this edition. To these data I have added the readings of,Codex Sinaiticus (S) and Codex Ephraemi (C), both of which Tischendoff published after Holmes-Parsons. I have checked the readings of Codex Alexandrinus (A) and Codex Sinaiticus (S) from published photographic plates and have corrected the collation of Codex Venetus (V). To this material, I have added the evidence of as many of the more recently discovered OG manuscripts as possible: the readings of the Palau Ribes papyrus (PPal), the Bodleian papyrus (924), the London papyrus (952), the Berlin parchment (PBer), and the Damascus palimpsest (PDam). In addition, I have included readings from the Fayyumic Coptic Hamburg papyrus (PHam), the earliest extant non-Hebrew manuscript for the Song of Songs.

 

[Steven Avery]

Noticed on Twitter by


Stéphane Simonnin

x.com

x.com

August 14, 2024

Codex Sinaiticus, in the British Library, is currently open at the beginning of the Song of Songs. Red paragraph title reads "(the bride) to the bridegroom, Christ" (προς τον νυμφιον ΧΝ) Interesting to see Christological interpretation embedded in paragraph titles so early.

 

[Steven Avery]

Stéphane Simonnin
@ssimonnin
·
Aug 14

Codex Sinaiticus, in the British Library, is currently open at the beginning of the Song of Songs. Red paragraph title reads "(the bride) to the bridegroom, Christ" (προς τον νυμφιον ΧΝ) Interesting to see Christological interpretation embedded in paragraph titles so early.

προς τον νυμφιον ΧΝ
προϲ τον νυμφιον χν
προς τον Νυμφίον Χριστόν





Steven Avery
@StevenAveryNY

Hi Jeffrey! "Interesting to see Christological interpretation embedded in paragraph titles so early." Good catch! The formatting (rubrications, dialog) in Sinaiticus are incompatible with the 4th-c date. The scholars do not allow themselves to consider the best conclusion.

Jay Curry Treat in Lost Keys: Text and Interpretation in Old Greek "Song of Songs" and Its Earliest Manuscript Witnesses "rubrics of Codex Sinaiticus bear a literary relationship with rubrics in several later Latin manuscripts." Makes sense with the 1800s date on Mt. Athos.

To Stéphane Simonnin & Jeffrey Riddle! Stéphane, I am so familiar with Jeffrey's insight that I credited him with your fine point on the anachronistic elements in Sinaiticus Song of Songs. (If we are stuck with the consensus 4th c. date.) Thanks! The scholars are hamstrung! :

 

[Steven Avery]

The falsified LXX was meant to support the NT. Nomina sacra for Christ / xristos in the "OT" - Page 2 - Biblical Criticism & History Forum - earlywritings.com

Song of Solomon 1:6-7 (odd one!)

Someone is trying hard to make sense of this chapter, throwing red titles all over the place:

προϲ τον νυμφιον χν
ἀπάγγειλόν μοι ὃν ἠγάπησεν ἡ ψυχή μου ποῦ ποιμαίνεις ποῦ κοιτάζεις ἐν μεσημβρίᾳ μήποτε γένωμαι ὡς περιβαλλομένη ἐπ᾽ ἀγέλαις ἑταίρων σου

This is a title, not part of the regular text: for the bridegroom XN

Codex Sinaiticus - See The Manuscript | Ecclesiastes |

Codex Sinaiticus is one of the most important books in the world. Handwritten well over 1600 years ago, the manuscript contains the Christian Bible in Greek, including the oldest complete copy of the New Testament. The Codex Sinaiticus Project is an international collaboration to reunite the...

www.codexsinaiticus.org

προϲ τον νυμφιον χν
απαγγειλον μοι · ον ηγαπηϲεν
η ψυχη μου
που ποιμαινειϲ που κοιταζειϲ
εν μεϲημβρια
μηποτε γενωμαι · ωϲ περιβαλλο
μενη επʼ αγελαιϲ ετερων ϲου

 

[Steven Avery]

additional notes on Song of Songs rubrications and Sinaiticus late Latin features

(see other page on rubrications and bring to this section) The Emanuel Tov paper shows how Treat has to theorize that the Sinaiticus rubrications were made on the fly in Sinaiticus Facebook note to .. mentions how Rohan looked at these sections. Send notes to Frans van Liere and others...

purebibleforum.com

Chapter 2 The Septuagint in Codex Sinaiticus Compared with Other Sources
EMANUEL TOV

http://www.emanueltov.info/docs/varia/272.sinaiticus.pdf?v=1.0


Emanuel Tov
In one case, the speaker is identified in Sinaiticus and not in the other sources as ΠΡΟΣ ΤΟΝ ΝΥΜΦΙΟΝ Χ̅Ν (1:7). It is unclear whether the Christian element in this rubric derived from the scribe of Sinaiticus or should be ascribed to his source.46

Codex Sinaiticus contains an elaborate group of dramatis personae, and those in Codex Venetus are even more elaborate.