In the review I made passing reference to Parker’s discussion
of allegations made in the nineteenth century that this codex is a forgery,
created by a man named Constantine Simonides (1820-1890).
I also noted on my youtube subscription feed that that there is a debate
scheduled for 1.3.21 on Josh Gibbs’s Talking Christianity podcast between James
Snapp, Jr. and Steve Avery on the topic: “The World’s Oldest Bible Is a
Replica: Simonides the Scribe" (look here).
I thought it might be on interest to do a study of some of
the background to the Simonides forgery allegation, by looking at a few
discussions of it.
Let’s begin with the Wikipedia article on Constantine
Simonides.
Next, let’s look at Parker’s dismissal of the allegation in
his work on Codex Sinaiticus (see pp. 151-152, and the bibliography on p. 154,
especially the work by Elliot).
Finally, let’s look at a few relevant entries in Stanley E.
Porter’s biography Constantine Tischendorf: The Life and Work of a 19th
Century Bible Hunter (Bloomsbury, 2015).
See pp. 38-39 where Porter discusses how Simonides in 1855
sold to the University of Leipzig Library manuscripts of the Shepherd of
Hermes, later challenged as inauthentic by various scholars, including
Tischendorf. Around the same time, Simonides was also arrested on the charge of
forging a palimpsest manuscript attributed to Uranius of Alexandria and Porter
notes that Tischendorf also wrote disputing the authenticity of these
documents.
See also pp. 48-50 and Porter’s discussion of the forgery
claim made by Simonides and his ten reasons to reject the plausibility of this
claim (taken from Elliot).
Conclusion:
Codex Sinaiticus may be a forgery, but I believe it is more
likely it is authentic based on the arguments made by Elliot (relayed by
Porter).
There are people who are experts on papyrology and who have
examined the documents firsthand, and their judgements should be given proper
weight.
This is not to say, however, that scholars cannot be duped.
They can! And their presuppositions can lead them to embrace dubious “evidence”
to support their views.
There have been various examples of modern disputes about the
age or authenticity of ancient documents.
Three contemporary examples:
First, Morton Smith and the Secret Gospel of
Mark (1958).
The dispute here involves the authenticity of the Mar Saba
letter attributed to Clement of Alexandria and its reference to an extended
version of Mark.
Second, Dan Wallace and “first-century Mark” (2012). In a debate
with Bart Ehrman in 2012, Wallace claimed that a fragment of Mark was about to
be published that was dated to the first century. He later, however, had to
withdraw this claim (see his 2018 blog post).
Third, Harvard Divinity scholar Karen L. King and the “Gospel of
Jesus’s Wife” (2012).
This Coptic papyrus was proven to be a forgery and exposed as
such in an Atlantic article in 2016.
Warning:
Scholars can make overblown and even deceptive claims about
mss. in order to support their points, just as traditionalists can to support
theirs.
The three examples cited above all involved relatively short
and fragmentary documents. One of the arguments in favor of the authenticity of
Codex Sinaiticus is the fact that it is such a massive document and that it
shows evidence of so much scribal correction.
Nevertheless, the claim probably cannot be completely
dismissed. At the least the dispute illustrates a glary weakness of the
reconstruction method. If you are going to rely on reconstruction as a method
how can you do so without knowing with certainty the provenance or origins of
many of the documents upon which you rely to make your reconstruction.
5 comments:
You make no mention of Tischendorf's questionable relationship with the Vatican.
Tiscendodorf's relationship with Vatican has no bearing on whether this text is forgery. You do use internal and exterbal evidence to prove that. The evidence shows that thiscmanuscriot match the style of the oldest papayrus of the NT that we possess. To date i have seen no real cognitive argument against the manuscripts authenticity except to say it was a Cathokic conspiricy to corrupt the textus Receptis. The K8ng James Bible was based on Erasmas' greek text with which he used manuscrpts dated well after the 1oth century and later. He had onky one manuscript of Revelation which he borrowed from a friend and had no manuscriots of 1 john. For the text he lacked in both books, he translated from Latib into greek. Those are the facts.
His relationship with Rome has no bearing on whether the document is a forgery. You are creating a motive without the internal and external evidence that the documentcs a forgery. This manuscript style matches the oldest papyrus we have "p" papyrus and thatcfact has been confirmed by several scholars other than Westcot and Tishendorf. Erasmas' text which was used to traslate the King James was created by the received text. Erasmus used texts which consisted of manuscripts dated at the earliest in the 10th century and as late as the 12th century. Additionally he had no nanuscripts of Revelation or 1 John. He borrowed a greek manuscript from a friend of Revelation which lacked passages in thw end and he finished it with a latin text which he translated into english. He had only one manuscript of Revelation! For 1 John he did the same thing.
Sure! The fact that he was given every medal, award, and praise from the Vatican for his findings surely have no merit in his relationship with the Vatican, which later was used along with the Codex Vaticanus to give us the King James Bible. Constantine Simonides style was apparent in the style you mention. Also, how convenient that Simonides knew the exact pages that had been burned, which bore his seal, and which Tischendorf mention were burned but did not make public of which pages. Tischendorf claimed were burned by the monks at Mt Sinai, which even they claimed never happened. The scholars you mentioned confirmed it were all supportive of the Vatican, Tischendorf, and Westcot. Also, scholars today don't support the same premise, seems like the good ole boys club was no longer around to push the narrative on the authenticity. Any who, Consequently, Erasmus's edition has been called the most poorly edited volume in all of historical literature! It is filled with hundreds of typographical errors which even Erasmus would acknowledge were he alive today. If anything was proven with all these debaucheries, is that the Bible is definitely not the word of God.
Jeffrey Riddle
"There are people who are experts on papyrology and who have examined the documents firsthand, and their judgements should be given proper weight."
Actually, the "consensus" of a 4th-century date was developed without any access to the manuscript sections, pushed obnoxiously by Tischendorf with wild attacks on scholars. By the time some visual, albeit not physical, access was available in 2009, with the Codex Sinaiticus Project, the scholarship was "deeply entrenched" and any substantial modification would be extremely awkward to the textual criticism crew, the libraries and the scholars with their dozen of papers and laurels and reputations.
So no one cared about the:
"phenomenally good condition" (Helen Shenton, British Museum) of the parchment, the
lack of ink-acid reaction with the iron gall ink, or
the huge telling difference between the Leipzig 1844 and London 1859 sections, described skillfully in the two books and many videos by David W. Daniels, that point to the truthfulness of the 1862-63 accusation of deliberate colouring that only hit the 1859 pages.
Hands were waved, excuses were mumbled, and the long con is still going on.
And this is only scratching the surface of evidence!
Steven Avery
Dutchess County, NY USA
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