Codex Sinaiticus and Constantine Simonides - St Catherine's manuscripts Catalogue(s) plural

[TwoNoteableCorruptions]

The use of "rotondo" is no longer a valid objection to Vitaliano's description of the Codex Sinaiticus' Greek uncial script (now technically known as "Biblical").

The Italian word "rotondo" comes from the Latin word "rotundus".

It's interesting to note the technical vocabulary used in Greek paleography at the time.

Vitaliano Donati's contemporary Bernard de Montfaucon's (who's lives overlapped by 24 years) wrote in 1708:

Berard de Montfaucon
"Palaeographia Graeca, sive, De Ortu et Progressu Literarum Graecarum"
Paris, 1708
Lib. I
Pages 113-114

"Prisca vero scriptio AEgyptiaca , qualis habetur in Codice Alexandrino, nunc Anglicano, cum aliis paris circiter aetatis omnino conſentit in exemplaribus videlicet Charactere unciali quadro et rotundo, cujusmodi [Page 114] observatur in Codicibus
ante septimum et octavum saeculum exaratis."

Berard de Montfaucon
"Greek Palaeography, or, On the Rise and Development of Greek Literature"
Paris, 1708
Book 1
Pages 113-114

“But it is a genuine ancient Egyptian script, such as is found in the Codex Alexandrinus (now English [Or: "Anglican"]) which is consistent [Or: “completely agrees”] with all the other exemplars [Or: “copies”] of about the same age, viz in the square and round uncial characters,
such as [Page 114] is observed in the Codices written before the seventh and eighth centuries.”

​

Here we note that the Codex Alexandrinus is described in the technical terms of the time as being written in BOTH:

"CHARACTERE UNCIALI QUANDRO ET ROTUNDO"

"SQUARE AND ROUND UNCIAL CHARACTERS"​

For his time, Vitaliano's description was accurate!

After his time, and specifically, after the Codex Sinaiticus was discovered, different names for categories of Greek Uncial script were invented and distinguished further than in Vitaliano's time.

So, when taken in context, Vitaliano's use of Italian "rotondo" was not inaccurate by the Greek paleographic standards of the day/time/age.

An interesting picture here for you Steve...

​

Does the Uncial script look similar to you Steven?

 

[Steven Avery]

View attachment 4478​

What you gave us here is one of the two main "scar tissue" spots highlighted by the British Museum.

Here is the url on the CSP

Quire 85 Folio 3r
1 Thessalonians, 2:14 - 4:13 library: BL folio: 287 scribe: D
https://codexsinaiticus.org/en/manu...lioNo=3&lid=en&quireNo=85&side=r&zoomSlider=0

On the next post about scar tissue I will focus on the other one highlighted by the British Museum.

 

[Steven Avery]

Does the Uncial script look similar to you Steven?

Thank you for confirming a point I made a while back, that the Bernard (not Berard) de Montfaucon book offers good script exemplars.

One example:

The claim was made on this forum, and other spots, that Simonides would not know the uncial script because, it was said, without actual evidence, that no such boxy, square uncials were at Mount Athos. And supposedly they would not have access to resources in other cities.
Everybody in textual circles, like Benedict, were well aware of the Montfaucon palaeography book.
So the claim was false, even if the questionable presumptions were true.

 

[Steven Avery]

Quire 85 Folio 3r
https://www.artsy.net/artwork/codex...e-quire-85-folio-3-recto-new-testament-volume

This INK IS WRITTEN INSIDE THE SCAR TISSUE

1 Thessalonians, 2:14 - 4:13 library: BL folio: 287 scribe: D
https://codexsinaiticus.org/en/manu...lioNo=3&lid=en&quireNo=85&side=r&zoomSlider=0


So that scar tissue was there 1650 years ago, and the ink was written inside?

And there was no deterioration of the ink in the 1650 years?
And the ink did not change the scar tissue.

Hmmmm...

 

[Steven Avery]

Because they come from the same G2 recension.

Quite a "coincidence" that the other large Tobit GII recension is at ..... Mt Athos.

Afawk, nothing else extant in Greek is close for those 3+ chapters.

If Sinaiticus thinking was not inherently circular to the Athos-Simonides-Tischendorf 4th century false date, the textual studies would try to see how they were directly connected. Since Vatopedi 319 has a section that is dropped in Sinaiticus, the most sensible theory would consider Vatopedi 319 as a source for Sinaiticus.

 

[Steven Avery]

May be Simonides stole the rest?

One of the possible culprits.
We know Uspensky had sticky fingers in Athos, although his material generally shows up in St. Petersburg.

Greek Manuscripts - Treasures of Athos Holy Mount
https://www.elpenor.org/athos/en/e218er01.asp

"Athos ... continuous process of abstraction and theft ... continuous abstractions"

To be fair, it is possible Vatopedi has records going way back, so this is simply conjecture.
However, it is a logical question.

 

[Steven Avery]

But there's not much scope for progression here re your Simonides thesis, so you may as well give up.

And I would agree that outside of the Vatopedi 319 connection to Sinaiticus, Tobit arguments for both the 4th century and the 19th century are quite inconclusive, with some complexities.

However, it is quite helpful to have some backdrop on the Hebrew connection to Sinaiticus, and the Latin and Syriac recension connection.

 

[cjab]

Since Vatopedi 319 has a section that is dropped in Sinaiticus, the most sensible theory would consider Vatopedi 319 as a source for Sinaiticus.

You're wildly overthinking it. Back in the 4th century, there would have been quite a few versions of the G2 recension floating around, even if, even then, G2 was outnumbered by G1. But you have to realize that at least 99% of all ancient manuscripts and codexes, may be 99.99%, have been lost to posterity. Many would have been consigned to the flames deliberately by Roman or by Islamic persecutors, others simply thrown away by Christians.

Your "sensible theory" is in reality outlandish speculation of a non-scientific, ahistorical, and perverse kind - the sort of "learning" that cults thrive on.

 

[Steven Avery]

Remember Steven!
Pliny said the following for a reason!

Natural History
Book 13, Chapter 70, Section 21
"BY WHICH [i.e. PARCHMENT] THE IMMORTALITY OF MAN IS ENSURED"​

The Romans knew the phenomenal durability of parchment!
Which you obviously don't...
Flexibility and age is not necessarily a problem.

What a TNC stumble-bumble!

TNC totally flunks Context 101.

TNC got duped by the Skeat and Roberts footnote!
The context here from Pliny is papyrus:

Handbook of Greek and Latin palaeography (1903)
by Edward Maunde Thompson. 1840-1929
https://books.google.com/books?id=2SkLAQAAIAAJ&pg=PA29

I’ll place in the intro sentences shortly.

We know, however, that papyrus was plentiful in Rome under the Empire. In fact, it was the common writing material among the Romans at that period, and became so indispensable that, on a temporary failure of the supply in the reign of Tiberius, there was danger of a popular tumult. 4 Pliny also, Nat, Hist, xiii. 11, refers to its high social value in the words: “papyri natura dicetur, cum chartae usu maxime humanitas vitae constet, certe memoria,”and again he describes it as a thing “qua constat immortalitas hominum.”

It is probable that papyrus was imported into Italy already manufactured; and it is doubtful whether any native plant grew in that country. Strabo says that it was found in Lake Trasimene and other lakes of Etruria; but the accuracy of this statement has been disputed, Still, it is a fact that there was a manufacture of this writing material carried on in Rome, the charta Fanniana being an instance; but it has been asserted that this industry was confined to the re-making of imported material. The more brittle condition of the Latin papyri, as compared with the Greek papyri, found at Herculaneum, has been ascribed to the detrimental effect of this re-manufacture.

Skeat and Roberts bibliography entries:

Dimarogonas, A. D. 1995. "Pliny the Elder on the Making of Papyrus Paper," CQ 45: 588-

Dziatzko, K. Studies on selected chapters of the ancient book system: with text, translation and explanation of Pliny, Nat. hist. XIII 68-89 (Leipzig: Teubner 1900)

John Bodel, Pliny and the Book
https://web.archive.org/web/20070203031259/http://classics.rutgers.edu/bookbib.html

 

[Steven Avery]

You're wildly overthinking it. Back in the 4th century, there would have been quite a few versions of the G2 recension floating around, even if, even then, G2 was outnumbered by G1.

You are simply rehashing Sinaiticus circularity.

 

[cjab]

You are simply rehashing Sinaiticus circularity.

No I'm not. You're talking into the air.

A widely-held dating of the Book of Tobit situates it rather somewhere between 225 and 175 B.C (Fitzmyer / Tobit / 2003 p.51) - plenty of time for a Greek translation and numerous Greek manuscripts to have been generated and spread across the globe by the time of Christ. GII recension is the one found in Qumran, in Aramaic & Hebrew.

A bit of the Long (GII) Recension is preserved also in the sixth-century Greek papyrus MS 910 (= P. Oxy. 1076, containing only Tob 2:2-5, 8 (Fitzmyer p. 4).

This alone blows your crackpot theory out of the water.

It is the Greek Shorter rescension that is dated to the post-Christian era. The studies of J. R. Harris, D. C. Simpson, J. D. Thomas, R. Hanhart, J. R. Busto Saiz, and C. A. Moore have shown that the Greek Short Recension is a redacted form of the earlier Greek Long Recension, produced in an effort to improve the Greek phraseology and literary character of the Tobit story. (Fitzmyer p. 5).

 

[Steven Avery]

A bit of the Long (GII) Recension is preserved also in the sixth-century Greek papyrus MS 910 (= P. Oxy. 1076, containing only Tob 2:2-5, 8 (Fitzmyer p. 4).
This alone blows your crackpot theory out of the water.

You are always fishing around, and then making absurd claims.

Some Neglected Texts of Tobit: the Third Greek Version (2006)
Stuart Weeks
https://www.academia.edu/3080320/Some_neglected_texts_of_Tobit_the_third_Greek_version_2006_

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.

1076 New Recension of Tobit ii (1898)
Bernard Pyne Grenfell
https://archive.org/details/oxyrhynchuspapyr08gren/page/6/mode/2up
p. 6-9

Grenfell is very good, and does not support your claim. James Snapp gave the reference, and 3 variants, and tries to pretend it is simply long Greek recension like Sinaiticus as well.

 

[Steven Avery]

James Snapp gave the reference, and 3 variants, and tries to pretend it is simply long Greek recension like Sinaiticus as well.

Two variants, correction to above, and his claim is properly very reserved, he does not say it is the same GII recension as Sinaiticus, and he does not discuss if these two variants are in affinity to the Vetus Latina (or the Syriac or the Hebrew or other Greek mss.) This was in his multiplication of nothings.

Ten More Reasons Sinaiticus Was Not Made by Simonides (2017)
https://www.thetextofthegospels.com/2017/03/ten-more-reasons-sinaiticus-was-not.html

(14) Sinaiticus Has a Nearly Unique Text of the Book of Tobit. No resources at Mount Athos, or anywhere else in the early 1800’s, could supply the form of Greek text of Tobit that appears in Sinaiticus. As David Parker has noted, the text of Tobit in Sinaiticus agrees with the Old Latin translation of the book more closely than the usual Greek text does. In addition, the fragment Oxyrhynchus Papyri 1076, assigned to the 500’s, contains Tobit 2:2-5, and it agrees at some points with the text of Sinaiticus. (For example, both read καὶ ἐπορεύθη Τωβίας (“And Tobias went”) and ἔθνους, “nation,” (instead of γένους, “race”) in 2:3.)

 

[Steven Avery]

It would be a project to really get a handle on the five verses (correction, not 3) that have text in P.Oxy 1076, ms. 910.
Tobit 2:2-5, 8

The three starting point books, Wagner may have a helpful apparatus, would be:

The Oxyrhynchus papyri
Bernard Pyne Grenfell and Arthur Surridge Hunt
https://archive.org/details/oxyrhynchuspapyr08gren/page/6/mode/2up
1076 New Recension of Tobit ii (1898)
p. 6-9

Polyglotte Tobit Synopse (2003)
Christian J. Wagner
https://books.google.com/books?id=I-DVEgyp0x8C&pg=PA16

The Book of Tobit: Texts from the Principal Ancient and Medieval Traditions (2004)
Stuart Weeks, Simon J. Gathercole, Loren T. Stuckenbruck
https://books.google.com/books?id=kXfnJg-3yxMC&pg=PA94

 

[cjab]

You are always fishing around, and then making absurd claims.

Thank you for quoting a piece of research that affirms nearly everything I said:

"It appears, however, that an initial Greek translation was made from a Semitic​

original which was close, but not wholly identical, to that reflected in the Qumran​

fragments. Subsequently, a version of that translation formed the basis for the main​

Old Latin version, but it is clear that there was already considerable variation amongst​

the Greek texts: from comparison with the Qumran fragments, it appears that​

Sinaiticus, ms. 319 and the Old Latin each individually reflect readings which are not​

present in the others, but which have a good claim to be early. The significant​

divergences between Sinaiticus and the Old Latin, in particular, are not wholly​

explicable in terms of later developments within the Greek and Latin traditions, and​

we must suppose that there were already a number of different Long Greek texts in​

existence when the Old Latin was first created. Amongst other things, this should​

warn us against a simplistic equation of the text in Sinaiticus with the 'original' Long​

Greek text."​

p.24 "Some Neglected Texts of Tobit: the Third Greek Version"/ Stuart Weeks.

Also from "Tobit," Loren Stuckenbruck and Stuart Weeks

"The Latin texts were translated from a Greek text similar in content to the​

Qumran manuscripts. No such Greek text was known to scholarship, however, before​

Tischendorf’s publication of Codex Sinaiticus in the nineteenth century... The Latin translators do seem​

to have adhered fairly closely to the Greek, sometimes adapting to Latin usage or introducing​

minor facilitations, and more rarely paraphrasing, but generally offering quite a reliable​

witness to their source text. ."​

You won't find Weeks arguing that Sinaiticus is fabricated. Stop trying to contradict me.

 

[TwoNoteableCorruptions]

What a TNC stumble-bumble!

TNC totally flunks Context 101.

TNC got duped by the Skeat and Roberts footnote!
The context here from Pliny is papyrus:

Handbook of Greek and Latin palaeography (1903)
by Edward Maunde Thompson. 1840-1929
https://books.google.com/books?id=2SkLAQAAIAAJ&pg=PA29

I’ll place in the intro sentences shortly.





Skeat and Roberts bibliography entries:

Dimarogonas, A. D. 1995. "Pliny the Elder on the Making of Papyrus Paper," CQ 45: 588-

Dziatzko, K. Studies on selected chapters of the ancient book system: with text, translation and explanation of Pliny, Nat. hist. XIII 68-89 (Leipzig: Teubner 1900)

John Bodel, Pliny and the Book
https://web.archive.org/web/20070203031259/http://classics.rutgers.edu/bookbib.html

Number 1. This is desperate.

Number 2. The context in Skete is comparison!

Number 3. Here's the quote again ?

Flexibility, and age (the passing of 1600+ years in perfect climatological conditions behind closed doors) is not necessarily a problem for the Codex Sinaiticus.

THE BIRTH OF THE CODEX

COLIN H. ROBERTS
and
T.C. SKEAT

LONDON. Published for THE BRITISH ACADEMY
by THE OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS
(C) 1987 reissue [1983] The British Academy

Chapter 2
PAPYRUS AND PARCHMENT
Pages 7-9

"REMAINS FLEXIBLE INDEFINITELY UNDER NORMAL CONDITIONS, DOES NOT DETERIATE WITH AGE"

http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/rak/courses/735/book/codex-rev1.html​

The point!

Parchment remains flexible indefinitely under normal conditions!

And again!

Parchment remains flexible indefinitely under normal conditions!

And again!

Parchment remains flexible indefinitely under normal conditions!

And again!

Parchment remains flexible indefinitely under normal conditions!

And again!

Parchment remains flexible indefinitely under normal conditions!

And in case you didn't get it....

THE BIRTH OF THE CODEX

COLIN H. ROBERTS
and
T.C. SKEAT

LONDON. Published for THE BRITISH ACADEMY
by THE OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS
(C) 1987 reissue [1983] The British Academy

Chapter 2
PAPYRUS AND PARCHMENT
Pages 7-9

"REMAINS FLEXIBLE INDEFINITELY UNDER NORMAL CONDITIONS, DOES NOT DETERIATE WITH AGE"

http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/rak/courses/735/book/codex-rev1.html​

 

[TwoNoteableCorruptions]

What a TNC stumble-bumble!

TNC totally flunks Context 101.

TNC got duped by the Skeat and Roberts footnote!
The context here from Pliny is papyrus:

Handbook of Greek and Latin palaeography (1903)
by Edward Maunde Thompson. 1840-1929
https://books.google.com/books?id=2SkLAQAAIAAJ&pg=PA29

I’ll place in the intro sentences shortly.





Skeat and Roberts bibliography entries:

Dimarogonas, A. D. 1995. "Pliny the Elder on the Making of Papyrus Paper," CQ 45: 588-

Dziatzko, K. Studies on selected chapters of the ancient book system: with text, translation and explanation of Pliny, Nat. hist. XIII 68-89 (Leipzig: Teubner 1900)

John Bodel, Pliny and the Book
https://web.archive.org/web/20070203031259/http://classics.rutgers.edu/bookbib.html

Why?

Why do you think Pliny said this phrase?

Natural History
Book 13, Chapter 70, Section 21

"BY WHICH [i.e. BY PARCHMENT] THE IMMORTALITY OF MAN IS ENSURED"​

Why would Pliny connect "immortality" with parchment? What was his reason?

 

[TwoNoteableCorruptions]

Your flexibility objection is invalid.

Your easy peasy page turning objection is invalid.

Your "rotondo" objection is invalid.

Your liturgical vs manuscripts climatological false dichotomy is invalid as well.

All in the last few days.

 

[TwoNoteableCorruptions]

Typo correction.

Your liturgical vs manuscripts climatological conditions false dichotomy is invalid as well.

 

[TwoNoteableCorruptions]

And as Avery knows, there's qualification (which I will add, as, and when necessary) to my posts above if he tries to play on, and twist my words.