Thursday, August 18, 2011

The Question of the Theft of Codex Aleph



“Codex Sinaiticus, most of it taken by Dr von Tischendorf in 1859 from St. Catherine’s monastery beside Mt Sinai in Egypt– the monks say stolen –”
http://www.theologicaleditions.com/Features/religioustexts.htm

“J. Rendel Harris (who had visited St. Catherine’s) had no illusions: in his review of Gregory’s “Text and Canon” in the February 1908 issue of The Expositor, Harris expressed extreme skepticism (bordering on outright ridicule) of Tischendorf’s version of events pertaining to the “rescue” of Codex Sinaiticus.” – James Snapp Jr.
http://evangelicaltextualcriticism.blogspot.com/2009/07/codex-sinaiticus-highlights-ii.html

“While staying at St. Catherine’s monastery on Mount Sinai, he made the momentous discovery of the Codex Sinaiticus–a text dated to be from the fourth century C.E. He brought back the text with him. (According to the Mt Sinai monks, though there were bad feelings, and claims that Tischendorf had “stolen” the manuscript.)”
http://www.entheology.org/library/winters/NEWTEST2.TXT

“See for example D.A. Waite, Defending the King James Bible (The Bible For Today: 1993), p. 61, “They just about worship that manuscript.” This was just after alleging, inaccurately, that a was about to be burned (one will note that the steward at St. Catherine’s kept the manuscript in his cell, wrapped in a red cloth, hardly the way in which one treats trash). ”
http://www.aomin.org/aoblog/index.php?itemid=1290

“Under a complicated arrangement, Tischendorf was allowed to transcribe the manuscript, but did not have the time to examine it in full detail. Tischendorf wanted to take the manuscript to the west, where it could be examined more carefully.
It is at this point that the record becomes unclear. The monks, understandably, had no great desire to give up the greatest treasure of their monastery. Tischendorf, understandably, wanted to make the manuscript more accessible (though not necessarily safer; unlike Saint Petersburg and London, Mount Sinai has not suffered a revolution or been bombed since the discovery of Aleph). In hindsight, it seems quite clear that the monks were promised better terms than they actually received (though this may be the fault of the Tsarist government rather than Tischendorf). Still, by whatever means, the manuscript wound up in Saint Petersburg, and later was sold to the British Museum. ”
http://www.skypoint.com/members/waltzmn/ManuscriptsUncials.html

“A story of high adventure swirls around the Codex Sinaiticus. Tischendorf was granted an audience with the pope. The czar of Russia showered him with money and financed his final mission. Despite his fame, though, a shadow hangs over the man, who some insist was a thief.
Scattered Book, Checkered Reputation

However, opinion on Tischendorf is as diffuse and puzzling as the ancient pages themselves. Christfried Böttrich, an expert on the New Testament at Germany’s University of Greifswald, claims that “Tischendorf was a man without blemish and above reproach.”
But the monks at St. Catherine’s have a less flattering view. They think he stole the manuscript. “The Codex Sinaiticus Was Stolen,” was the headline of a 2000 article in the Sunday Times about a conference a British parliamentary committee held on stolen artifacts. Prince Charles, who is chairman of the St. Catherine’s Foundation, has reportedly demanded the return of the manuscripts to Egypt.”
http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,479791,00.html

peace
Nazaroo

Wednesday, August 17, 2011

Revelation for Dummies (6) - The Great Period of Martyrdom

In Revelation 7:9-34 we are given a special vision,
of a vast number of Christian martyrs.
Those who try to apply this vision to the very early times (c. 60-130 A.D.)
or even the last 'great persecution' (c. 280-300 A.D.)
must interpret the vision as an exaggeration of sorts,
a poetical hyperbole.

But if we actually look at the history of Christianity for the last 2000 years,
we will be startled when we find just such a period in history,
and it was quite recent: The first and second World Wars.
The following chart diagrams both the expansion of Christianity,
and the significant periods and places of Christian Martyrdom:

The Second World War in particular is remembered for the Holocaust,
the slaughter of some 6 million people of the Jewish faith,
but the actual numbers for this war show that a a vastly larger number
of Christians, mostly civilians, women and children, were also slaughtered,
in a systemic pattern of genocidal acts, mostly simply butchering,
such as in the Croatian Holocaust, and other East-European events from
the beginning of the 20th century until the end of the Cold War.



It is remarkable that although this great slaughter of Christians temporarily slowed the expansion
of Christianity, it also gave it the greatest boost since the fall of Constantinople.

If we want to interpret Revelation historically, we are again faced with a prophecy
which has a clear and plain literal fulfillment without exaggeration, and with a specific time marked out.

Again, the overall effect is to place us in the Last Times, with few prophecies left to fulfill,
before the Return of the King.

Who killed whom when the giant died? An exercise in textual reconstruction

And there was againe a battell in Gob, with the Philistines, where Elhanan the sonne of Iaare-Oregim a Bethlehemite, slewe the brother of Goliath the Gittite, the staffe of whose speare was like a weauers beame.
So the KJV at 2 Samuel 21:19. Much ink has been spilt attempting to justify the KJV's interpolation of the brother of in order to keep the text from reading as the Hebrew does, that Elhanan, rather than David, killed Goliath. But what most KJV proponents fail to mention is that the lack of 'brother' is not the only textual problem in this verse. There are only a couple ways to reconcile this verse with 1 Chronicles 20:5--
And there was warre againe with the Philistines, and Elhanan the sonne of Iair, slew Lahmi the brother of Goliath the Gittite, whose spearestaffe was like a weauers beame.
Disregarding all the spelling variations, the core of both verses reads thus:
Elhanan the son of Jair slew Goliath the Gittite, whose spear staff was like a weaver's beam.

To which Samuel adds "Oregim the Bethlehemite" and Chronicles adds "Lahmi the brother of".

So the KJV stopped short of interpolating the whole plus from Chronicles into Samuel--Lahmi is not named. Or is he--but as the killer, not the killed? Let's look at the Hebrew.

2 Samuel 21:19
WYK ALXNN BN-Ya3RI ARGIM BITh H-LXMI ATh GLITh H-GThI W-3Ts XNIThU KMNUR ARGIM.
and-killed Elhanan son-of-Yari weavers house-of-the-bread: Goliath the-Gittite and-wood-of spear-his as-beam of-weavers.

1 Chronicles 20:5
WYK ALXNN BN-[K:YA3UR] [Q:YA3IR] ATh-LXMI AXI GLITh H-GThI W-3Ts XNIThU KMNUR ARGIM.
and-killed Elhanan son-of-Yaur: Bready, brother-of Goliath the-Gittite; and-wood-of spear-his as-beam of-weavers.

In these transcriptions I have added vowels only for the name of Elhanan's father, which is found in two forms (K and Q) in each verse of the Masoretic text. The Masoretes themselves obviously recognized a corruption here, but couldn't settle on how to fix it.

Note that the last word in the verse, ARGIM, is an element in the extra of 2 Samuel, where it is tacked on to Jair's name. Note also that the word LXMI, which is an element in the name Bethlehem ("House of Bread"), is given as an extra in 1 Chronicles for the name of Goliah's brother. Furthermore, the name Jair is spelled two (or four) different ways in the two texts, and all cases are Hebrew hapax legomena: Jair is always spelled differently in the Hebrew Bible than either verse has it, whether Q or K.

Clearly there are three different places where the two verses need to be reconciled, not just one. I propose, therefore, the following possibilities for reconstructing of the source for both verses (the changes could have happened in a different order, especially with the first possibility):


 Possibility #1: Only Samuel is corrupted; Chronicles has the correct reading

WYK ALXNN BN-Y3UR ATh-LXMI AXI GLITh H-GThI W-3Ts XNIThU KMNUR ARGIM.
and-killed Elhanan son-of-Yaur: Bready brother-of Goliath the-Gittite, and-wood-of spear-his as-beam of-weavers.

1. The last word of the verse was copied into the first half, probably due to skipping to the next line of text, so that both lines now end with the same 7 letters:
H-MLXMH B-GUB 3M-FLSTIM WYK ALXNN BN-YA3UR ARGIM
ATh-LXMI AXI GLITh H-GThI W-3Ts XNIThU KMNUR ARGIM.

2.The  text suffered loss of the word אֲחִי AXI (the brother of), by homoeoteleuton I ... I :

WYK ALXNN BN-Y3UR ARGIM ATh-LXMI GLITh H-GThI W-3Ts XNIThU KMNUR ARGIM.
and-killed Elhanan son-of-Yaur Weavers: Bready Goliath the-Gittite, and-wood-of spear-his as-beam of-weavers.

3. A 'helpful' scribe changed the unheard-of name Y3UR to the equally unheard of plural form Y3RI, both of which are cognates of a word that means 'wood' (in the British meaning of 'forest'):

WYK ALXNN BN-Y3RI ARGIM ATh LXMI GLITh H-GThI W-3Ts XNIThU KMNUR ARGIM.
and-killed Elhanan son-of-Woods-of-Weavers: Bready Goliath the-Gittite, and-wood-of spear-his as-beam of-weavers.

4. Another 'helpful' scribe changed ATh-LXMI to BITh-H-LXMI, changing the meaning again:

WYK ALXNN BN-Y3RI ARGIM BITh H-LXMI GLITh H-GThI W-3Ts XNIThU KMNUR ARGIM.
and-killed Elhanan son-of-Yariorgim the Bethlehemite Goliath the-Gittite and-wood-of spear-his as-beam of-weavers.

5. A final scribe put the ATh back in where it now belonged, tidying up the grammar to yield the Samuel reading:

WYK ALXNN BN-Y3RI ARGIM BITh H-LXMI ATh GLITh H-GThI W-3Ts XNIThU KMNUR ARGIM.
and-killed Elhanan son-of-Yariorgim the Bethlehemite: Goliath the-Gittite, and-wood-of spear-his as-beam of-weavers.

That's a lot of changes to hypothesise! And it doesn't even account for the K-Q variants in the Masoretic text.


Possibility #2: Both verses are equally corrupted forms of the archetype.

Reconstruction A: The original text read:

WYK ALXNN BN-YAIR BITh H-LXMI ATh AXI GLITh H-GThI W-3Ts XNIThU KMNUR ARGIM.
and-killed Elhanan son-of-Ya'ir the Bethlehemite: the-brother-of Goliath the-Gittite, and-wood-of spear-his as-beam of-weavers.

1a,b. While the Samuel scribe dropped  אֲחִי AXI, the Chronicles scribe dropped אֵת ATh, the Hebrew indicator of a following direct object :

WYK ALXNN BN-YAIR BITh H-LXMI [S:Ath][C:AXI] GLITh H-GThI W-3Ts XNIThU KMNUR ARGIM.
and-killed Elhanan son-of-Ya'ir the Bethlehemite[S:] [C:the-brother-of] Goliath the-Gittite, and-wood-of spear-his as-beam of-weavers.

2a. In Chronicles, a 'helpful' scribe re-inserted ATh in place of BITh H-:

WYK ALXNN BN-YAIR ATh LXMI AXI GLITh H-GThI W-3Ts XNIThU KMNUR ARGIM.
and-killed Elhanan son-of-Ya'ir: Lehmi the-brother-of Goliath the-Gittite, and-wood-of spear-his as-beam of-weavers.

2b. In Samuel, ARGIM got duplicated after YAIR, as explained above:

WYK ALXNN BN-YAIR ARGIM BITh H-LXMI Ath GLITh H-GThI W-3Ts XNIThU KMNUR ARGIM.
and-killed Elhanan son-of-Ya'ir Weavers Bethlehemite: Goliath the-Gittite and-wood-of spear-his as-beam of-weavers.

3a,b. Finally, the Chronicles scribe changed the spelling of YAIR to Y3UR, while the Samuel scribe changed the spelling to Y3RI to better fit the corrupted context.

WYK ALXNN BN-Y[S:3RI][C:3UR]  . . . thus yielding the final readings in only three steps each.

Other reconstructions are possible, but this one best passes Occam's Razor: three steps, to account for three differences between the texts, prior to the Masoretes taking over the transmission of the two texts. So what was Goliath's brother's name? Well, according to this reconstruction, we don't know, and we can only guess that Elhanan's father was a man who spelled his name the same way that four other Jairs in the OT did. It's also possible that this was the Elhanan the son of Dodo of Bethlehem mentioned in both books, but that would involve a greater level of corruption in the transmission.

These three corruptions, by the way, must have been very early. The Septuagint reads exactly like the Hebrew, even down to a reasonable approximation of the names.

The Targum for Chronicles isn't much help. It reads: "David, the son of Jesse, a pious man, who rose at midnight to sing praises to God, slew Lachmi, the brother of Goliath, the same day on which he slew Goliath the Gittite, whose spear-staff was like a weaver's beam."

The other ancient versions supply the word 'brother' in Samuel, although, as did the KJV, they may well have just moved it in from Chronicles.

The Syriac also paraphrases somewhat, while translating the invented name in Samuel:
Samuel: Elhanan the son of forest a weaver, a Beth-lehemite, slew a brother of Goliath the Philistine, the staff of whose spear was like a weaver’s beam.
Chronicles: Elhanan the son of Jair slew Lahmi of the descendants of the giants, who was the brother of Goliath the mighty man of Gath, whose spear staff was like a weaver’s beam.

The Vulgate also translates Elhanan and Jair/Jaare-Oregim:
Samuel: God-given the son of Forest Weaver, a Bethlehemite, struck the brother of Goliath the Gittite, whose spear wood was like a weaver's beam.
Chronicles: God-given the son of Forest struck Lehmites the brother of Goliath the Gittite, the wood of whose spear was like a weaver's beam.