Tischendorf on the Sinaiticus - Italic agreement

Steven Avery

Steven Avery

Administrator
The Sinai and Comparative New Testament: The Authorized English Version; with Introduction, and Various Readings from the Three Most Celebrated Manuscripts of the Original Greek Text
edited by Constantin von Tischendorf
http://books.google.com/books?id=Us4TAAAAYAAJ&pg=PR7

Introduction to Authorized English Version of the New Testament
https://hc.edu/museums/dunham-bible...horized-english-version-of-the-new-testament/

THE AUTHORSHIP AND CREDIBILITY OF THE BIBLE.
https://www.bibletoday.com/htstb/credibility_text.htm

These considerations seem to show that the first place among the three great Manuscripts, both for ago and extent, is held by the Sinaitic Codex, the second by the Vatican, and the third by the Alexandrine. And this order is completely confirmed by the text they exhibit, which is not merely that which was accepted in the East, at the time they were copied; but, having been written by Alexandrine copyists who knew but little of Greek, and therefore had no temptation to make alterations, they remain in a high degree faithful to the text which was accepted through a large part of Christendom in the third and second centuries. The proof of this is their agreement with the most ancient translations—namely, the so-called Italic, made in the second century in proconsular Africa; the Syriac Gospels of the same date, now transferred from the convents of the Nitrian desert to the British Museum j and the Coptic version of the third century. It is confirmed also by their agreement with the oldest of the Fathers, such as Irenaeus, Tertullian, Clement and Origen.

These remarks apply to the Sinaitic Codex—which is remarkably close in its agreement to the “Italic” version—more than they do to the Vatican MS., and still more so than to the Alexandrine, which, however, is of far more value in the Acts, Epistles, and Apocalypse than it is in the Gospels.



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Steven Avery

Steven Avery

Administrator
Stanley Porter
www.google.com

Constantine Tischendorf

Constantin von Tischendorf was a pioneer. He existed in an age when biblical studies as we know it was being formed, when the quest for forgotten manuscripts and lost treasures was being undertaken with no less zeal and intrigue than it is today. It was Tischendorf who found, and preserved, the...
www.google.com

Tischendorf then offers a brief reconstruction of the early days of the text of the New Testament. He accepts that the Italic (old Latin) text was in use early in the second century, and is similar to that of Tertullian and of the translator of Irenaeus at the end of the second century. Tischendorf posits that if we had a Greek text of this time period—the second century—to compare, we would then be able to identify the original Greek text used at that time and approach very closely the original that came from the hands of the apostles or their amanuenses. Tischendorf believes that he identified such a text in the Sinai codex, because of its closeness to the Italic.233 The old Syriac version is also, Tischendorf contends, very close to the Italic. This closeness was endorsed by the Egyptian church in the second and third centuries. This leads Tischendorf to conclude that “as early as the middle of the second century our four Gospels existed in a Syriac and in a Latin version” (116 (172]). This fact is also demonstrated by the second-century harmonizers, such as Theophilus and Tatian, of the four canonical Gospels. This also confirms the genuineness of Matthew’s and Mark’s Gospels—such as that by this time the versions of the Gospels that we have must have been genuine and not some later and different copies, otherwise the authentic versions must have disappeared without a trace. Before this time period, however, these texts also, Tischendorf notes, had a history. In other words, “the text passed from one hand to

233
Similar arguments have more recently been made for the Alexandrian manuscript tradition, to which codexes Sinaiticus and Vaticanus belong, on the basis of P66 and P75. See Porter, How We Got the New Testament, 62 n. 6.
 
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