The False Claims of Constantine Simonides Regarding Sinaiticus

[Maestroh]

It's mostly about the missing Johannine Comma in Sinaiticus and all the other ancient Greek manuscripts, I sense. The whole enterprise to re-insert it is doomed however, and he knows it. He is making a last stand, as at the pass at Thermopylae.

He only cares about the Comma Johanneum BECAUSE of his KJVOism, though.

Sinaiticus was nowhere near the "game changer" in TC that Fuller Seminary grad Daniels wants to suggest. Yeah, it gave supplemental support to Hort's basic theory, but he leaned far more heavily on B, and the discovery of the papyri (most notably P75) provided vindication of his essential point. It will require the discovery of a second century Byzantine text-type papyrus to ever shift the paradigm back towards the MT/TR/BP positions.

But if that ever happens - watch out! To paraphrase Dan Wallace, it would send a century of text-critical scholarship into the flames.

Maestroh Axiom: A person cannot be a KJV Onlyist without at the same time being dishonest.

That's been around now for 16 years - and not one exception has been found.

 

[Steven Avery]

It's mostly about the missing Johannine Comma in Sinaiticus and all the other ancient Greek manuscripts, I sense. The whole enterprise to re-insert it is doomed however, and he knows it. He is making a last stand, as at the pass at Thermopylae.

Actually, there is so much new textual evidence showing Sinaiticus to be late that we are having more fun than ever.

 

[Maestroh]

Actually, there is so much new textual evidence showing Sinaiticus to be late that we are having more fun than ever.

There is no new textual evidence at all.

Just like when the Head NARC used to say, "most people don't know but," it didn't mean nobody knew it.

It just meant he had just heard about it for the first time.

You bringing out 150-year old claims isn't new to anyone except you.
It's already 150 years old.


But I can understand why that concept is too difficult for you to grasp, too.

 

[Unbound68]

Actually, there is so much new textual evidence showing Sinaiticus to be late that we are having more fun than ever.

So will all this “new textual evidence” be reflected in UBS6 and NA29 when they come out?

Oh, that’s right……they’re all conspiring together to keep us from knowing the truth about a single manuscript.

We can’t trust a single scholar, but we can trust a septuagenarian internet hack to tell us something about a manuscript he has never seen, never photographed, never handled, and can’t even read. Sure.

So when are you going to email Myshrall, Paulson, Elliott, Jongkind, Parker, Milne and Skeat and the rest to present them with this “new evidence” and inform them that they all, to a person, got everything about Sinaiticus wrong? EVERYTHING.

 

[Unbound68]

Amy Myshrall — Codex Sinaiticus, it’s Correctors and the Caeserean Text of the Gospels. WRONG says Avery!

Dirk Jongkind — Scribal Habits of Codex Sinaiticus. WRONG says Avery.

David Parker — Codex Sinaiticus, the Story of the World’s Oldest Bible. WRONG says Avery.

Milne and Skeat — Scribes and Correctors of Codex Sinaiticus. WRONG says Avery.

Gregory Paulson — Scribal Habits in Codex Sinaiticus. WRONG says Avery.

J. Elliott — Codex Sinaiticus and the Simonides Affair. WRONG says Avery.


Other authors, some of whom Avery has willingly misrepresented because of what they wrote on “colouring,” but who still date Sinaiticus to the 4th or 5th centuries:

Shenton. WRONG says Avery.
Uspensky. WRONG says Avery.
Donaldson. WRONG says Avery.
Head. WRONG says Avery.
Hernandez. WRONG says Avery.
Nongbri. WRONG says Avery.
Snapp. WRONG says Avery.
Hixson. WRONG says Avery.
Epp. WRONG says Avery.
Batovici. WRONG says Avery.
Lake. WRONG says Avery.
Metzger. WRONG says Avery.
Bottrich. WRONG says Avery.


I repeat here, no scholar outside of KJVOism agrees with Avery and his F.A.R.T. team on dating Sinaiticus to the 19th century!

None!

It takes a special kind of arrogance.

 

[Unbound68]

And let’s not forget Dr. Paolo Cecconi:



Dear Mr. Avery,

I have received your first email from Prof. Tornau.

Given that I am having a very "busy time" at work, I am able to reply you only today.

Concerning your questions in your Email to me of Nov. 16:

1) the coincidence is a simple a mere coincindence maybe given to the interest of both english govenmenent and Russian Czar with Russian church in discovering new sources (and thus into establishing contatcs) with the provinces and territories of the former osman empire. 19th Century was an era of discoveries of several manuscripts and moreover there were "troubles" in the osman Empire (e.g. Greek indipendence war). So, this is a mere coincidence like similar ones during e.g. the Renaissance in Italy.

2) we have several other manuscripts of 4th century in good condition (and we have also older Papyri in good condition). This is also not surprising for historical records which profited of good climatic conditions.

3) it is not true if we consider the need to produce a "good" edition of the Bible on behalf of the Roman Imperial government and with its financial support (please consider also the editorial initiative mentioned by Eusebius ordered by Constantine). The Sinaiticus could have been either one of those manuscripts or a good copy of one of them. Anyway, the history of the Sinaiticus reveals a competent editorial team behind it. I described this situation thanks to textual evidences in my paper of 2018 for Zeitschrift für Antikes Christentum.

4) the history of the writings and some information about the context (see for Instance concerning the Codex Athous the studies of Brigitte Mondrain) confirm the datation of Sinaiticus on 4th and of Athous on 14th century.

5) As proven by subsequent studies, Simonides was wrong and moreover he falsified his sources (see below).
So there is no proof of a later date of the Sinaiticus.

 

[Unbound68]

You’re WRONG Doc! Says Avery.

I’d love to see Avery’s reply to Dr. Cecconi.

 

[Unbound68]

Here are the questions Avery asked on Nov 16th, to which Dr. Cecconi replied by number above….


November 16, 2022

Dear Professor Cecconi,

Last month I wrote to Christian Tornau, he forwarded my note, but most of those questions have moved ahead nicely. And he sent me this most current email address.

We are doing some research on the Shepherd of Hermas, and its dating in the Codex Sinaiticus. We are ordering the Martin Leutzsch book from Germany for working with the New Finds and Athous and papyri issues, including the linguistic questions raised by James Donaldson c. 1870.

Often Sinaiticus has anomalies, like the Three Crosses scriptorium note, that point to a later date (perhaps AD 700, perhaps Mt. Athos AD 1840.) Generally the textual scholars simply want the very early Tischendorf date, and close their eyes. The current scholarship is deeply entrenched as a 4th century manuscript, palaeography is mostly stifled.

Here is a question for you.

With all the oddball elements of Sinaiticus and Hermas (and this is just a sampling):

1) the "coincidence" of the Athous publications three years before the Sinai "discovery", and the textual similarities
2) the "phenomenally good condition" of the manuscript, per Helen Shenton of the British Library
3) the surprising "crossed textual tradition", a complexity seemingly anachronistic if it is 4th century
4) the linguistic anomalies pointed out by James Donaldson, seeing Athous and Sinaiticus as quite late
5) the alternate claims of production at Athos involving the Pantelemon (Russico) monastery with Simonides involved

Question is this .

Do you consider the scholarly possibility that Sinaiticus might actually be a later text than 4th century?

Any help appreciated. Thanks!

Steven Avery
Dutchess County, NY USA

 

[Maestroh]

Actually, there is so much new textual evidence showing Sinaiticus to be late that we are having more fun than ever.

Yes.

And they will be just like when the other Queens NARC claimed he could prove that dead people had voted, computers had changed votes, mail in ballots were tossed out, and an audit of Arizona was gonna expose it all...and it turned out HE WAS THE ONE who had gotten some people to sign fraudulent electoral certificates.

For all the stuff he could prove about how he caught them red-handed, his legal team was careful to NEVER ACTUALLY ALLEGE that under oath.

And the same Queens NARC phoniness is found in your methode.

I'm sure that just like Trump, you will go to your grave having lost the argument but with an inflated ego convincing you that you WON by simply being stubborn and never ADMITTING it. There's a big difference in OJ committing murder and ADMITTING murder. Same here.

 

[cjab]

He only cares about the Comma Johanneum BECAUSE of his KJVOism, though.

Sinaiticus was nowhere near the "game changer" in TC that Fuller Seminary grad Daniels wants to suggest. Yeah, it gave supplemental support to Hort's basic theory, but he leaned far more heavily on B, and the discovery of the papyri (most notably P75) provided vindication of his essential point. It will require the discovery of a second century Byzantine text-type papyrus to ever shift the paradigm back towards the MT/TR/BP positions.

But if that ever happens - watch out! To paraphrase Dan Wallace, it would send a century of text-critical scholarship into the flames.

It will never happen, because such a text would certanly have been preserved by the ο Λόγος Θεός brigade.

Maestroh Axiom: A person cannot be a KJV Onlyist without at the same time being dishonest.


That's been around now for 16 years - and not one exception has been found.

Completely agree. KJVOism is as much a cult as FLDS. Avery sees himself as prophet in chief. This constitutes his "fun".

 

[Maestroh]

Completely agree. KJVOism is as much a cult as FLDS. Avery sees himself as prophet in chief. This constitutes his "fun".

My hypothesis is that this is a psychological thing with him (and most of them quite frankly).

How else can one explain that virtually every advocate of KJVO has been a moral wretch or at least a psychotic nut?

Jack Hyles and Jack Schaap were both sex obsessed philanderers, the latter still doing time for his pedophilia. Bob Gray was a pedophile.
Gail Riplinger has been divorced 2-3 times, same with Peter Ruckman...and the latter's son blew his two kids and himself to Kindgom Come (or Kingdom Went, one or the other). J Michael Bates got caught fooling around in the wrong pew.

Why is it that all these people who use the right Bible do all the wrong things? Aren't they the more holy of the bunch or at least SHOULD be?

Yeah, you can argue D.A. Waite is an exception, maybe (who knows what we don't know about these folks?). And David Otis Fuller did the morally questionable thing in the Baptist world of distributing KJVO materials written by an SDA, something so embarrassing that when Waite was asked about it (according to David Cloud), he whispered his answer knowing "the Baptist brethren wouldn't understand."

It's truly amazing these fundamentalists are so rigid and unbending and rage that people like Billy Graham were guilty of "compromise" (whatever that even means in their world at this moment); but now they've opened the door to people (and the Earle of Avery is one of them) who would never have been let in the door otherwise less than 30 years ago. My point as made directly to Waite and others was that Waite has a book ("Heresies of Westcott and Hort") that mandates doctrinal purity - but they don't care all of a sudden about Fake Moon Landing's doctrine or church fellowship (I don't think he even goes) or anything else.

The hypocrisy is so bad, I can't hear what's being claimed.

"Your actions are so loud, I can't hear you."

 

[cjab]

My hypothesis is that this is a psychological thing with him (and most of them quite frankly).

Yes it is, but their psychobabble is unfortunately sustained by the ever increasing silliness of revisions of such as the NIV, and the cultic appeal of books such as "New Age Bible Versions." I can't see either fading in the short term. I wonder if Avery is a contributor to this book?

The KJV is a good translation in some respects, but certainly not worth idolizing due to its failings. One failing is to leave the Aramaic word "Maranatha" in 1 Cor 16:22 untranslated, which is a fence sitting exercise. Notwithstanding, G.A. Riplinger targets any bible version which imputes a future tense to 1 Cor 16:22, starting from Thomas Aquinas (“Dominus veniet" - “the Lord will come”) as a New Ager (first time I heard Aquinas imputed as a New Ager). I found this allegation quite interesting.

The very latest and exhaustive research by Andrew Messmer in Journal of Biblical Literature, Volume 139, Number 2, 2020, pp. 361-383 comes down in favour of the past tense "מרנא אתה (or מ רָָנאָ אתֲאָ using C. L. W. Grimm’s slightly modified reconstruction in Clavis Novi Testamenti philologica (Leipzig: Libraria Arnoldiana, 1868), and so the most probable translation something along the lines of “our Lord came” or “our Lord has come,”" which is in tune with Jerome and John Chrysostom. So may be we have to grant a few concessions to the KJVOs.

Why is it that all these people who use the right Bible do all the wrong things? Aren't they the more holy of the bunch or at least SHOULD be?

The Anglican / Episcopal church, which used the KJV during the reigns of Charles I and Charles II and subsequently, did many wrong things, such as persecuting presbyterians etc. And so have many other KJVOs done many wrong things. Perhaps it's because they tend to idolize the KJV, rather than read it. Peter J Williams, principal of Tyndale House, Cambridge University responded in one of his lectures to the question "which bible version should I read," by saying, "the version which leads you to read it the most."

May be the KJVOs should take heed.

 

[Shoonra]

Shoonra said:
(Nov 12th, 2022)
Do you have experts - real experts - who have actually examined the Sinaiticus and who insist on a 19th century origin?

(Dec 12, 2022)
It is now one full month since I made this challenge to Avery, and I am still waiting for a response.

Why, WHY are we stuck on this topic, at the behest of one and only one member?! And this topic had metastasized to four threads -- which happens to be the number of members we are down to still participating. I don't know if the other members are gone for good because of the way this topic has monopolized this forum. I'd gladly participate in a thread about the Old Testament, the Apocrypha, the Apostolic Fathers, and even the New Testament (if it's not about the Comma!), maybe even the Dead Sea Scrolls. But it's past time to euthanize the threads about Simonides!

(Jan 12, 2023)
Now it's two full months. Why are you still feeding this man's hunger for attention??!

 

[RiJoRi]

(Dec 12, 2022)
It is now one full month since I made this challenge to Avery, and I am still waiting for a response.

Ignore-ance is bliss?

Why, WHY are we stuck on this topic, at the behest of one and only one member?! And this topic had metastasized to four threads -- which happens to be the number of members we are down to still participating. I don't know if the other members are gone for good because of the way this topic has monopolized this forum.

I drop by. Just not much I can add to the matter, aside from a comment now and then.

I'd gladly participate in a thread about the Old Testament, the Apocrypha, the Apostolic Fathers, and even the New Testament (if it's not about the Comma!), maybe even the Dead Sea Scrolls. But it's past time to euthanize the threads about Simonides!

I guess the dyed-in-the-wool KJVO-ists have gone on to greener pastures.

(Jan 12, 2023)
Now it's two full months. Why are you still feeding this man's hunger for attention??!

Dunno. I have him on Ignore. His nasty comments got on my nerves some time ago...

--Rich

 

[Steven Avery]

a manuscript ON PUBLIC DISPLAY IN LEIPZIG in 1856

It is clear from Lykurgos that Simonides was especially interested in the CFA manuscript.
One source on this is Luciano Canfora.

So far, additional information on whether he saw the manuscript, and what discussions may have ensued, is not available.

 

[Steven Avery]

he had copied from a Moscow Bible in about six months at Mt. Athos in 1840.

It was Benedict that worked with the Zosimas Moscow Bible in the textual preperations. Tischendorf pulled out a cute trickster argument here, simply emphasizing that the Zosimas would not supply the New Testament, which is true, but ignoring the Old Testament and Apocrapha. In general, Sinaiticus aligns with Alexandrinus in the Old Testament, and Zosimas is in the lineage of Alexandrinus editions. (Simonides also mentioned using Alexandrinus, which may refer to one of the earlier printed editions.)

 

[christ_undivided]

It is clear from Lykurgos that Simonides was especially interested in the CFA manuscript.
One source on this is Luciano Canfora.

So far, additional information on whether he saw the manuscript, and what discussions may have ensued, is not available.

Ever heard of the word "conjecture"?

 

[christ_undivided]

It was Benedict that worked with the Zosimas Moscow Bible in the textual preperations. Tischendorf pulled out a cute trickster argument here, simply emphasizing that the Zosimas would not supply the New Testament, which is true, but ignoring the Old Testament and Apocrapha. In general, Sinaiticus aligns with Alexandrinus in the Old Testament, and Zosimas is in the lineage of Alexandrinus editions. (Simonides also mentioned using Alexandrinus, which may refer to one of the earlier printed editions.)

There are significant differences between Alexandrinus and Sinaiticus in the Septuagint. You don't know the Septuagint.

 

[cjab]

It was Benedict that worked with the Zosimas Moscow Bible in the textual preperations.

Gaslighting by Simonides: no evidence of any such "textual preparations" has ever been produced, Benedict himself was conveniently dead, and unavailable to affirm or deny what Simonides said, and why didn't Benedict publish his own work?

Have you got any evidence other than your own personal faith in the liar Simonides?

 

[Maestroh]

It was Benedict that worked with the Zosimas Moscow Bible in the textual preperations.

Do you have any EVIDENCE of this?
Or am I just supposed to believe this Simonides "after the fact explanation" after it was pointed out to him there was no chance on earth that he did what he claimed he did in the time he did?

Tischendorf pulled out a cute trickster argument here, simply emphasizing that the Zosimas would not supply the New Testament, which is true, but ignoring the Old Testament and Apocrapha.

So you mean telling the truth, as Tischendorf did, is redefined by YOU as "a cute trickster argument"?

That's what you're going with now?

In general, Sinaiticus aligns with Alexandrinus in the Old Testament,

"In general" meaning "not really but I have to come up with something no matter how absurd it may sound."

Indeed - it begs the question of why one would use more than one source.....

and Zosimas is in the lineage of Alexandrinus editions. (Simonides also mentioned using Alexandrinus, which may refer to one of the earlier printed editions.)

or more probably shows he just lied.