No fair. I'm getting way behind because Bill G. E. is too efficient!
Bob Kraft
> A Brief History of the Bible - 6
>
> Codex Sinaiticus
Usually Aleph or "01" in NT discussion, "S" in LXX/OG (in NT circles, "S"
represents another MS). Originally contained the "complete Bible"
(including 1 and 4 Maccabees [but curiously not 2-3 Maccabees?], but not
Prayer of Manasses) plus Barnabas and Hermas (last part missing). "The
only four-column manuscript of the NT" (Alands 107), and similarly four
columns for much of the OT (only two columns per page in the poetical
books). Several correctors and an interesting note identifying one set of
corrections with Pamphilus and Origen! A very mixed bundle of textcritical
data, on the whole, including a hitherto unknown Greek form of Tobit.
About 393 leaves preserved (= almost 800 pages; a few fragmentary) as of
about 1970; recently reports of a few additional leaves (about 9 ?, from
Genesis) at St.Catherines Monastery have surfaced. Presumably these are
in process of publication.
> In May 1844, the German scholar Constantine Tischendorf visited the
> monastery of St Catherine, at the foot of Mount Sinai. He writes:
>
> "In visiting the library of the monastery . . . I perceived in the middle of
> the great hall a large and wide basket full of old parchments; and the
> librarian, who was a man of information, told me that two heaps of papers
> like these, mouldered by time, had already been committed to the flames.
> What was my surprise to find amid this heap of papers a considerable number
> of sheets of a copy of the Old Testament in Greek, which seemed to me to be
> one of the most ancient that I had ever seen. The authorities of the
> convent allowed me to possess myself of a third of these parchment, or about
> forty-three sheets, all the more readily as they were destined for the fire.
> But I could not get them to yield up possession of the remainder. The too
> lively satisfaction which I had displayed had aroused their suspicions as to
> the value of this manuscript."
>
> He gave the sheets to Frederick Augustus II of Saxony, his patron, and they
> were deposited in the University Library, Leipzig, where they still are.
>
> A second visit in 1853 brought to light eleven lines of Genesis, now in St
> Petersburg.
It's not clear to me (or my sources) how much of the MS remains outside of
the British Museum now, apart from the newly found leaves.
> He visited the monastery for the third time in 1859. On 4th Februrary he
> was in conversation with the steward of the monastery, who produced
>
> "a bulky kind of volume, wrapped up in a red cloth and laid it before me. I
> unrolled the cover, and discovered, to my great surprise, not only those
> very fragments which, fifteen years before, I had taken out of the basket,
> but also other parts of the Old Testament, the New Testament complete, and
> in addition the Epistle of Barnabas and a part of the Pastor of Hermas.
> Full of joy, which this time I had the self-command to conceal from the
> steward and the rest of the community, I asked, as if in a careless way, for
> permission to take the manuscript into my sleeping chamber to look over it
> more at leisure. There by myself I could give way to the transport of joy
> which I felt. I knew that I held in my hand the most important Biblical
> treasure in existence - a document whose age and importance exceeded that of
> all the manuscripts which I had ever examined during twenty years' study of
> the subject."
>
> Tischendorf "borrowed" the Manuscript (ho ho!) and presented it to the Tsar
> of Russia. This caused some ill feeling between the monastery and the
> Russian government, the monks feeling that they had been diddled. In 1869
> the Russian diplomatic service came to an agreement with the new Archbishop
> of Sinai, Callistus, and some money passed hands. However, the monks on
> Sinai still resent the way in which their treasure was given away;
> although, to be fair, in Tischendorf had not alerted them to its value, they
> would have burnt it years earlier.
>
> The Library [[**that is, the Manuscript]]
> was deposited in the library at St Petersburg. In 1933 the
> Soviet government, having no great interest in the Bible but being somewhat
> strapped for cash, sold it to the British government for £100,000. It is
> now in the British Library, where it is catalogued as Additional MS 43725.
> When the British Library was housed inside the British Museum, I often saw
> Codex Sinaiticus side by side with Codex Alexandrinus in a glass case. I
> haven't yet visited the new British Library, so I don't know if or how they
> are now displayed to view.
>
> "It is a large manuscript and though it has lost over 300 leaves from the
> Old Testament, it is still the earliest complete New Testament, and is the
> earliest and best witness for some of the books of the Old Testament" [from
> a British Library pamphlet].
>
> Tischendorf published an edition of his find in 1862. He had already
> published an edition of the 43 leaves in Leipzig. Both parts were published
> in 1911 in collotype facsimile by Kirsopp and Helen Lake.
>
> Westcott and Hort used Vaticanus ("B") and Sinaiticus (Aleph or "S") for
> their edition of the Greek New Testament, and the readings of these MSS had
> a major influence on the Revised Version of 1881, the first new English
> translation since the King James Version of 1611 [I ignore for the moment
> various translations by private individuals and the various Catholic
> translations from the Vulgate]. Many of the differences between the King
> James Version and the Revised Version are accounted for by the discovery of
> these MSS.
>
> To give just two examples [at this stage] of the way in which the text of
> these MSS differs from others: In both B and S, St Mark's Gospel ends at
> 16:8 with the words "ephobounto gar", "for they were afraid". This seems an
> awfully abrupt ending. It would be most unusual to end a sentence, let
> alone an entire book, with a conjunction, "gar." And St Mark has as yet
> described no encounter with the risen Christ, which would seem to be the
> point and climax of the Gospel story. And yet it does seem either that Mark
> ended his account there, or that his original ending has been lost - perhaps
> torn from the edge of his original papyrus scroll.
Some would argue that the loss came in an early codex of Mark (final page
gone).
> There is a considerable
> scholarly discussion of the subject, into which I cannot now go. The
> various endings in other MSS (Mark 16:9-20) are manifestly summaries of the
> endings of the other gospels, added to Mark by later hands to "round off"
> his account. Read them and I think you will agree.
>
> Again, there is a curious story in the gospels of a woman taken in adultery.
> It occurs at various points in St John's Gospel in various MSS. Some place
> it at John 7:58-8:11; others place it after John 7:36, or 7:52 or 21:24.
I think you mean John 7.53-8.11 (= after 7.52); I don't find any 7.58.
> Its language however is not like that of John at all, but more like that of
> the synoptic evangelists (Matthew, Mark, Luke), and some MSS place the story
> after Luke 21:38. It does appear to be an interpolation, and it is
> significant that B and S omit the story altogether.
>
> Oriens.
Onward!
Bob
--
Robert A. Kraft, Religious Studies, University of Pennsylvania
227 Logan Hall (Philadelphia PA 19104-6304); tel. 215 898-5827
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http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/rs/rak/kraft.html
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