The False Claims of Constantine Simonides Regarding Sinaiticus

[Steven Avery]

A very nice example of a truly ancient manuscript!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lHB0lGLXUBI

Yes, brittle, like an old manuscript, and page turning is a very delicate operation.
Now go back to Sinaiticus.

Note: This is a manuscript from which Tischendorf the Thief brazenly stole an internal leaf.

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Poor Condition of the Archimedes Palimpsest
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UWKW-FGVcZg

Abigail Quandt and Natalie Tchernetska looking through the palimpsest and commenting on its poor condition.

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[christ_undivided]

Note: This is a manuscript from which Tischendorf the Thief brazenly stole an internal leaf.

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Poor Condition of the Archimedes Palimpsest
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UWKW-FGVcZg

Abigail Quandt and Natalie Tchernetska looking through the palimpsest and commenting on its poor condition.

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You do realize that manuscript condition varies based upon care and surrounding environment?

Which is why I asked if you have a dirty bible. Care to answer?

 

[Shoonra]

It seems this discussion has deteriorated to the issue of how the pages of Sinaiticus turn, and the debate is being carried on both side by people who never personally turned the pages of the Sinaiticus.

 

[christ_undivided]

It seems this discussion has deteriorated to the issue of how the pages of Sinaiticus turn, and the debate is being carried on both side by people who never personally turned the pages of the Sinaiticus.

He has insisted that pages of Sinaiticus turn too easily for an ancient document. It is an extraordinarily reckless claim. I usually avoid these types of argument because I know where they ultimately end up..... Right where we are now. With AVERY insisting that other can't use the same types of evidence that others use.

If you examine the digital documents associated with Vaticanus? I have. It is in extraordinarily good shape. It is an indisputably very old manuscript.

It is preposterous claim. I means seriously, all you have to do is use a little "common sense". We all know who doesn't have a "thimble" full of common sense here. Vatacinus has be extensively scanned and digitized. Even after that process, it still remains in very good condition. So has Vergilius Vaticanus. So have many ancient manuscripts.

You have rightfully witnessed that none of us have direct access to the actual documents. That has never stopped Avery from making wild claims.

 

[Steven Avery]

He has insisted that pages of Sinaiticus turn too easily for an ancient document.

Since you still claim you can compare a book facsimile edition with a manuscript, your complaints remain worthless.

 

[christ_undivided]

Since you still claim you can compare a book facsimile edition with a manuscript, your complaints remain worthless.

Quote me.

I never said you could compare a turning of pages from a facsimile with an manuscript. Quote me. I have said that YOU use facsimiles and digital images to reference Siniticanus. You should allow me to do the same. Your hypocrisy is clear.

You need to pay attention to what I wrote. I have shared videos showing the condition of Vaticanus. You can see that the pages have not aged to the extent of the videos you're sharing in contrast. I meet your requirement of video evidence. That video evidence very clearly shows that Vaticanus is of similar condition. I have shared videos of OTHER ancient documents that are very easily turned that meet your "easy peasy" turning requirement. You are ignoring them. I never specifically stated that Vaticanus was turned in the videos. Unlike you. I have been very exacting in what I have stated. I didn't share all the video I have collected in the original response thread because of the forum limit.

 

[Unbound68]

Since you still claim you can compare a book facsimile edition with a manuscript, your complaints remain worthless.

No different than you making your asinine and stupid assertions based on nothing but pics from the internet, rather than getting your lazy butt out of your chair and going to Europe to see Sinaiticus with your own eyes.

Some of your own scholars have TOLD YOU in correspondence that the whole color issue is not what you make of it, yet you persist with your uneducated decrees.

So tell us why we should listen to YOU, the guy with no qualifications or expertise at all, when you refuse to listen to THEM, the actual experts in the relevant fields?

 

[Steven Avery]

Quote me.
I never said you could compare a turning of pages from a facsimile with an manuscript. Quote me.

First here.
After I showed the amazing easy-peasy flexible, non-brittle Sinaiticus page turning.

Same scholar. Same approach.
Notice the condition of vaticinus. Very similar to the video you produced.

And then again and again and again.

In the BBC Beauty of Books video Scot McKendrick was showing Codex Sinaiticus.

In your video he was showing a facsimile book of Codex Vaticanus.

You apparently thought he was showing Codex Vaticanus!

Ok, you made an error. It happens.
However, you simply are unable to acknowledge the error.

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Later, you showed the CSNTM (from memory) pictures of Vaticanus, static, no page turning.

Then the Archimedes Palimpsest, a wonderful contrast.

 

[Steven Avery]

And a video mentioning the Virgilius Vaticanus, no idea what you wanted to show.

 

[Steven Avery]

It seems this discussion has deteriorated to the issue of how the pages of Sinaiticus turn,

We are blessed with two amazing videos, the BBC one especially shows the youthful, flexible condition of Sinaiticus, which contradicts traditional parchment science.

They are quite properly placed front and center.

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Ironically, in the controversies during which the actual manuscript sections were kept stashed away, this was used as an argument that the manuscript was truly ancient.

The action of ink upon vellum is peculiar, slow, and gradual, and leads to results which can be measured by time. The action of light and air, and warmth, and moisture, are also remarkably uniform. - p. 490

Journal of Sacred Literature - April, 1863
from the Clerical Journal of Oct 2, 1862
The Codex Sinaiticus and Dr. Simonides
https://books.google.com/books?id=IvkDAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA490
Also in James Keith Elliott, 1982, p. 62-63

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The people in the debate, like Wright and Scrivener, were kept in the dark about the true condition of Sinaiticus. The ink upon vellum and other reactions never happened!

Even now, 160 years later, fresh and new.

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[christ_undivided]

First here.
After I showed the amazing easy-peasy flexible, non-brittle Sinaiticus page turning.



And then again and again and again.

In the BBC Beauty of Books video Scot McKendrick was showing Codex Sinaiticus.

In your video he was showing a facsimile book of Codex Vaticanus.

You apparently thought he was showing Codex Vaticanus!

Ok, you made an error. It happens.
However, you simply are unable to acknowledge the error.

=======

Later, you showed the CSNTM (from memory) pictures of Vaticanus, static, no page turning.

Then the Archimedes Palimpsest, a wonderful contrast.

More Weasel words from you. See. You can't quote were I appealed to the turning of Vaticanus. Not my mistake. You always fabricate nonsense such as this. You only see what you want to see.

 

[christ_undivided]

And a video mentioning the Virgilius Vaticanus, no idea what you wanted to show.

No idea? You "just know" I referenced a facsimile that was never turned....as a reference of an ancient manuscript being turned. Yet, have "no idea" what a video of an ancient 1600 year old document being turned represents. Yeah. Id say you really "don't have any idea".

 

[cjab]

Even now, 160 years later, fresh and new.

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Nothing in Sinaiticus is "fresh and new." Anyone who says so is just lying.

 

[Steven Avery]

Nothing in Sinaiticus is "fresh and new." Anyone who says so is just lying.

180 years old, in "absolutely perfect" conservation conditions, in phenomenally good condition, with that flexible youthful easy-peasy page turning, is in fact fresh and new in manuscript life. Although it is more than two human lifetimes.

Your obsession is that a leaf can be in a dank, moist (New Finds) dump room and can be torn and tattered, which is true of any parchment. Probably did not need many of the 160 years to get that way.

Use the Archimedes Palimpsest, Tischendorfianus 1, Amiatinus, Vercellensis, Washingtonianus, Vaticanus, Alexandrinus, Bezae, Ephraem and 100 other manuscripts as examples of your older manuscripts.

 

[Steven Avery]

I referenced a facsimile that was never turned....as a reference of an ancient manuscript being turned.

The Virgil video jumped around too much to know what was going on, and the voice was in Italian.

Amazingly, it looks like you are blundering yet again, acknowledging that you confuse facsimiles with manuscripts, thinking they can be compared as to the manuscript's flexible, youthful easy-peasy page turning.

 

[Steven Avery]

You can't quote were I appealed to the turning of Vaticanus.

Already quoted.
To review, from my starting point.

First I mentioned the page-turning of the MANUSCRIPT.

It is just as easy for you to watch the video, just a few minutes, and see the page-turning section.
It is not a two-hour vid.

You responded with what you thought was the page-turning of Codex Vaticanus.

Same scholar. Same approach.
Notice the condition of vaticinus. Very similar to the video you produced.

At the time you did not realize that your page-turning "Same scholar. Same approach" was of the FACSIMILE BOOK of Vaticanus.

If you posted honestly, you could have corrected that right away.
Now it is a perfect example of obstinate blunder posting.

You are unable to admit your error simply because you through out gratuitous insults while you make the blunder.
So you dance and dance instead. It is actually pretty funny.

 

[Conan]

Nothing in Sinaiticus is "fresh and new." Anyone who says so is just lying.

He is asserting something that he has never seen, nor handled. He will never handle Codex Sinaiticus. Yet he pretends to know it. All evidence leads against him, but he doubles down on fraud, and he doesn't even think to handle the manuscript. Not even to lay his own eyes on it.

 

[cjab]

180 years old, in "absolutely perfect" conservation conditions, in phenomenally good condition, with that flexible youthful easy-peasy page turning, is in fact fresh and new in manuscript life. Although it is more than two human lifetimes.

The comment "phenomenally good condition" has been taken by you as inferring "like new." However the term was originally applied by Helen Shelton to reflect the relative condition of a 1700 year old Codex. It doesn't mean "brand new" or anything resembling "brand new."

Your obsession is that a leaf can be in a dank, moist (New Finds) dump room and can be torn and tattered, which is true of any parchment. Probably did not need many of the 160 years to get that way.

Use the Archimedes Palimpsest, Tischendorfianus 1, Amiatinus, Vercellensis, Washingtonianus, Vaticanus, Alexandrinus, Bezae, Ephraem and 100 other manuscripts as examples of your older manuscripts.

We don't know at what point parts of the Sinaiticus LXX began to suffer significant deterioration. All we know is that by the early 1700s, the manuscript had become disbound and separated, and was likely stored in different places. I don't have any obessions with the New Finds room - that is your obsession. Degredation may have occured in the New Finds room, or elsewhere We don't know and we never will know, unless the history of St. Catherines is researched in much more detail.

From the deterioriated state of Codex Tischendorfianus 1 however, and due to the quantity of manuscripts & books that were being disposed of in the monastery furnace, we might guess that manuscript deterioration due to improper storage had occurred prior to Tischendorf's arrival in 1844; and possibly dating back to the collapse of the Northern wall at the end of the 18th century.

 

[Unbound68]

The comment "phenomenally good condition" has been taken by you as inferring "like new." However the term was originally applied by Helen Shelton to reflect the relative condition of a 1700 year old Codex. It doesn't mean "brand new" or anything resembling "brand new."

Exactly. He’s been told this over and over and over again by several of us here — and now you — who know the context behind the “phenomenally good condition” comment. Yet he persists in hiding the context from all to whom he posts. One has to wonder why.

Why does he hide the fact that Helen Shenton does not subscribe to a 19th century date for Sinaiticus, despite her comments about condition?

Why does he hide the fact that Uspensky does not subscribe to a 19th century date for Sinaiticus?

Why does he hide the fact that Sara Mazzarino does not subscribe to a 19th century date for Sinaiticus, despite her comments about condition?

Why does he hide the fact that Ira Rabin does not subscribe to a 19th century date for Sinaiticus, despite her comments about testing being cancelled?

This list could be multiplied. I’ve listed the comments of several more of Avery’s “witnesses” in the BAM testing thread that I started awhile back in the Bible Questions and Answers forum. Not a single scholar that had the misfortune of corresponding with Avery agreed with him about the dating of Sinaiticus! None!

He only cherry picks comments from them about coloring (not colouring) and condition in order to pad his “witness” list and fool readers into thinking the scholars agree with him and his conspiracy theory.

Why does Avery try to mislead his readers into thinking any comments from his witnesses about color and condition equate to a 19th century dating?

And if he’s not purposely trying to mislead his readers, then why doesn’t he say something like this:

Helen Shenton, despite believing Sinaiticus is not a 19th century production, says the manuscript is in phenomenally good condition.

THAT would be an honest statement.
The way Avery goes about citing his correspondents is NOT honest.

 

[Shoonra]

The turning of pages is not necessarily related to the flexibility of pages. Pages may turn easily even though the page is brittle or stiff.
I remember this, going back to when I was very young and my mother acquired an "album" of wallpaper samples for my amusement. The wallpaper was difficult to fold or tear, but the samples turned as pages fairly easily.