Did he say that he didn't think Codex Sinaiticus was genuine? Or did you project that onto him! The only one who thinks its a forgery is Steve. And he is KJVOnly. Only some KJVOnlist think its a forgery.When you get elected sheriff of the forum then you can tell others how and where to post. Until then try to understand.
You don't think the Codex Sinaiticus is authentic. I'm fairly confident everyone in this thread understands that's your position and the purpose of this op. The question is, "Why?" Why is the authenticity doubted? According to this op, according to the contents of this op - the objectively measured contents of this op and NOT our personal subjective views of others' person, character, or any other personal attribute - according to the contents of this op the doubt is based on 1) the speculations existing about the Codex Sinaiticus and 2) the speculations about those speculations.
I will suggest both are problematic, but the latter is definitely not beneficial for resolving the matter. The question, the debate the entire Church is having (expressed in little ways in internet threads like this one) is whether or not the speculations are exegetically inferential (for example) or inferentially inferential. Or, to put it in different words, are we making reasonable inferences based on what we actually know or are we inferring inferences based on prior inferences. Ultimately the matter of Sinaiticus isn't going to be resolved without further archeological discovery but that doesn't mean we can't have an objectively shared view. The problems between the two codexes are obvious and objectively verified. The meaning of those differences should not be ideological. Yes?
As I noted previously in other posts, we live in an age where we have near-instant access to the manuscripts. With a few mouse clicks we can compare more than a dozen English translations and see a sampling of Greek manuscripts for comparison. Most of the time there aren't significant doctrinal challenges or problems, and most Christians can live a well-informed (by Word and Spirit) Christian service to Christ with the English. There's no need for a knowledge of Greek but on the occasion where there is, the information is readily available for those with an interest. I think I cited two examples of this in earlier posts.
I could have (and I might still) ask for specific examples where this is relevant to the average believer, but I am not inclined to take that approach with posters who impugn one another.
Appeals to ridicule and straw men do not accomplish anything other than self-indictment. I am not ranting and to characterize my posts as such demeans you, not me. keeping our reactivity in check and engaging the op-relevant content without personally derisive content is a good thing. Try not to make the mistakes the others did. Set an example for them.
Or don't.
Your choice.
Either way it won't stop me from posting. It will stop me from considering you a respectful poster and ignoring your posts. I have affirmed this op. I don't entirely agree with it but it's a good op. I don't think it belongs in this board, but it's a good op. I've expressed my views in various ways and in doing so provided plenty of avenues for op-relevant (and board-relevant) discourse so there's no reason for dismissing the posts as "rants."
Take the op-relevant content and keep the posts about the posts, not the posters. Yes?
Codex Sinaiticus - the facts
- Thread starter cjab
- Start date
Did he say that he didn't think Codex Sinaiticus was genuine? Or did you project that onto him! The only one who thinks its a forgery is Steve. And he is KJVOnly. Only some KJVOnlist think its a forgery.
Josheb
Well-known member
Did you read all the posts?
Maybe consider Proverbs 26:17 because I'm certain cjab can speak for himself; he seems quite able to address any offences he might feel.
It is a matter of common courtesy that you ask people what their positions are before you dogmatize on what they might be. An apology may be in order. I initially accused you of ranting as I didn't think you were on the right wave length for this thread, which specifically concerns the factual authenticity of the document Codex Sinaiticus as set against those who maintain Sinaiticus was created/fabricated at a date long after the 4th century. It wasn't intended to be theologically orientated, or even concern the KJV at all.
Of course there are interesting points regarding the text that you may have views on, e.g. John 1:18, where it appears from the use of ultraviolet light that the original hand that created Sinaiticus wrote: μονογενὴς Θεὸς, which some have speculated became later translated into ὁ μονογενὴς υἱός in the Byzantine majority text, and which the KJV adopts.
Josheb
Well-known member
Apologies are not biblical. They are a social convention of the world and I will post an apology if that is what you'd like. I apologize. However, the standards of scripture are higher than a mere apology. The scriptural standards are confession, repentance, restitution or amends, forgiveness, and reconciliation. I stand corrected. I understand I erred in saying, "You don't think the Codex Sinaiticus is authentic," and I regret doing so. I will work at reading the posts more attentively, so the error does not reoccur and post better. The only way you'll know that is to continue discourse, but I understand if the choice to discontinue is made. I hope you'll forgive my error and we can restore the relationship (even though it never seemed well from the beginning), or perhaps improve upon it.
However, for the record, I did not "dogmatize" anything, anyone, anywhere other than KJVOists.
Josheb
Well-known member
Yes, and it was wrong to do so. There's been a lot of that sort of content in this thread.
I understood that and it should not have been assumed otherwise. The only mistake I made was in thinking you were critical of Sinaiticus.
But the op is nonetheless a theological matter, and this is the KJV board.
Try to step back for a moment. Give the opening post of this thread a re-read and see if you can find a thesis statement, or a statement of either comment or inquiry specified for discussion. Can you? I understand this op is part of an ongoing conversation. I perused the board and read the various ops by Steven, Unbound, and others. It should not be assumed I didn't have some familiarity with the ongoing discussion.
Perhaps, but they are not being met with kindly.
It appears we are all aware of problems within Sinaiticus and between Sinaiticus and Vaticanus. Every point I've made is correct and I don't see anyone correcting anything I said about Sinaiticus or the articles to which posters here are appealing (there's a lot of speculation). The only complaints I've received are personal, and they shouldn't be. I am certainly capable of receiving and accepting correction, making amends where I err, adjusting to topical changes in the thread, doing better, and learning something about Sinaiticus.
I hope we can proceed topically.
I believe you are the original ranter on this thread.
Did I even offer an opinion critical of Sinaiticus?
I think the OP referred to the historical evidence for Codex Sinaiticus's origin and context, but not its theology.
The specific topic of discussion is in the title : "the facts relating to Codex Sinaiticus."
Please have regard to the title of this thread for what it is about.
What is the key point? That a Greek text written at Rome in AD150 contains Latinisms? If you were writing a French text, wouldn't it contains Englishisms?
You haven't addressed the key issue of why the Sinaiticus is posited as being a translation of the Palatine, and not vice versa.
Because the Latin translations are copies of each other, and all derive from the West, whereas the Sinaiticus was presumably sourced from a Greek text (there are many Greek papyri fragments of Hermas from the Levant).
Josheb
Well-known member
Yes, it is. Have you anything further to add on that topic?
Yes, the topic of discussion is "the facts relating to Codex Sinaiticus," so what is the purpose of that discussion?
Yes, the topic of discussion is "the facts relating to Codex Sinaiticus," but there is a lot of speculation in these posts (beginning with the articles appealed to in these opening posts). We presumably can and should ALL agree speculation is not fact, and it does not make me ranting to point out that fact. I'm not trying to be adversarial. It is worthy of us ALL to make note of the fact speculation is not fact and in ANY thread titled "the facts relating to....," it is at least a curious thing that speculations would be asserted. I think kindly in general of you, personally (and the others as well), but 1) this discussion is not about the posters (even though several have tried to make it about the posters) and 2) because I think kindly of everyone here, I accordingly assume everyone recognizes the problem of posting speculations as fact and everyone has the ability to discuss that in well-mannered discourse. Furthermore, I have repeatedly commended the op!
That is largely because the matter of the Palatine text wasn't introduced to the thread until Post #45, three pages into the thread and I'm having difficulty getting people to topically address preceding concerns present in posts 1-20. Surely you understand there's little hope of getting a cogent response on subsequent commentary if a poster can't or won't address the more fundamental aspects of the topic being discussed.
Actually, I did and that content is sitting idly in the thread unattended. Perhaps, my comments were either accepted and viewed as not needing further comment, or maybe their relevance wasn't considered, or perhaps they were dismissed as "ranting," but I did address the matter of Sinaiticus being translated from the Palatine Codex or vice versa. I consider the matter a non-starter because, as you earlier stated, Donaldson could just as easily claimed, "The Sinaitic Greek accounts well for the origin of Maximo in the Palatine." In the end the matter is a function of..... speculation.
And speculation is not fact.
And I am not ranting to note this.
I said something(s) that preclude the Palatine Codex from being the source of Sinaiticus. It's speculative, but if true then it completely addresses the matter and it does so in favor of your position. Sitting silent and ignored (and now misrepresented).
As I understand it (I could be wrong), Sinaiticus is an Alexandrian text (as opposed to possibly Caesarea). It appears to have some Byzantine corrections made to it (which, presumably, help with its dating). Earlier I appealed to the Alexandrian ECFs, which I think is an important matter pertaining to the facts relating to Codex Sinaiticus, but that too has gone unaddressed. If the Hermas of the "Shepherd of Hermas" text is Paul's Hermas and that text was written in the second century (I am inclined to think earlier), then that lends some credibility to Sinaiticus, despite Donaldson's protests to the contrary. Although I do think there is some validity to the concerns about Sinaiticus's difference from Origen's use of scripture I think Donaldson and Daniels overreach with their conclusion Sinaiticus is a fake. I wonder sometimes if these so called "critics" understand the meanings of words because to call something a "counterfeit" necessarily means there is an authentic original from which it was copied. That would not be Vaticanus. Occam's Razor alone tells us the consistency of later texts is likely due to their having a later, not earlier, source. So the critics of Sinaiticus must late-date Sinaiticus or their complaints all fall apart. I know I'm blowing right through some otherwise mor detailed or nuanced matters but in the end...
- Most of it is speculation, and speculation is not fact.
- The fact is we are still left with two competing texts of about the same era (despite my speculation Sinaiticus could be earlier than the fourth century) and they disagree enormously.
- For most cases the differences are negligible as far as their effect on Christian doctrine and practice go.
- And even though this op is not intended to address KJVOism, the fact is none of this is KJVO relevant but not because the facts aren't germane, but because KJVOism is ideological (and not a matter of the facts relating to the codices).
- The matter won't be decided without further archeological discovery and whatever that might be will likely become the new boogey man, the text investigated, doubted, denied and affirmed, and debated. Especially if it proves Vaticanus problematic. The new kid on the block is always mistreated. What was Tischendorf thinking?
Yes, the Latin translations are all western and the western influences are just as problematic and no more orthodox than their eastern counterparts. I'm not aware that is a matter of dispute.
Steven Avery
Well-known member
See the previous post.
Explaining magna in the main and early Latin text.
And I understand you do not want to answer, so I will go into other questions.
`The scholarly consensus I've already quoted is that there were two strands of Greek text floating around, leading to two different Latin translations.
Steven Avery
Well-known member
Steven Avery
Well-known member
2 Peter 2:15 (AV)
Which have forsaken the right way, and are gone astray,
following the way of Balaam the son of Bosor,
who loved the wages of unrighteousness;
Numbers 22:5 (AV)
He sent messengers therefore unto Balaam the son of Beor to Pethor,
which is by the river of the land of the children of his people,
to call him, saying,
Behold, there is a people come out from Egypt:
behold, they cover the face of the earth,
and they abide over against me:
The true NT Bible word is Bosor, Βοσόρ.
The false NT word is Beor, Βεώρ, a late variant.
Sinaiticus has by the original hand - Beoorsor, Βεωορσορ
A conflation of the two readings.
The evidence here is, once again, Sinaiticus is a late manuscript.
Which have forsaken the right way, and are gone astray,
following the way of Balaam the son of Bosor,
who loved the wages of unrighteousness;
Numbers 22:5 (AV)
He sent messengers therefore unto Balaam the son of Beor to Pethor,
which is by the river of the land of the children of his people,
to call him, saying,
Behold, there is a people come out from Egypt:
behold, they cover the face of the earth,
and they abide over against me:
The true NT Bible word is Bosor, Βοσόρ.
The false NT word is Beor, Βεώρ, a late variant.
Sinaiticus has by the original hand - Beoorsor, Βεωορσορ
A conflation of the two readings.
The evidence here is, once again, Sinaiticus is a late manuscript.
Steven Avery
Well-known member
Jude 1:3 (AV)
Beloved, when I gave all diligence to write unto you of the common salvation,
it was needful for me to write unto you,
and exhort you that ye should earnestly contend for the faith
which was once delivered unto the saints.
Sinaiticus has a conflation of the two variants::
Sinaiticus -> ”salvation and life” - σωτηρίας καὶ ζωῆς
Salvation - σωτηρίας - the well supported common text
Life - ζωῆς - is only in a couple of late minuscules, 1505 from … Mt. Athos, and 1611 now at the Athens library
(source, LaParola apparatus.)
http://www.laparola.net/greco/index.php?rif1=68&rif2=2:15
Salvation and life, the Sinaiticus text - is in one other majuscule, Ψ (psi) (044) from Mt. Athos.
Codex Athous Lavrensis
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Codex_Athous_Lavrensis
In our studies we will find Ψ having additional interesting connections with Codex Sinaiticus (Simoneidos).
hmm …
And any attempt to support the Sinaiticus conflation as early, (e.g. 4th century) is extremely difficult and unlikely.
Beloved, when I gave all diligence to write unto you of the common salvation,
it was needful for me to write unto you,
and exhort you that ye should earnestly contend for the faith
which was once delivered unto the saints.
Sinaiticus has a conflation of the two variants::
Sinaiticus -> ”salvation and life” - σωτηρίας καὶ ζωῆς
Salvation - σωτηρίας - the well supported common text
Life - ζωῆς - is only in a couple of late minuscules, 1505 from … Mt. Athos, and 1611 now at the Athens library
(source, LaParola apparatus.)
http://www.laparola.net/greco/index.php?rif1=68&rif2=2:15
Salvation and life, the Sinaiticus text - is in one other majuscule, Ψ (psi) (044) from Mt. Athos.
Codex Athous Lavrensis
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Codex_Athous_Lavrensis
In our studies we will find Ψ having additional interesting connections with Codex Sinaiticus (Simoneidos).
hmm …
And any attempt to support the Sinaiticus conflation as early, (e.g. 4th century) is extremely difficult and unlikely.
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"The Greek text was unknown in modern times until the discovery of Codex Athous. The text is preserved in four substantial manuscripts, none of them complete. Codex Athous (A), dated to the fifteenth century, contains almost the entire text, from the beginning to the end of Sim. 9.30.3, thus about 95%.3 The leaves were discovered in 1855 on Mt. Athos and the facsimile edition published in 1907. The text was thought by many at first to be a retroversion from Latin, but only with the subsequent discovery of another Greek text in Codex Sinaiticus was A vindicated as an edition of the original Greek text."
The Shepherd of Hermas, Carolyn Osiek, Edited by Helmut Koester, 1999
_____________
1200 Years of Materialities and Editions of a Forbidden Text
- October 2019
- License CC BY-NC-ND 4.0
- In book: Antike Texte und ihre Materialität (pp.309-330)
Shepherd of Hermas: "The contents, the stylistic differences and, as revealed below, the same textual transmission confirm the existence of those two autonomous Revelations at the origin of the present Shepherd. Today scholars agree that a unique author wrote the Shepherd in two different times of his life between 138 and 144. Later, either the same Hermas or unknown members of the Christian community of Rome joined both Revelations together and created thus the present Shepherd. The Shepherd has had soon a broad reception and was therefore the object of several hard critics. Indeed already at the end of the 2nd century, the aforementioned Muratorian Fragment suggested a private reading of the Shepherd discouraging its reading during the liturgy. The reason of that critic was Hermas’ theory of a second repentance una tantum after the baptism in order to grant the sinners a second chance of salvation. After the Muratorian Fragment, Fathers of the Church and theologians criticized the Shepherd or
had a positive opinion about it."
.
.
"If I take into account only the Greek sources of the Shepherd, their number exceeds thirty. The textual transmission of the ‘Greek’ Shepherd is extremely rich until the 7th century, then reveals a huge lacuna until the 13th century and ends in the 14th century. According to the recent but not updated analysis of D. Batovici,
"Hermas is preserved on a similar scale only to the best represented biblical texts: compared with the numbers offered by the latest published standard edition of the Greek New Testament, N. Gonis’ count of 23 Greek continuous papyri for Hermas is topped only by John (30) and Matthew (24), followed at some distance by Acts (15), and Romans (11) and Luke (10). The rest of the NT books are represented by one digit numbers, and no less than seventeen of them are listed with fewer than 5 papyri. Hermas is therefore considerably better attested in the Greek papyri than most Christian texts, scriptural and non-scriptural." (Batovici 2016, 20–36. Concerning the given data on Hermas, see: Gonis 2005, 1–17, which was updated by Coat/Yuen–Collingridge 2010, 196.)
"The sources of the Shepherd are amazing not only because of their quantity but also because of their heterogeneity; indeed they belong to different media-forms and to different ideas and typology of editions.
.
.
"Re Codex Sinaiticus: A very unprofessional scribe wrote the text of the Shepherd; the other scribes and, laterm several correctors (who date between the 5th and the 7th centuries) emendated it. The correctors of Hermas are the so-called S1 (“a correction made in the production process, as part of the revision of the text after it had been copied, or a correction by the scribe in the copying process. These cannot always be distinguished”), S d (“a hand who rewrote faded portions of text, occasionally providing corrections”), and S ca (“corrector who revised the manuscript rather extensively between the fifth and seventh centuries”). The Codex Sinaiticus has played a significant role in the textual transmission of the Shepherd, because it is the point of contact of different textual lines; indeed the need to have a very luxurious book—as
the Sinaiticus is—created the preconditions for a review of the extant textual versions of Hermas. The Codex Sinaiticus was an attempt to fix the still fluid Hermas’ transmission, and to establish an “official version” in the authoritative corpus of the Bible, but it produced “a hybrid text”, which reveals its “weakness” and its “imprecisions” if compared with other sources, like the P. Bodm. 38 and the Codex Athous Grigoriou 96, [D. Harlfinger and B. Mondrain revealed the identity of the scribe of this codex: the Papas Malachias of the monastery of Chora in Constantinople, alias the so-called Anonymus Aristotelicus, one of the most famous scribes of Aristotelian manuscripts, and dated the codex to the 14th century] which have had different autonomous transmissions."
.
.
The Latin Vulgata translation was written at the end of the 2nd century as proven by a quotation of Sim. IX,31,5–6 in the pseudo-Cyprianic De aleatoribus. Its importance not only for the comprehension of the Greek Shepherd, but also for the history of the Latin Christianity is indubitable. In 1994 E. Dekkers listed about 28 sources from the 9th to the 16th century, which contain partially or completely the text of the Vulgata.73
Thanks to a quotation of Sim. IX,15 in the Vita Sanctae Genovefae (ca. 520 AD), scholars have dated the translation Palatina to the 5 th century. Ms. A. Vezzoni, Palatina’s most recent editor, suggested Gaul as its place of composition. Other quotations of the Palatina (Mandatum 4th
) are in the Collectio Canonum Hibernensis (8th century) and in the Collectio Canonum Fiscannensis (between 9 th and 10 th centuries). The Pa-
latina has today a very poor textual transmission; it is present only in a fragment of an 8th-century-manuscript, and two complete 15th
-century-manuscripts."
_________________________
A COLLATION OF THE ATHOS CODEX OFTHE SHEPHERD OF HERMAS by Dr Spyr. P. Lambros/Robinson, 1888
"It is thus perfectly obvious that the tradition of the Greek text of one of the earliest Christian writers is in so defective a state, that its critical reconstruction has become a sort of guesswork, involving an appeal to the previously known Latin version, and even to the Ethiopic translation. Hilgenfeld, one of the editors, is fully justified in declaring that under these conditions the restoration of the Greek text of the Hermas is a task beyond the power of any single man."
Mount Athos, very closely written in a hand of the fourteenth century.....
_________________________
The Shepherd of
Hermas in Latin
Critical Edition of the Oldest Translation Vulgata
2014
Edited by
Christian Tornau and Paolo Cecconi
The importance of the Vulgata as a witness of the text of the Shepherd is generally acknowledged, although its exact relation to the Greek tradition is not easy to determine. In some cases it confirms the reading of the codex Athous Grigoriou 96 (A) against the other witnesses..... the correction in the Codex Sinaiticus (S) proves that the longer Latin version was also present in the Greek tradition.
Differences between the Greek and the Latin versions might however also arise from the translator’s peculiar methods (both Vulgata and Palatina at times translate rather freely).....
Sometimes the Vulgata translator may have read a text that differs from all Greek witnesses known so far......
What seems certain at least to us is that the translator or translators of the Palatina had a Greek text before him or them throughout and that they more or less carefully checked their new Latin text by comparing it with the Greek version they knew. This, we think, is proven by the simple fact that the Palatina translates several passages from the Greek that are absent from the Vulgata and that the omissions in the latter cannot always be explained as textual corruptions. Hence we must always reckon with the possibility that differences between the two Latin versions are caused by a different Greek text; it would be rash to treat the Palatina as just another witness of the Vulgata text."
_________________________
There is thus zero evidence from contemporary scholars that Hermas in Sinaiticus is a "retroversion from Latin".
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Ψ (psi) (044) is listed by Wiki as dated to the 8th or 9th century and as a synthesis of the Byzantine text-type, but with a large portion of Alexandrian readings, as well as some Western readings. "Despite being an unusually mixed text, Von Soden lists it as generally Alexandrian, as also Sinaiticus.
Not sure what point you're trying to make.
Is that your subjective, non-scholarly KJV-only opinion?
Your non-scriptural, non-scholarly KJV-only opinions are far more extremely difficult and unlikely than those which you may try to discredit.
"A few witnesses, including the nucleus HK group, replace σωτηρίας with ζωής (1505 1611 2138 S:HPh), whereas a few important MSS attest a conflation, τής κοινής ήμών σωτηρίας και ζωής (01 (א) 044 2627Ζ). The attestation of ζωής by 01 (א) shows that the substitution is early. Sakae Kubo suggests that a scribe made the change “because σωτηρία did not cover the things which the scribe wrote" (A textual commentary on P72 at p.226)"
p.247, The Epistle of Jude: Its Text and Transmission, TOMMY WASSERMAN
Steven Avery
Well-known member
How is your bald contention superior?Beautiful presuppositional and circular reasoning
Are you condemning your own typical circular reasoning and unproven claims?