Loading...In my last post I began to relate an anecdote about a traveling adventure I had several years ago, when giving lectures for a UNC trip to Egypt and Jordan with a stop at the famed St. Catherine’s monastery in the southern part of the Sinai peninsula, the place where Tischendorf had discovered the biblical manuscript Codex Sinaiticus in the mid 19th century, and where a fire at the monastery in the 1970s had uncovered a hidden room found to contain manuscripts, including the pages from the Old Testament of the Codex Sinaiticus that Tischendorf had not come away with from the monastery when he took the bulk of the manuscript with him back to Russian. (Now THAT’S a long sentence!)
For me, one of the highlights of this trip was to be a visit to the monastery, a place that I had wanted to see for years. It is located in a completely barren location in the wilderness and is the one and only thing to see in the entire region. It’s not the kind of place that you can take in while seeing other regional sites. There aren’t any regional sites. And so we had one day set aside to see the monastery while heading up north on a cruise on the Gulf of Aqaba, traveling toward Jordan where we were scheduled to go to Petra.
And then something really disappointing happened.
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I got to see the CS a couple of years ago on display at the British Library. It’s not a huge, majestic codex; I’d estimate about the dimensions of a vinyl record album. But the script — a beautiful Greek uncial w/o word division or punctuation — is absolutely mesmerizing. It looks like it was laser-printed. The professional scribes who copied it were phenomenal artisans.
jonas
“looks like it was laser-printed”
There is a Bulgarian writer on Academia.edu, Borislav Borisov, who has given this some emphasis, either part of the manuscript was involved with printing (preparation or actuality), or advanced tools were used that are relatively modern. The paper is in Bulgarian but we have done some rudimentary English translation.
Codex Sinaiticus
Borislav Georgiev Borisov
https://www.academia.edu/22470383/Codex_Sinaiticus
It is a complex issue, and difficult for our modern compartmentalized scholars, anyone interested in discussing it can easily make contact on Facebook on a group called PureBible, and I will watch for responses here.
We are actually more focused on other issues, such as comparing the condition of the manuscript with truly ancient ones, the difference between the 1844 and 1859 sections, the historical imperatives and how the Zurich Psalter was used to make the Ca corrections in Psalms. And much more.
However, the issues Borislav raises are fascinating.
In general, it would be excellent to have more in-depth discussion on Sinaiticus here, I plan to rejoin to keep up on the forum.
Steven Avery
Dutchess County, NY USA
https://linktr.ee/stevenavery
Yeah, it wasn’t laser printed. 🙂 If you want a full study by true experts on ancient manuscripts, see David Parker’s book on Codex Sinaiticus.
What a fantastic experience that was. I’m so happy you got to see that.
Hi Dr. Ehrman,
In an unrelated question is there much reason to doubt that Mark 3 is actually an accurate depiction of a conflict between Jesus and Mary, who in accordance with the standard transaltions of the passage thought he might have gone insane with all this preaching and she gathered family to come and capture him, which he wisely escapes, by renouncing her and calling his followers his true family . Is there any possibility that it is a mistranslation of the original text, as some Catholics ponder and Mary is not part of the event actually? If accurate is that a good reason to think that Jesus and Mary were not on good terms for at least for a short period, thus undermining much of catholic dogma with regards to the immaculate “mother of God”.
P.S. Love your work!
The original text is in Greek and there is not much question about how it was worded in the orginal; the tranlation that his family thought that he had “gone out of his mind” is a good rendering of it; and since Mary and the brothers are mentioned as his family a few verses later, it seems like that’s what Mark has in mind. Of course some Christians will always say that this, that, or the other passage can’t REALLY mean what it says….
Ha! I think those old manuscripts are haunted!
Amazing story! I think you mentioned that Father Justin is a scholar. Has he published? Can we read anything he’s written about manuscripts at St. Catherine’s?
He’s been on documentaries, but off hand I don’t know if he’s published or not.
What a story!
And the way you tell it!
I felt like ascending those dark stairs…
What would happen if someone were to rip or cause damage to an ancient manuscript and have you ever done so yourself?
They’d incur a lot of hatred among textual scholars. But manuscripts are generally well protected and to handle one normally takes special permission based on qualificatoins and, well, gloves that are provided. I one time examined the oldest Greek ms of the NT, P52, in John Rylands Library, Manchester England, for about 45 minutes for a documentary I was doing. But it was under glass and there was no way anyone was going to get their actual grubby fingers on it.
Pretty amazing to consider you got to see/read the same weird ass story seen/read/revered by so many from so far away and so long ago.
Had the New Testament already officially become the “New Testament,” i.e., the declared “Word of God” when Codex Sinaiticus was produced?
Certainly people were calling the writings of the New Testament sacred Scripture by then — early two centuries earlier. But it was never “officially declared” that, for example by a church council.
Amazing!!!
Good for you!!!
Thanks for sharing!
For someone like yourself, that must have been a very special moment. Thanks for sharing it. I have goosebumps right now!
Britni
Thanks so much. Wish I’d availed myself of the opportunity to see the Codex on one my visits to London. You make the story so interesting, especially for an ex-con. (Read former conservative evangelical for 50 years).