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homoeoteleuton textbook case- Sinaiticus (350 AD?) copied from Claromontanus (550 AD)

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  • homoeoteleuton textbook case- Sinaiticus (350 AD?) copied from Claromontanus (550 AD)

    homoeoteleuton textbook case- Sinaiticus (350 AD?) copied from Claromontanus (550 AD)
    Time machine? Or are our history and dates needing correction.

    You can actually how this omission, followed by the correction, occurred with the ms. pics here:

    Homeoteleuton - Text Omitted Because Of Similar Endings
    http://www.sinaiticus.net/homeoteleuton.html

    And then there are links to 3 papers with more info, that can be read online, or downloaded.

    Your feedback appreciated.

    Related thread here, totally different aspect of Sinaiticus, the homoeoteleuton is straight New Testament textual analysis. And is a new discovery.
    http://www.theologyweb.com/campus/sh...-problematicus

    Steven
    Last edited by Steven Avery; 03-11-2017, 08:27 PM.

  • #2
    Oh, hai Steven. It seems to me that you've identified a possible exemplar, but as you say, the dating of the respective MSS makes this identification problematic. Your proposed solution to the problem (namely, forgery) seems to be rather a stretch, however ardently you propound it.
    Enter the Church and wash away your sins. For here there is a hospital and not a court of law. Do not be ashamed to enter the Church; be ashamed when you sin, but not when you repent. – St. John Chrysostom

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    Comment


    • #3
      Sinaiticus Problematicus

      Originally posted by One Bad Pig View Post
      Oh, hai Steven. It seems to me that you've identified a possible exemplar, but as you say, the dating of the respective MSS makes this identification problematic. Your proposed solution to the problem (namely, forgery) seems to be rather a stretch, however ardently you propound it.
      Greetings, OBP.

      Thanks for looking and thinking about the mss! Actually I see Sinaiticus as originally either a replica or forgery. There are strong elements that work against the idea that it was originally designed as a forgery.

      Due to the many quirks and oddities swirling around Sinaiticus, and its lack of provenance, i have for a long time referred to Sinaiticus Problematicus, as you can see here and in other threads and discussions.

      Sinaiticus Problematicus - a 19th century relic?
      Edited by a Moderator

      As I see the standard Tischendorf story and dating as the one that is ultra-problematical :).

      Looking just at this homoeoteleutons (we are working on getting the other corroborative ones into a similar format) you have a type of homoeoteleuton perfect "textbook case". So without any knowledge of the Sinaiticus history, one conclusion comes first. Claromontanus precedes Sinaiticus. From there, you try to fit in all the historical and physical and textual data. It helps if you are familiar with what happened in the 1840s to the 1860s.

      And I believe this homoeoteleuton is extremely strong, going along with these thoughts:

      Paul Maas in Textual Criticism states:
      "Sometimes a witness can be shown to depend on another surviving witness from a single passage"

      And Stephen C. Carlson concluded, in the studies on the 2427 forgery, referencing the Paul Maas text:
      "line omissions in a manuscript are highly diagnostic of the manuscript's exemplar"

      Oh, on the three papers, the 2nd one will format better on a download, if you can open the file type. I am working on making it a better format online.

      Steven

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      Last edited by rogue06; 05-24-2017, 08:21 PM.

      Comment


      • #4
        Constantine Simonides (1820–1890), is known to have made the claim that he forged the Codex Sinaiticus.
        . . . the gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth; . . . -- Romans 1:16 KJV

        . . . that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures; And that he was buried, and that he rose again the third day according to the scriptures: . . . -- 1 Corinthians 15:3-4 KJV

        Whosoever believeth that Jesus is the Christ is born of God: . . . -- 1 John 5:1 KJV

        Comment


        • #5
          So this supposed 19th century copyist who created Sinaiticus by copying from a 6th century Claromantanus did not copy the line breaks. He did not copy the accents. He did not copy the Nomina Sacra. He did not copy the mistakes. He did not copy the spellings. And he used a Western type manuscript to create an Alexandrian type copy. So why in the world did he bother using a hard to read 6th century manuscript at all?
          You notice that the Claromontanus copyist himself made a homoeoteleuton mistake immediately after the first agaphn de mh exw. He copied (outh) en eimi. To which a corrector made the very distinct correction to gegona. Don’t you think such a glaring change to the manuscript, which stands out much more clearly than the faded line he’s trying to decipher, would cause a copyist to look more closely at what’s happening?

          Comment


          • #6
            Hi JPT,

            Originally posted by Just Passing Through View Post
            So this supposed 19th century copyist who created Sinaiticus by copying from a 6th century Claromantanus ?
            One of a number of sources, but clearly a major source in Corinthians where there are multiple Claromontanus-Sinaiticus homoeoteleutons.

            Originally posted by Just Passing Through View Post
            did not copy the line breaks. He did not copy the accents. He did not copy the Nomina Sacra.
            The Sinaiticus (or Simeonides) manuscript was designed to be a replica or forgery. So it followed the style of early uncial mss. The script is actually very close to that of Claromontanus.

            Originally posted by Just Passing Through View Post
            He did not copy the mistakes. He did not copy the spellings.
            The spelling in this section is identical for 300 consecutive letters, a bit unusual for mss thought to be centuries apart from totally different locales. As for mistakes, have you done an analysis? In the homoeoteleutons, Sinaiticus adds a mistake, and in this case quickly made the correction.

            Originally posted by Just Passing Through View Post
            And he used a Western type manuscript to create an Alexandrian type copy. So why in the world did he bother using a hard to read 6th century manuscript at all?
            This gets into very interesting questions as to the place and purpose of the manuscript. Sinaiticus is not all "Alexandrian" (which really means little more than affinity with Vaticanus.) And when you are talking about very little data, "text types" may not be accurate or a good representations.

            The facts on the ground say this first.
            We start with the hard evidence.

            We have the best "textbook case" of a homoeoteleuton known, using two extant mss.
            (And there are multiple additional homoeoteleutons.)

            Attempts to make an alternative explanation than Sinaiticus copied from Claromontaus have great difficulties.

            Hard evidences come first.

            Originally posted by Just Passing Through View Post
            You notice that the Claromontanus copyist himself made a homoeoteleuton mistake immediately after the first agaphn de mh exw. He copied (outh) en eimi. To which a corrector made the very distinct correction to gegona.
            I believe this was referenced by our researcher. He pointed out that this could push the Claromontanus date out further, if the correction was later.

            Originally posted by Just Passing Through View Post
            Don’t you think such a glaring change to the manuscript, which stands out much more clearly than the faded line he’s trying to decipher, would cause a copyist to look more closely at what’s happening?
            This is a very natural homoeoteleuton, The two lines are identical, and indented the same way. It was corrected fairly quickly. It is about as easy to make a homoeoeteleuton that you can find.

            Can you find another manuscript anywhere that lines up in such a way that it would create the Sinaiticus homoeoteleuton. It should, at the very least, agree on the 240+ letters and the line-ending of the two identical h.t. lines.

            Steven

            Comment


            • #7
              One of a number of sources, but clearly a major source in Corinthians where there are multiple Claromontanus-Sinaiticus homoeoteleutons.
              I’d have to see all those other examples before I’d be convinced.

              The texts are not the same for 300 letters. In verse 1 (on the previous page in Claromontanus) it has deiknumi vs diknumi in Sinaiticus. And the Nomina Sacra an-wn vs athorpwn (missing the nu) in Sinaiticus. In verse 3 uparchonta vs uparchota and ouden vs outhen. And the one big variant in verse 3 is kaukhswmai in Alexandrian manuscripts including Sinaiticus and kaqhsomai in Western manuscripts including Claromontanus. There are no variants in verses 4 to 7 so I’d expect them to be the same. In verse 8 Claromontanus has the Western reading of ekpiptei eite prophetiai with a corrector adding the word de and an epsilon to propheteiai. Sinaiticus has piptei eite de prophetiai with a corrector adding an ek to piptei but not copying the correction to propheteiai. The last word of verse 8 is katarghqhsetai in Claromontanus and katarghqhsontai in Sinaiticus. In verse 9 Claromontanus has teleion while Sinaiticus has telion.
              Given the fact that we almost never find the manuscript a manuscript was copied from, and all it would take to cause homoeoteleuton is for two lines to start with the same word (not necessarily end with the same word) it just looks like a coincidence of a single line break to me.

              I believe this was referenced by our researcher. He pointed out that this could push the Claromontanus date out further, if the correction was later.
              I don’t understand. Are you saying Claromontanus was corrected later than when the 19th century Sinaiticus was copied from it?

              This is a very natural homoeoteleuton, The two lines are identical, and indented the same way. It was corrected fairly quickly. It is about as easy to make a homoeoeteleuton that you can find.
              Do you mean Claromontanus’ en eimi homoeoteleuton? Yes, it was an easy one for that copyist to make, but the correction stands out so starkly on the page that it seems unlikely that someone copying him would make a different homoeoteleuton at the very same place.
              Last edited by Just Passing Through; 03-14-2017, 08:35 AM.

              Comment


              • #8
                First, JPT, thanks for helpful considerations. Appreciated.

                Originally posted by Just Passing Through View Post
                I’d have to see all those other examples before I’d be convinced.
                I'll agree that five homoeoteleutons are more convincing than one. And the multiplicative aspect does add to my confidence that this is a decisive connection.

                As for just one h.t, I believe that the auxiliary factors do make this decisive. It is similar to how Paul Maas says that having a lack of logic in the target ms can be decisive in a homoeoteleuton can be decisive in showing such a connection. Here we have other alternative factors that work to seal the connection. Those are covered in the papers. (Maas is Textual Criticism, p. 4, 1958 English edition, I can include the text.)

                We do have the verse locations of four more written in the Discovery paper of W. R. Meyer. Maybe we can have one done in a similar manner as this Corinthians h.t. within a week or so, I do believe that is a work in process. Another gentleman, a linguist, is also helping with some computer savvy.

                Originally posted by Just Passing Through View Post
                The texts are not the same for 300 letters.
                You are going way beyond 300 letters. The area of the h.t is 240+. Our check showed them identical (allowing kai ligatures). Which itself is unusual for any manuscripts in different regions and centuries apart, especially in the early centuries. This consecutive agreement would be less unusual with 12th century Byzantine mss. How often do even Vaticanus and Sinaiticus agree on 300 letters? It is a good question.

                Revision Revised (1881)
                John William Burgon
                https://books.google.com/books?id=nXkw1TAatV8C&pg=PA12

                And be it remembered that the omissions, additions, substitutions, transpositions, and modifications, are by no means the same in both. It is in fact easier to find two consecutive verses in which these two MSS. differ the one from the other, than two consecutive verses in which they entirely agree.
                I slipped a little in saying 300. W. R. Meyer said the first one after the h.t. body was 35 after, making 275+ consecutive, then one unclear and then 30+. So the clearer way would be .. a 275+ sequential identical letter area, including all the homoeoteleuton and a bit more.

                All this is one of the advantages of solid sharing on the net, you can get good feedback and tweaks, in a much quicker way than the years of peer-review journals (that do have their place as well).

                Originally posted by Just Passing Through View Post
                I don’t understand. Are you saying Claromontanus was corrected later than when the 19th century Sinaiticus was copied from it?
                Oops, it is hard sometimes to make each issue clear in relatively quick forum writing.

                If the terminus a quo of Claromontanus is 550 AD, then the earliest that Sinaiticus could be, accepting the homoteleuton evidence, would be after 550. However, if the Claromontanus correction is considered to be 700 AD, then that would become the new terminus a quo for Sinaiticus.

                Note that I do not believe the middling dates for Sinaiticus (550-750) rather than 19th century, are viable. For interesting reasons we can discuss. However they surely deserve discussion in the homoeoteleuton analysis (and would still overhaul the history and current praxis of textual theory.)

                Originally posted by Just Passing Through View Post
                Do you mean Claromontanus’ en eimi homoeoteleuton? Yes, it was an easy one for that copyist to make, but the correction stands out so starkly on the page that it seems unlikely that someone copying him would make a different homoeoteleuton at the very same place.
                The Sinaiticus scribe was Mr. Blunderama. My view, it is hard to imagine any error that was difficult for the scribe. :)

                ====

                Question.

                Do you agree that this is a "textbook case", at least by appearance?

                That is, if a person knew nothing about the histories of the manuscripts, and saw the two manuscripts, they would clearly be presentable as a perfect (textbook) case of homoeoteleuton. Especially as additional factors like the next short, indented line come to play, after the initial lineup of the identical lines and the omitted section.

                Looking at extant manuscripts, has anyone ever offered as good a case?

                =====

                Steven
                Last edited by Steven Avery; 03-14-2017, 08:44 PM.

                Comment


                • #9
                  Do you agree that this is a "textbook case", at least by appearance?

                  That is, if a person knew nothing about the histories of the manuscripts, and saw the two manuscripts, they would clearly be presentable as a perfect (textbook) case of homoeoteleuton.
                  Well, I’d say that Sinaiticus’ omission in 1 Cor 13 is a textbook case of homoeoteleuton, but that’s a function of an error having been made, not a function of identifying the source ms.
                  If you mean a textbook case of presenting us with an identifiable source ms for an example of ht, it’s a good match to the criteria for an ideal case, but I think the criteria are weakened (less of an impressive coincidence) because Claromantanus has short irregular lines that mostly divide at word divisions and natural breaks, which increases the probability that the phrase in question would be a full, separate line each time. That may increase the chances of the next copyist making an error when these lines are copied, but it also increases the chances of a false positive match. It multiplies the occurrences in Claromantanus where a repeated phrase likely ends up by itself on separate lines or holding an identical position in two lines, so this ms ends up looking like the source of lots of ht’s that may occur in other mss that are completely unrelated. Ht can easily happen in the middle or end of lines that don’t otherwise match at all, they simply have any word or phrase in common that the eye can jump to, so I am very skeptical of the idea that when you have an instance of ht, you should go look for a ms that has the repeated phrase on a line all by itself, and if you find one, that must be the source.
                  Now when you have mss that put the same number of letters on each line, that’s different. Then, when two lines happen to have the same word or phrase in the same place (whether beginning a line, ending a line, or even broken up by a line break in the same spot), a match is rarer, and you have the additional clue of knowing exactly how many characters should have been skipped. Plus, the dense text makes it easier for the eye to jump to the wrong place.

                  And if your 300 character match means nothing more than that there are no variants in verses 4 to 7, that’s not saying much. You need peculiarities to tell you whether two mss are related, not the lack of peculiarities. Those verses are so familiar now, and likely were then, that I imagine the scribes knew them by heart and would have copied them the same way regardless of what the source ms said. In a sense, errors are self-correcting in familiar passages. (That happens the other way sometimes in the gospels when a familiar passage from one gospel is unintentionally copied into a different gospel by memory). My UBS text doesn’t list any variants at all in those verses, so I assume texts are generally pretty uniform here. If one of these two mss had a spelling error or an unusual reading and the other copied it, that would be significant, but if you just have two mss that happen to have no errors in these 4 consecutive verses, that tells you nothing at all about their relationship to each other.
                  I glanced through Vaticanus. It has two peculiarities in these 4 verses. It changes “it does not seek its own things” to “it does not seek that which is not its own.” And it accidentally repeats the phrase panta stegei. If Sinaiticus had copied either of those peculiarities, that would be telling, but just finding two mss with a lack of peculiarities does not mean they’re related.

                  I have not read Paul Maas, but the statement you make, “It is similar to how Paul Maas says that having a lack of logic in the target ms can be decisive in a homoeoteleuton can be decisive in showing such a connection.” It sounds to me like Maas is simply saying that when a ms lacks the words between a repeated phrase and the result is nonsense, then you can chalk up the error to ht, not that it enables you to match it to a specific source ms. If you find the same nonsense in two mss, they’re probably related, but otherwise Maas offers no help to linking them.

                  If the terminus a quo of Claromontanus is 550 AD, then the earliest that Sinaiticus could be, accepting the homoteleuton evidence, would be after 550. However, if the Claromontanus correction is considered to be 700 AD, then that would become the new terminus a quo for Sinaiticus.
                  That I’d disagree with. If Sinaiticus was copied from Claromantanus, the ht would be more likely to occur if there was no stark correction to make the copyist sit up and take notice, and the next line looked much like the next line coming after the skip. The correction in Sinaiticus would perhaps need to be later that Claromantanus’ correction, however a correction made hundreds of years after the error would ordinarily be made by copying it from a completely different manuscript, so it doesn’t tell us whether Claromantanus had been corrected at that time.

                  Looking at extant manuscripts, has anyone ever offered as good a case?
                  Since virtually no examples are known of one ms directly copied from another extant ms, I doubt it. And if anyone pointed out such an example to me, I'd probably be just as skeptical unless there were enough other reasons to link the two mss.

                  Comment


                  • #10
                    Good feedback, let's go point to point.

                    Originally posted by Steven Avery View Post
                    Do you agree that this is a "textbook case", at least by appearance?
                    That is, if a person knew nothing about the histories of the manuscripts, and saw the two manuscripts, they would clearly be presentable as a perfect (textbook) case of homoeoteleuton. Especially as additional factors like the next short, indented line come to play, after the initial lineup of the identical lines and the omitted section.
                    Looking at extant manuscripts, has anyone ever offered as good a case?
                    Originally posted by Just Passing Through View Post
                    Well, I’d say that Sinaiticus’ omission in 1 Cor 13 is a textbook case of homoeoteleuton, but that’s a function of an error having been made, not a function of identifying the source ms.
                    Here I think you miss the point of my question.

                    If you are just looking at target manuscripts, you can easily find dozens, probably 100s of "textbook cases". A bunch of text missing where the likely original cause is similar ending.

                    We do not have, afaik, ANY textbook cases of two manuscripts that line up as a perfect homoeteleuton. A really fine textbook case requires two manuscripts.

                    My question remains ... do you agree:

                    if a person knew nothing about the histories of the manuscripts, and saw the two manuscripts, they would clearly be presentable as a perfect (textbook) case of homoeoteleuton.
                    Originally posted by Just Passing Through View Post
                    If you mean a textbook case of presenting us with an identifiable source ms for an example of ht, it’s a good match to the criteria for an ideal case,
                    We agree here. Everything fits, plus extra features fit.

                    Originally posted by Just Passing Through View Post
                    but I think the criteria are weakened (less of an impressive coincidence) because Claromantanus has short irregular lines that mostly divide at word divisions and natural breaks, which increases the probability that the phrase in question would be a full, separate line each time. That may increase the chances of the next copyist making an error when these lines are copied,
                    This is basically saying that the layout of Claromontanus is far more natural for a homoeoteleuton in a target ms than would be other early manuscripts. And here I agree 100%. Sense-lines in a source ms. will increase the possibility of a homoeoteleuton when the ms is copied, since the repetition of an line-idea in the Bible text will lead to the repetition of the ending. This will occur in sense-lines but rarely in block-lines.

                    Originally posted by Just Passing Through View Post
                    but it also increases the chances of a false positive match.
                    Any theory of a false positive match has to come up with an incredible synchronicity on multiple features between a known manuscript, likely in Sardinia in the 6th century, with an unknown manuscript in Caesarea or Alexandria hundreds of years earlier, that was used to copy these sections of Sinaiticus.

                    Finding manuscripts with such radically different pedigree agreeing on elements like the 275+ consecutive letters, the use of sense-lines in Corinthians to allow the homoeoteleuton, and the followup short line that was copied into Sinaiticus would be extremely unlikely. Plus they should also supply the other Claromontanus-Sinatiicus homoeoteleutons in that same text region.

                    In the history of Sinaiticus perceived as a fourth-century document it is important not to go too far in claiming element upon element as a coincidence. Usually this occurs in the historical realm, also there are huge physical perplexity coincidences.

                    Now the 4th century view has to claim an another huge coincidence in the textual realm. The exemplar of Sinaiticus in this area in Caesarea has all the same necessary features as Claromontanus. And again and again, to supply multiple homoeoteleutons.

                    Originally posted by Just Passing Through View Post
                    It multiplies the occurrences in Claromantanus where a repeated phrase likely ends up by itself on separate lines or holding an identical position in two lines, so this ms ends up looking like the source of lots of ht’s that may occur in other mss that are completely unrelated.
                    Here I agree again. Claromontanus is a far more likely homoeoteleuton source than other early mss, basically due to sense-lines that have much more probable agreement with the end of a line than when a manuscript is simply a set length of letters, block style, as is usually the case in the early mss.

                    Originally posted by Just Passing Through View Post
                    Ht can easily happen in the middle or end of lines that don’t otherwise match at all,
                    True, but the most classic and powerful cases involve agreeing lines, as here.

                    And since this Sinaiticus homoeoteleuton is in fact between identical lines, other situations are not functional to this particular analysis.

                    Originally posted by Just Passing Through View Post
                    they simply have any word or phrase in common that the eye can jump to, so I am very skeptical of the idea that when you have an instance of ht, you should go look for a ms that has the repeated phrase on a line all by itself, and if you find one, that must be the source.
                    You are mixing logics here a little. The reason that we look in this 1 Corinthians verse for a ms with identical lines is because that is how the Corinthians text reads in this section. You are only looking for what will work. In other homoeoteleutons you may simply look for a like-ending word or three.

                    As for "must be the source", that is the natural result of ALL the agreements in the two mss.

                    First we start with the fact of the homoeoteleuton. Most ancient mss, especially before 350 AD or 600 AD, would not have the same ending for the two sense-lines. (Most mss in that era were block, so as not to waste space, the style you see most all of Sinaiticus.) This itself would be rare.

                    Even if they did, they are unlikely to have a large, unlikely letter agreement that we have with Claromontanus and Sinaticius, that I described above, and discuss more below. Especially since they were from very different locales and times.

                    Even if they did, they would be unlikely to have the next line as a short line with an indented KAI.

                    Even if they did, they would be unlikely to supply additional homoeoteleutons that match up to Sinaiticus.

                    We start to get very quickly into realms of probability and Occam analysis that says ..

                    "the best answer for the evidence here is that the Claromontaus ms. was directly the source for Sinaiticus".

                    And the fact is that this also fits the historical and physical analysis, as long as we are not "deeply entrenched" in the ultra-dubious 4th century theory.

                    Originally posted by Just Passing Through View Post
                    Now when you have mss that put the same number of letters on each line, that’s different. Then, when two lines happen to have the same word or phrase in the same place (whether beginning a line, ending a line, or even broken up by a line break in the same spot), a match is rarer, and you have the additional clue of knowing exactly how many characters should have been skipped. Plus, the dense text makes it easier for the eye to jump to the wrong place.
                    Here you are talking about a phenomenon that is unknown in our extant mss. A block ms just some randomly (no sense-lines) happening to make a perfect homoeoteleuton to a target ms. You are saying that this would increase the unlikeliness. That may be true, but it is also true that we simply, even with our 5,000+ extant Greek mss, have no two known that match that criteria. So it is not really relevant.

                    Originally posted by Just Passing Through View Post
                    And if your 300 character match means nothing more than that there are no variants in verses 4 to 7,
                    The exact matching is in verses one to three. And there are a good number of variants in that section.

                    Originally posted by Just Passing Through View Post
                    that’s not saying much. You need peculiarities to tell you whether two mss are related, not the lack of peculiarities. Those verses are so familiar now, and likely were then, that I imagine the scribes knew them by heart and would have copied them the same way regardless of what the source ms said. In a sense, errors are self-correcting in familiar passages. (That happens the other way sometimes in the gospels when a familiar passage from one gospel is unintentionally copied into a different gospel by memory). My UBS text doesn’t list any variants at all in those verses, so I assume texts are generally pretty uniform here.
                    UBS has a very limited scope, because it is designed for translators and focuses on variants where the major printed editions disagree.

                    There are in fact a good number of variants. LaParola shows four in v. 2. In one of which the Sinaiticus correction which is Claromontanus, and Vaticanus and more, disagree with Alexandrinus and Ephraim and Psi and the mass of Greek mss and the Westcott-Hort text.

                    A study by Jeff Kloha on 1 Corinthians shows more. It is about six pages so it takes some time to pull out the relevant ms. info. (Or check his sources.)

                    We are planning a paper on all the variants. And also the full number of disagreements between Vaticanus and Sinaiticus/Claromontanus in that section.

                    Originally posted by Just Passing Through View Post
                    If one of these two mss had a spelling error or an unusual reading and the other copied it, that would be significant, but if you just have two mss that happen to have no errors in these 4 consecutive verses, that tells you nothing at all about their relationship to each other.
                    Actually, it would be an indication of affinity. According to Burgon, you would have a hard time finding Vaticanus and Sinatiicus in absolute agreement over such an area (and they are not at all the same here) and they are considered far more culturally-textually simpatico than Claromontanus and Sinaiticus.

                    Now I agree that the import of simply the agreement of letters alone would not be at all decisive to one ms. using the other, but in the nexus of all the elements of Claromantanus and Sinaiticus on the h.t., it is in fact corroboratively very significant. We have to view the accumulative connection of evidences.

                    Originally posted by Just Passing Through View Post
                    I glanced through Vaticanus. It has two peculiarities in these 4 verses. It changes “it does not seek its own things” to “it does not seek that which is not its own.” And it accidentally repeats the phrase panta stegei.
                    Thanks. What would be additionally helpful if you checked letter by letter (if you have not done so). The two phrase elements are noteworthy.

                    Originally posted by Just Passing Through View Post
                    If Sinaiticus had copied either of those peculiarities, that would be telling, but just finding two mss with a lack of peculiarities does not mean they’re related.
                    However, afawk, we have no other extant case of a visible homoeoteleuton from a source extant ms to a target extant ms. So this goes way beyond a "lack of peculiarities". There are multiple supportive elements to the highly unusual element of a perfect match for a visible homoeoteleuton in two mss.

                    Do you know of any other two extant mss that match in this type of way?
                    Even excluding all the auxiliary corroborative elements.

                    Originally posted by Just Passing Through View Post
                    I have not read Paul Maas, but the statement you make, “It is similar to how Paul Maas says that having a lack of logic in the target ms can be decisive in a homoeoteleuton can be decisive in showing such a connection.” It sounds to me like Maas is simply saying that when a ms lacks the words between a repeated phrase and the result is nonsense, then you can chalk up the error to ht, not that it enables you to match it to a specific source ms. If you find the same nonsense in two mss, they’re probably related, but otherwise Maas offers no help to linking them.
                    You should read the section. I do not want to lay too much on Maas (the fact that he says something does not make it ipso facto true) but he definitely says more than what you are conjecturing above. I'll plan on pulling down the section later.

                    Originally posted by Just Passing Through View Post
                    That I’d disagree with. If Sinaiticus was copied from Claromantanus, the ht would be more likely to occur if there was no stark correction to make the copyist sit up and take notice, .
                    You have said this a number of times, but as I point out, the Sinaiticus scribe simply makes unexplainable blunders galore. There is no reason why he all of a sudden should become Superb-Scribe in this one area. The "fact on the ground" is the homoeoteleuton match, and this goes way beyond remote scribal attention analysis.

                    Originally posted by Just Passing Through View Post
                    and the next line looked much like the next line coming after the skip. The correction in Sinaiticus would perhaps need to be later that Claromantanus’ correction, however a correction made hundreds of years after the error would ordinarily be made by copying it from a completely different manuscript, so it doesn’t tell us whether Claromantanus had been corrected at that time.
                    This is a bit unclear. It does sound that you are working with trying to figure out when Sinaiticus would be copied from Claromontanus, which is an important part of the equation.

                    Originally posted by Just Passing Through View Post
                    Since virtually no examples are known of one ms directly copied from another extant ms, I doubt it. And if anyone pointed out such an example to me, I'd probably be just as skeptical unless there were enough other reasons to link the two mss.
                    Such a homoeoteleuton does not require a full copying of the whole ms. A lot depends on the fulness of agreement, which in this case is very strong. See the list above.

                    As for whether there are other elements like agreed upon spelling errors, that will be a good future check. Especially in the area of the five (at least) homoeoteleutons that are a good match for Claromontanus and Sinaticius.

                    Thanks for giving solid feedback! This is what our team is looking to hear from the readers.

                    Steven
                    Last edited by Steven Avery; 03-15-2017, 03:58 PM.

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                    • #11
                      I don’t have anything to add to most of your comments. And I can’t spend much more time on this. Just a few final points.
                      The agreement is primarily between Claromantanus and the correction in Sinaiticus? But the corrector is clearly a different hand who might have made his annotation hundreds of years after Sinaiticus was copied, and he might have used a different source to supply the missing verse. I wouldn’t expect synergies within the correction to have any beneficial use in determining what Sinaiticus’ own source document was, unless you start with the assumption that it’s a forgery and the same person used the same ms to correct his own error in a deceptive way.
                      It seemed really odd that you’d say that the Sinaiticus copyist was so horribly inept in copying, yet he was letter-perfect in the very section where letter-perfect copying would detrimentally expose his forgery. Or could the greater attention to detail in the correction actually point to a different scribe at work there, which is what would be expected if it was genuine?
                      In that section the only variants I see are prophetian in Claromantanus and Sinaiticus, vs propheteian in Vaticanus. And alalazwn in C, vs alalazon in S and V (plus kai ligatures in S and abbreviated endings in V). Alalazwn is the more telling variant I think (a mistaken masculine ending as opposed to the simple alternate spelling of propheteia), so the nudge goes toward a Vaticanus match (or no match).
                      Second, you make a big point about the short line and indented kai. But Sinaiticus simply uses short lines and indenting on the next line as a paragraph marker. And he doesn’t put all his new paragraphs in the same places as Claromantanus, though he does in this instance. He also uses short lines for stress, to make repeated words stand out for example, as he does with several lines in a row starting with panta or ou, which could also have been a factor in outhen eimi ending up by itself. To know whether the indented Kai is significant you’d have to do a survey of manuscripts to see how many use indented (outdented?) paragraphs and how many start a new paragraph at verse 3. If these are the only two, then yes it’s highly significant. If almost every one does the same thing, not so much.
                      A lot of your conviction seems to be based on the cumulative argument, and since I’ve neither looked at the other ht’s nor studied Sinaiticus in any depth, it’s not convincing me at this point.

                      Comment


                      • #12
                        An ultra-excellent post from JPT.

                        Originally posted by Just Passing Through View Post
                        I don’t have anything to add to most of your comments. And I can’t spend much more time on this.
                        Understood. The second homoeoteleuton analysis involving a different section of the two manuscripts is planned to be up in a few days. (As well as improvements in the study on this one.) Stay tuned!

                        Clearly the effect of additional areas with visible source-target homoeoteleutons can give you more confidence of the significance. I think you will appreciate the additional elements, and now that we "know the drill", cut to salient elements more easily.

                        Remember, there are no other examples that I know in the Greek ms corpus where you can line up a source and target ms. to give this type of homoeoteleuton. So, the multiplicative, or exponential, effect of seeing two, three, four, five in the same two mss can really be an "oh, wow" trigger.

                        Originally posted by Just Passing Through View Post
                        Just a few final points. The agreement is primarily between Claromantanus and the correction in Sinaiticus? But the corrector is clearly a different hand who might have made his annotation hundreds of years after Sinaiticus was copied,
                        The correction caused the Corinthians heading to be moved, which makes it likely to be an early correction. (ie. before the Corinthian headers were added.)

                        Originally posted by Just Passing Through View Post
                        and he might have used a different source to supply the missing verse.
                        Thanks, you are right, this is planned for more analysis within the next week.

                        W. R. Meyer added a note that relates to this type of question, which I tweaked a bit:

                        In the 1800s theory of Sinaiticus creation, the scribe of Sinaiticus compiled a text from multiples sources. One which would be Claromontanus. This has been shown to be the method of Simmonides in the 1843 Barnabas and the 1856 Shepherd of Hermas, and was covered in one video (I'll add the url later.) This methodology would contribute to the large number of scribal errors, and would also explain localization affinities. (This is from the founder of the homoeoteleutons, W. R. Meyer, with some tweaking and writing changes by yours truly.)
                        Originally posted by Just Passing Through View Post
                        I wouldn’t expect synergies within the correction to have any beneficial use in determining what Sinaiticus’ own source document was, unless you start with the assumption that it’s a forgery and the same person used the same ms to correct his own error in a deceptive way.
                        There is a lot involved here, so let's wait a bit for the future body-and-correction variation in mss analysis.

                        Not really a "deceptive way" would be involved in the Sinaiticus correction, even if it is a replica (or forgery, which likely was not the intent). A correction can be immediately after, or "long" after. It can be the same source doc, or different. The scribe can be accurate, or careless, or make his own changes. Many variables.

                        However, since the synergies are being sent back for full review, we can let it pass for now.

                        Originally posted by Just Passing Through View Post
                        It seemed really odd that you’d say that the Sinaiticus copyist was so horribly inept in copying, yet he was letter-perfect in the very section where letter-perfect copying would detrimentally expose his forgery. Or could the greater attention to detail in the correction actually point to a different scribe at work there, which is what would be expected if it was genuine?.
                        And I was actually incorrect about the letters being the same that long, so let's leave that aside until the revised study comes forth.

                        Originally posted by Just Passing Through View Post
                        In that section the only variants I see are prophetian in Claromantanus and Sinaiticus, vs propheteian in Vaticanus. And alalazwn in C, vs alalazon in S and V (plus kai ligatures in S and abbreviated endings in V). Alalazwn is the more telling variant I think (a mistaken masculine ending as opposed to the simple alternate spelling of propheteia), so the nudge goes toward a Vaticanus match (or no match)..
                        Thanks on this, I will try to give some feedback shortly. A full study of the variants, including Vaticanus and the TR text, is in process.

                        Originally posted by Just Passing Through View Post
                        Second, you make a big point about the short line and indented kai. But Sinaiticus simply uses short lines and indenting on the next line as a paragraph marker.
                        Indenting yes, but not short lines, not even on this pages.
                        http://codexsinaiticus.org/en/manusc...r&zoomSlider=0

                        I count 13 full lines with indentation, and one other that was short, and that was in a short sense-line section.

                        Originally posted by Just Passing Through View Post
                        And he doesn’t put all his new paragraphs in the same places as Claromantanus, though he does in this instance. He also uses short lines for stress, to make repeated words stand out for example, as he does with several lines in a row starting with panta or ou, which could also have been a factor in outhen eimi ending up by itself. To know whether the indented Kai is significant you’d have to do a survey of manuscripts to see how many use indented (outdented?) paragraphs and how many start a new paragraph at verse 3. If these are the only two, then yes it’s highly significant. If almost every one does the same thing, not so much.
                        Fair enough. Good thinking on the indented line.

                        Originally posted by Just Passing Through View Post
                        A lot of your conviction seems to be based on the cumulative argument, and since I’ve neither looked at the other ht’s nor studied Sinaiticus in any depth, it’s not convincing me at this point.
                        And I fully understand that point. Also you are not familiar with the overall elements of Sinaiticus, Hermas, Barnabas, Simonides and more. Fair enough again.

                        So let's start adding more of the homoeoteleutons and see how this helps the mix of connection.

                        Your analysis and attempt to work with these issues is helpful and appreciated. Feel free to take a break, but I do hope that you will look at the next one when it is ready and online.

                        Steven
                        Last edited by Steven Avery; 03-17-2017, 12:58 PM.

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