Sunday, January 12, 2014

Provenance - the poof factor

Provenance - the poof factor

      Provenance refers to the origin or derivation of an artifact. When employed by experts in the fields of rare manuscripts and valuable objets d'art, it refers to a works being traceable to some particular  source or quarter. The provenance of a valuable piece helps establish its historical origin and, potentially, its authenticity. Naturally, provenance has more significance in the case of a sensational  item, and a missing provenance is unfortunate but not necessarily insurmountable. Of course, provenances themselves can be forged in much the same manner as the works they are supposed to authenticate. Dealer markings, penciled notations, and the like are sometimes falsely added to a work to indicate previous ownership.

Real or Fake: Studies in Authentication (2009)
Joe Nickell
http://books.google.com/books?id=01MqZ3RgoIwC&pg=PA9

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   The provenance of Codex Sinaiticus presents some real problems and mysteries. In the early 1800s Europeans were travelling throughout the middle east, looking at monastery libraries, seeking ancient manuscripts.

   We will look at a number of these individuals here and their reports.  We will notice that there is a marked change in the St. Catherine's Monastery around 1840.


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  St. Catherine's Monastery - Codex Sinaiticus up to 1859


Antiquity - (compare to Golden ms)

Ancient Catalogue

Vitaliano  Donati

William Turner

William Banckes

John Hyde 

Frederick Henniker 


Constantine Simonides

Constantine Tischendorf

Uspensky

Major MacDonald 


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   Antiquity

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Journal of a Tour in the Levant, Volume 2 (1820)
William Turner
http://books.google.com/books?id=yYQOAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA443


To my inquiries after manuscripts and a library, the priests answered, that they had only three bibles, and I took their word the more readily, as Pococke states that they had no rare manuscripts. But Mr Bankes, by persevering and rummaging, found out a library, of 2,000 volumes, of which three-quarters were MSS and of these, nine-tenths were Greek. The greater part were theological but some were interesting, Mr Bankes bought away.

1--a thick MS, containing Hephaestio on the Greek Metres, an Oration of Isocrates, the Letters of Phalaris (which were the subject of much controversy some years ago);

2d. Another containing three first books of the Iliad, and part of the fourth; two Tragedies of Aeschylus. and much Greek poetry;

3d. Another thin one. containing the Medes of Euripides, and the beginning of his Hyppolitius:

4th, An Historical Work of Cedrensu (a Byzantine historian quoted in Gibbon);

5th, a very fair one. containing, it appears, all the Physics of Aristotle, probably of no remote antiquity, as it is written with contractions, which were not used in the early ages.

There were also many Arabick, Syriac. and Coptic MSS. The Arabick MSS. Burckhardt says, are of little literary value.

See his Life, prefixed to his Travels in Nubia, quarto, page 68.


Travels in Nubia is here:


Travels in Nubia: with maps (1819)
John Lewis Burckhardt
http://books.google.com/books?id=4q4f7nas7JIC&pg=PR68


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Journal of a tour through Egypt, the peninsula of Sinai and the Holy Land in 1838, 1839...(1842)
http://books.google.com/books?id=NhIMvDwApygC&pg=PA173
 


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Ancient Catalogue

Vitaliano  Donati

William Turner

William Banckes

John Hyde 

Frederick Henniker 


Constantine Simonides

Constantine Tischendorf

Uspensky

Major MacDonald 
 

Aleph / 01 / א

Purpose

We will examine one question on this blog, the authenticity of Sinaiticus as a 4th century text.  The main question is .. 4th or 19th century,  although we will also examine the historical arguments that the codex, even if authentic, was from a later date, e.g. 6th century. 

Discussions Planned - Partial List

  • Provenance - the 1840 poof factor
  • Origin - Stories, Myths and Fables
  • Why does it matter if Codex Sinaiticus is not authentic?
  • Constantine Tischendorf - adventurer, scholar, Count, liar, thief, mutilator of ancient manuscripts
  • Constantine Simonides - the fly in the ointment
  • Codex Simoneidos  
  • England literary controversy - 1862-1864
  • Shepherd of Hermas - "coincidence seems almost more singular than can be accounted for by chance"
  • Tares Among the Wheat by Chris Pinto
  • Ink, Vellum & Binding 
  • Ink analysis - "inks have never been chemically characterized"
  • Scribes and Correctors
  • authenticity, forgery and dating
  • "many obvious blunders"
  • Burgon and the significance of Codex Aleph
  • Hilgenfeld questions what became the Tischendorf-Hort "scholarly consensus"
  • Calligraphy 
  • Quire numbers 
  • Hieroglyphics 
  • Retracing
  • Rebinding  
  • James Anson Farrer - "unsolved mysteries of literature"
  • Codex Sinaiticus Project 
  • bogus "English translation" of Sinaiticus
  • evolution-style circularity
  • probability analysis 
  • John 21:25 - Tischendorf's x-ray vision, the attack on Samuel Tragelles
  • Mark ending - the curious cancel sheet
  • the James White - Chris Pinto debate
  • James White - "any scholar"
  • Alan Kurschner - "documentary lie"
  • Lake, Skeat & Milne, Jongkind & Parker 
  • Forum Discussions
  • Bibliography 
  • Summary 
    Let me add a note here.  Being active in textual discussions, I was dismissive of Codex Sinaiticus, as being a junque early text.   When I saw "Tares Among the Wheat" I was more interested in the Vaticanus retracing than the idea that Sinaiticus might not be authentic, since authenticity was always presented as probability=1. On the TC-Alternate forum in 2011 I even wrote up a paragraph of the main reasons that could be given against Simonides involvement.

    In 2013, I became more interested.  Alan Kurschner belligerently and falsely accused Chris Pinto of a "documentary lie", using a James White blunder as his reference. James White and Chris Pinto got ready to square off in the debate. So I figgered I should get more informed.  Out of that developed the studies du jour.

Steven Avery
Bayside, NY 

This blog page is:

Codex Sinaiticus - Authentic?

http://codexaleph.blogspot.com/2014/01/codex-sinaiticus-authentic-aleph-01.html

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