Do you have any comment on this section of Kevin McGrane's review (at p.106, 107) of Will Cooper's "conspiracy theory" thesis?
"Other parts of the Codex have been found (e.g. by Beneshevich in the late nineteenth
century) in volumes at St Catherine’s also, and indicate that by around three
hundred years ago some leaves from the Codex had become permanently separated
from the main body—most of Genesis to Chronicles is not extant [241]. One of the most
recently found fragments was part of the leaf containing Joshua 1. This appears in
Greek volume S.2289 in the library of St Catherine’s, which volume was bound by
the monastery itself around 1727 [242], the Codex leaf being re-cycled as a board lining.
It was discovered in 2009 because the covering paper pastedown had become torn,
thereby exposing writing from the Codex beneath [243]. This finding on its own
militates against Dr Cooper’s thesis of a nineteenth century origin of the Codex."
[241] Others were likely separated in 1734 when manuscripts were moved to the new library: some of
these turned up in the ‘New Finds’ in 1975 in the old storeroom that suffered earthquake damage.
These included a fragment of Q17-f.1, which contains parts of Joshua 12, 13 and 14. A leaf containing
Joshua 1 was re-used in the bookbinding of S.2289 (see below).
[242] S.2289 is one of a group of 18 manuscript bindings that were bound in the monastery c.1704-1727,
with common binding methods, structure, sewing, decoration and tooling marks.
[243] Nikolas Sarris, Classification of Finishing Tools in Greek Bookbinding: Establishing Links from the Library
of St Catherine’s Monastery, Sinai, Egypt (PhD Thesis, 2010). See also The discovery of an additional Codex
Sinaiticus fragment in Codex Sinaiticus: New Perspectives on the Ancient Biblical Manuscript (2015).
