the Arabic notes and CSP urls - Isaiah, Zechariah, Revelation

[Steven Avery]

And not just notes. See below from Skeat.

The notes show what appear to be two contradictory dates from Tischendorf, and a totally different appraisal from Gosche and Tregelles.
So where is the real palaeography?

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

Related medieval note info here

PBF
signed notes of Dionysius, Hilarion, Theophylact (best pic for palaeography inquiry)
https://purebibleforum.com/index.ph...t-pic-for-palaeography-inquiry.555/#post-1128

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

Facebook discussion:

Sinaiticus - August, 2014
Arabic writing
https://www.facebook.com/groups/sinaiticus/permalink/344363599073785/

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

Tischendorf

Heinrich Leberecht Fleischer (1801-1888)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heinrich_Leberecht_Fleischer

The Reader
William Aldis Wright
https://books.google.com/books?id=fX1NAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA69

The Arabic writing on a leaf of Isaiah in the " Codex Sinaiticus " is pronounced by Professor Fleischer, perhaps the best Arabic scholar in Germany, to belong to belong to the first century of the Hejra, that is, to the seventh century AD.

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

Samuel Tregelles

Richard Gosche
https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Gosche

"Here and there a later hand has written Arabic notes in the margin, and these Tischendorf imagines are from the same hand that has made some corrections (apparently) in the eighth century: if so this would be an uncommonly ancient piece of Arabic writing: I showed the lithographed facsimile of the page to Dr. Goesche of the Royal Library, Berlin; and he tells me, (what I strongly suspected before) that the Arabic is very recent, also that it is by the hand of some Syrian, being (as I before knew) a liturgical note."
Some Unpublished Letters of S. P. Tregelles Relating to the Codex Sinaiticus,
Evangelical Quarterly, 1976 Timothy C. F. Stunt, p. 20

"Very recent" sounds like the 15+ year period of tampering, 1844-1859.

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

Scrivener

A full Collation of the Codex Sinaiticus with the received text of the New Textament (1864)
Scrivener
https://books.google.com/books?id=v-JUmBD5zIcC&pg=PP34

Tischendorf affords us specimens of about four other persons' writing, scattered throughout the margin of this manuscript, but having no bearing upon the criticism of the text. Such are our Arabic notes appended to the Apocalypse, less rude in style than Da (p. xxv), and not earlier than the tenth century, and several subscriptions of about the twelfth century; one by a monk named Dionysius (vol. ii. fol. 16), given in out Facsimile (15)9, a signature by one Hilarion (vol. ii. fol. 41*), and three by one Theophylact (vol. ii. fol. 42 ; vol. iii. foil. 73* ; 112*). Tischendorf conjectures that these three were brethren of the Convent of St. Catherine, whither the Codex may have been brought on its foundation by the Emperor Justinian, about a.d. 530.

The three Theophylact notes do not appear to be the same hand.

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

Kirsopp Lake does not mention the Arabic writing in his NT introduction of 1912. More checking of the 1922 needed.

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

Skeat - Scribes and Correctors of the Codex Sinaiticus, 1938

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

David Charles Parker
1453-1492 - Arabic note on Revelation 7:4 - Parker p. 119
"medieval corrections.. some Arabic glosses, notably one that may be dated between 1453 and 1492. " -
https://books.google.com/books?id=guYq9rohFQ8C&pg=PA45

James E. Snapp, Jr.
https://www.facebook.com/groups/212...152056510031693&offset=100&total_comments=135

See pages 118-119 of D. C. Parker's "Codex Sinaiticus," in the chapter "Beyond the Scriptorium." He has a special section sub-titled "The Arabic Glosses." Parker mentions the existence of 12 Arabic notes, by two Arabic-writing annotators, and presents samples:

(1) one Arabic-writing annotator wrote short explanatory notes alongside passages in Isaiah (and one alongside Zechariah 14:8). Parker offers the note at Isaiah 1:10 as an example of what we're looking at: it is a simple explanatory note (an interpretation, not a correction), stating that the text, though addressing the rulers of Sodom, is meant to describe the leaders of Israel (in Isaiah's day, long after Sodom was a smoking desolation).

(2) the other Arabic-writing annotator made four notes in Revelation. One is below col. 3 and simply re-states what the text of Codex Sinaiticus says (probably to draw attention the faulty reading, 140,000, which should be, instead 144,000). Another note is an incorrect interpretation of Rev. 8:1ff., associating the Islamic conquest of Constantinople with the end of the world -- "And at the beginning of the seventh thousand" (i.e., the 7,000th year since the creation of the world) "a persecution will take place . . . A star of the Arabs, which looks like hellebore, will appear," etc.
================

My count is 14

9 Isaiah
1 Zechariah,
4 Revelation. (one to be checked for url)

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

Jongkind

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

CSP
https://codexsinaiticus.org/en/project/transcription_detailed.aspx

Arabic glosses
The Arabic glosses are presented in notes (indicated by the § symbol). The glosses were written without pointing, but this has been included in the transcription, along with a translation. Two Arabic hands have been identified, and are named A and B

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

[textualcriticism] Book of Revelation & Folio 129a of Sinaiticus
Mark Thunderson - May 9, 2007
https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/textualcriticism/conversations/topics/3118

 

[Steven Avery]

Arabic in Alexandrinus

The Arabic note in Alexandrinus is subject to swirling dates as well.

Skeat and Milne rejected a seventeenth-century dating of the Arabic inscription, asserting that Arabic scholar A. S. Fulton of the British Museum had confirmed a thirteenth- to fourteenth-century date, on palaeographic grounds.59

59 T. C. Skeat and II. J. M. Milne, The Codex Sinaiticus and the Codex Alexandrinus with Six Illustrations (London: Trustees of the British Museum, 1938), 29. Unfortunately, this is the extent of the evaluation provided by Dr. Fulton through Skeat and Milne.

A Study of the Gospels in Codex Alexandrinus: Codicology, Palaeography, and Scribal Hands (2014)

William Andrew Smith
https://books.google.com/books?id=pWHPBAAAQBAJ&pg=PA22

p. 15 - 25 - a wonderful section

p. 17
"Arabic numbering of the leaves"

 

[Steven Avery]

Pics and URLs of Arabic writing

Many of these pages in Isaiah are on pages with overwriting
One or two of the Isaiah the pens are thinner
Some of them are at chapter breaks

Isaiah
1:10 - 1:31 & 2:10 (same page) -10:1 12 (ref to 13:3) 18:1 31:1 33:6 42:10 56:7

Zechariah 14:8

Revelation

1:10 - “The prophet rebukes the leaders of Israel" - famous scribble on top, lots of overwriting -
Arabic Hand A - maybe 4 words bold and final word light (not in transcription)

1:31 - (unclear, the Prophet Mar, probably an introduction to 2:1) - Arabic Hand A

2:10 - “the second division” - (not in transcription)

10:1 - "from the chapter about Madian" - dark black, thin

13:3 - “the giants” - single word at bottom of page, light black, Arabic Hand A
KJB - Isa 13:3 I have commanded my sanctified ones, I have also called my mighty ones for mine anger, even them that rejoice in my highness.
(no overwriting on page)
unusual indentation - exemplar? - on 12:4 Babylon oracle)
13:1 KJB The burden of Babylon, which Isaiah the son of Amoz did see.
13:1
οραϲιϲ ην
ειδεν ηϲα
ιαϲ ϋϊοϲ α
μωϲ κατα βα
βυλωνοϲ
The vision of Isaiah the son of Amos, against Babylon
Similar indentation at 14:28, the beginning of a vision, revelation
Every time he starts a new vision / prophecy, this may have been in exemplar, might be in other books like Jeremiah
Section where Isaiah is attacking various pagan nations
Babylon
Indents continue
14:28 .. not against
15:1 - Moabites
17:1 - the burden against Damascus
Vaticanus does similarly with the later visions to the nations
Check Zosimas
=========
word giants
https://www.purebibleforum.com/inde...s-isaiah-zechariah-revelation.208/#post-14158
https://www.purebibleforum.com/inde...ls-isaiah-zechariah-revelation.208/post-14157

18:1 - introduction - "Kingdom of Ethiopians which was taken by the sons of Israel" -
light black, no overwriting, Arabic Hand A

the Arabic notes and CSP urls - Isaiah, Zechariah, Revelation

And not just notes. See below from Skeat. The notes show what appear to be two contradictory dates from Tischendorf, and a totally different appraisal from Gosche and Tregelles. So where is the real palaeography? ======================== Related medieval note info here PBF signed notes of...

www.purebibleforum.com

31:1 To those, who set off from the [Land] of Jews to Egypt - Arabic hand A

the Arabic notes and CSP urls - Isaiah, Zechariah, Revelation

And not just notes. See below from Skeat. The notes show what appear to be two contradictory dates from Tischendorf, and a totally different appraisal from Gosche and Tregelles. So where is the real palaeography? ======================== Related medieval note info here PBF signed notes of...

www.purebibleforum.com

Arabic was likely done by overwriting guy, and there are the later Zetas.

33:6-7 - “and he conquered the kingdom of Babel and took it" (red ink) Arabic Hand A

the Arabic notes and CSP urls - Isaiah, Zechariah, Revelation

And not just notes. See below from Skeat. The notes show what appear to be two contradictory dates from Tischendorf, and a totally different appraisal from Gosche and Tregelles. So where is the real palaeography? ======================== Related medieval note info here PBF signed notes of...

www.purebibleforum.com

42:10 - "praise.." (second word unclear)

Codex Sinaiticus - See The Manuscript | Isaiah |

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...

codexsinaiticus.org

the Arabic notes and CSP urls - Isaiah, Zechariah, Revelation

And not just notes. See below from Skeat. The notes show what appear to be two contradictory dates from Tischendorf, and a totally different appraisal from Gosche and Tregelles. So where is the real palaeography? ======================== Related medieval note info here PBF signed notes of...

www.purebibleforum.com

56:7-8- "to those who are preoccupied"

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

Isaiah 1:10

Isaiah, 1:1 - 1:27 library: BL folio: 42 scribe: B, overwriting by corrector d
2nd column 20th line, (not in transcription)
f42b - scribe b - q43-1-r -
The prophet rebukes the leaders of Israel - Isaiah 1:10
Yet Greek heading scrawl is "Scribe E"
https://codexsinaiticus.org/en/manuscript.aspx?book=14&lid=en&side=r&zoomSlider=0

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

Isaiah 1:31 (2:1)

Isaiah 2:10
Isaiah, 1:27 - 3:2 library: BL folio: 42b scribe: B
f42b - scribe b - q43-1-v -
https://codexsinaiticus.org/en/manuscript.aspx?folioNo=1&lid=en&quireNo=43&side=v&zoomSlider=8
3rd column - 10th line, not in transcription

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

Isaiah 10:1 - note unusual line with only two Greek letters
Isaiah, 8:23 - 10:3 library: BL folio: 45b scribe: B, page partly overwritten
f45b - scribe b - q43-4-v -
4th column, 28th line, not in transcription
Isaiah 10:1 "from the chapter about Madian"
https://codexsinaiticus.org/en/manuscript.aspx?book=14&chapter=10&lid=en&side=r&zoomSlider=5

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

Isaiah, 12:4 - 14:2 library: BL folio: 47 scribe: B
f47 - scribe b - q43-6-r -
bottom of 4th column

transcription! (add pic)
Gloss
(arabic word)
Scribe: Arabic Hand A
Reading (arabic word)
Translation: The giants A reference to Isaiah 13:3

"the giants" Isaiah 12
https://codexsinaiticus.org/en/manu...lioNo=5&lid=en&quireNo=43&side=v&zoomSlider=3

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

Isaiah, 16:11 - 18:5 library: BL folio: 48b scribe: B
f48b - scribe b - q43-7-v -
4th column - 8th line (why is Greek half-line empty?)
Isaiah 18:1 introduction - "Kingdom of Ethiopians which was taken by the sons of Israel"
https://codexsinaiticus.org/en/manuscript.aspx?book=14&chapter=18&lid=en&side=r&zoomSlider=4

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

Isaiah 31:1
Isaiah, 30:29 - 32:11 library: BL folio: 54 scribe: B, overwriting by corrector d
f54b - scribe b - q44-5-r - Isaiah 31:1 "overwritten by corrector D" "to those who set off.." interesting funny page rewrite cursive - retracing
bottom of column one -

transcription
Translation: To those, who set off from the [Land] of Jews to Egypt (Arabic introduction to Isaiah 31:1)

https://codexsinaiticus.org/en/manuscript.aspx?book=14&chapter=31&lid=en&side=r&zoomSlider=8

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

Isaiah 33:6-7 - red ink
Gloss information on transcription!
f54b - scribe: B q44-5-v
intro to Isaiah 33:6-7 - "and he conquered the kingdom of Babel and took it"
https://codexsinaiticus.org/en/manuscript.aspx?book=14&chapter=33&lid=en&side=r&zoomSlider=7

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

This is the one above, in full page mode.

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

Isaiah, 41:26 - 42:25 library: BL folio: 58b scribe: B
f58b - scribe b - q45-1-v - "praise.." margin Isaiah 42:10
Between 2nd and 3rd column lines 33-34
Transcription (hard to find, in second column, mentions praise and second word unclear)
https://codexsinaiticus.org/en/manuscript.aspx?book=14&chapter=42&lid=en&side=r&zoomSlider=0
unusual connected script that may be a bit unlike the other ones maybe

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

Isaiah, 55:10 - 57:9 library: BL folio: 64 scribe: B
f64 - scribe b - q45-7-v - "to those who are preoccupied" MARGINx2 Isaiah 56:7
to right of 3rd column
Transcription
https://codexsinaiticus.org/en/manuscript.aspx?book=14&chapter=56&lid=en&side=r&zoomSlider=0
This link is the same.
https://www.purebibleforum.com/inde...ls-isaiah-zechariah-revelation.208/post-14163

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

 

[Steven Avery]

Zechariah 14:8 - f85b - scribe b2 - q58-4-v - (two words) (bottom)
https://codexsinaiticus.org/en/manuscript.aspx?book=24&chapter=14&lid=en&side=r&zoomSlider=0

Transcription not given on CSP but is in LOGOS
javascript:void(0)

the Arabic notes and CSP urls - Isaiah, Zechariah, Revelation

And not just notes. See below from Skeat. The notes show what appear to be two contradictory dates from Tischendorf, and a totally different appraisal from Gosche and Tregelles. So where is the real palaeography? ======================== Related medieval note info here PBF signed notes of...

www.purebibleforum.com

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

Revelation

Revelation - f327b - scribe a - q90-3-v - 1st part - Greek and Arabic (top and bottom)
https://codexsinaiticus.org/en/manuscript.aspx?folioNo=3&lid=en&quireNo=90&side=v&zoomSlider=0

TOP of column 4 - right under a Greek gloss

SAME PAGE AS PREVIOUS BUT NOW WE GO TO BOTTOM,
BUT DOES THIS IN COLUMN 4 CONTINUE THE GLOSS FROM THE TOP?
SO IT COUNTS AS 1 or 2?

Revelation - f327b - scribe a - q90-3-v - BIG NOTE plus gloss S1010-Y colour
https://codexsinaiticus.org/en/manuscript.aspx?folioNo=3&lid=en&quireNo=90&side=v&zoomSlider=0

Transcriptions as given by CSP
Bottom of Column 3 and 4 - 2 Notes

Column 3

Column 4

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

NEXT WE HAVE THREE COLUMNS ALONG THE BOTTOM

Revelation - f328a - scribe a - q90-4-r - 2nd part - (bottom)
Revelation 7 - BIG NOTE - 12th century prophecy per James Asch (in 18th century style)
https://codexsinaiticus.org/en/manuscript.aspx?folioNo=4&lid=en&quireNo=90&side=r&zoomSlider=0

Column 1
.

2007 discussion on the [textualcriticism] forum would be good to recover.
Jean Valentin - Mark Thunderson (George Webber Young) Daniel Buck ... called folio 129a of Sinaiticus ?

Column 2

Column 3

 

[Steven Avery]

David C. Parker
Codex Sinaiticus: The Story of the World's Oldest Bible (2010) p. 118-119
https://books.google.com/books?id=0...=2ahUKEwie47zk3tP8AhWXlIkEHY7vBakQ6AF6BAgHEAI

Revelation

7:4- 140,000 (2 columns -
At Q89- F3V, below Column 3 there is a note to 7.4 (And I heard the number of those who were sealed, one hundred and forty thousand, sealed out of every tribe of the people of Judah*): ‘One hundred and forty thousand believers who were marked with a seal - from the 12 tribes of Israel.'

7:9-10 - Messiah born in flesh
Q90-F3v, - At the time when our Lord Messiah was born in flesh (note on Rev. 7:9-10)

This Arabic Hand B was first writing in an unusual Greek!

7:12-13
After he has become a martyr and was killed... (Note on Rev. 7:12-13, continuing the gloss at the top of this column)

8:1 - seventh seal, persecution, star of the Arabs
Across the bottom of Q90-F4r, probably annotating 8.1 onwards, is a long comment explaining the prophecy of the seventh seal ([. . .] indicates unreadable text):
And at the beginning of the seventh thousand a persecution {of Christians] will take place. They say that [other] martyrs. wha,vne martyred on the Messiah s lance [. . .) Then the peace and calmness will come and the number of holy men increase. Their [...] will be elevated and will compel them to appear in front of the Ix>rd. And as a consequence will appear then a star of the Arabs, which looks like hellebore, will appear {...] This star is called afsintis. which is absinth. It will fall into the water and many [...]
Then Parker explains the 1453-1492 idea.

Column 2
Then the peace and calmness will come and the number of holy men increase. Their [...] will be elevated and will compel them to appear in front of the Lord. And as a consequence will appear [...] (A continuation of the gloss below column 1)
Column 3
Translation: Then a star of the Arabs, which looks like hellebore will appear. This star is called afsintis, which is absinth. It will fall into the water and many [...]
(A continuation of the gloss at the foot of column 2)

I am indebted for information about the Arabic glosses to the report by Dr Nikolaj Serikoff, Asian Collections Librarian at the Wellcome Library, and to the comments of my colleague Professor David Thomas.

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

David Thomas
12/30/2022

Thanks for this. I have to admit that whatever help I gave was a long time ago and I do not remember it now. Also, I am not a Biblical specialist but an Islamicist, so I would not be aware of any studies by Biblical scholars on these Arabic marginalia.

Although this is unlikely, it is at least possible in principle that an Arabic-speaking Christian (or even a Muslim) may have made these notes for apologetic (or polemical) purposes. It was very common for Christians and Muslims in the Islamic world to adduce verses from their own scripture and from the other's scripture in order to support their own arguments. But this could be irrelevant.

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

James Snapp added commentary
https://www.facebook.com/groups/21209666692/posts/10152055663696693/?comment_id=10152056510031693

(1) one Arabic-writing annotator wrote short explanatory notes alongside passages in Isaiah (and one alongside Zechariah 14:8). Parker offers the note at Isaiah 1:10 as an example of what we're looking at: it is a simple explanatory note (an interpretation, not a correction), stating that the text, though addressing the rulers of Sodom, is meant to describe the leaders of Israel (in Isaiah's day, long after Sodom was a smoking desolation).

(2) the other Arabic-writing annotator made four notes in Revelation. One is below col. 3 and simply re-states what the text of Codex Sinaiticus says (probably to draw attention the faulty reading, 140,000, which should be, instead 144,000). Another note is an incorrect interpretation of Rev. 8:1ff., associating the Islamic conquest of Constantinople with the end of the world -- "And at the beginning of the seventh thousand" (i.e., the 7,000th year since the creation of the world) "a persecution will take place . . . A star of the Arabs, which looks like hellebore, will appear," etc.

 

[Steven Avery]

AFF discussion
http://www.apostolicfriendsforum.com/showpost.php?p=1526168&postcount=61

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

Find reference to ligature

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

Arkan Amin Zaki Al-Amin

Daniel Alan Brubaker
https://www.facebook.com/pg/drbru1/posts/

The Arabic Versions of the Gospels: The Manuscripts and Their Families
by Hikmat Kashouh
https://abtslebanon.org/hikmat-kashouh/

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

Ahmed Badache

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

 

[Steven Avery]

Different handwriting and much stronger newer ink in the Arabic.
(looking for Q43-F1R 2nd column halfway down)
https://codexsinaiticus.org/en/manuscript.aspx?book=14&lid=en&side=r&zoomSlider=0

End of Isaiah 1:9, but is it 1:10?

Check this.

 

[Steven Avery]

Some recent comments - 2018

https://www.facebook.com/groups/NTT...nacl8qh56KvvWn8r59MKE4yItIwiVdCl0&__tn__=R]-R

Daniel Buck
That's a very ancient form of written Arabic--no dots.

Alin Suciu
Buck Daniel
Not necessarily very ancient.
They wrote without dots, especially glosses on the margins of the mss, even in the Middle Ages.

James Snapp
Parker/McKendrick covers this Arabic note in their book on Codex Sinaiticus.
pp 118-119, "The Arabic glosses."
https://www.amazon.com/Codex-Sinaiticus-Perspectives-Biblical-Manuscript/dp/1619706474?pldnSite=1

James E Snapp Jr
Parker notes that one of the notes (in Rev. 7) is related to the idea that the world is about the end; and offers an estimate of some time between 1453 and 1492 for its production.
Which I suppose one could say is relatively recent, post-dating the invention of movable type.

 

[Steven Avery]

Here are two samples from above, from the notes.

 

[Steven Avery]

Samples of Arabic
https://www.academia.edu/42927661/C...t_there_were_Arabic_Gospels_before_the_Qurʾān

There would be two good examples of different Arabic scripts in manuscripts.
Many more can be added.

 

[Steven Avery]

Combination Pic for Revelation
Top - Greek followed by Arabic

Bottom

------------------------

 

[Steven Avery]

Isaiah 2:10

 

[Steven Avery]

Isaiah 1:31

 

[Steven Avery]

Isaiah 13:3 /.... this shows the word Giant

 

[Steven Avery]

Isaiah 18:1

 

[Steven Avery]

Isaiah 31:1

Link to Arabic gloss

this is note

This page has the later hand ksi ...
in overwriting.

 

[Steven Avery]

Isaiah 33:6-7

 

[Steven Avery]

Isaiah 42:10

This Arabic Hand A is very dubious.

 

[Steven Avery]

Isaiah 56-7:8

Codex Sinaiticus - See The Manuscript | Isaiah |

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...

codexsinaiticus.org

 

[Steven Avery]

Zechariah 14:8

Zechariah 14:8 (Brenton LXX En) 8 And in that day living water shall come forth out of Jerusalem; half of it toward the former sea, and half of it toward the latter sea: and so shall it be in summer and spring.