What a Purple Manuscript Really Looks Like

There are a lot of bad images of MSS, and a lot of images of bad MSS.  Its hard to find a good image of a good MS, which can actually give us a real feel and grasp of what the famous Purple Codices must have looked like when they were new.

Surprisingly, the Royal Scriptorium in Constantinople was still churning out purple MSS as late as the 1500s:

Tetraevangelion. Miniature of St Mark
Gold on purple parchment. 9th century

The above photo (click to enlarge) gives a rare glimpse of what purple codex in its prime looked like.  We see the smooth, shiney, almost silky purple page, and the rich gold lettering (done with real gold!).  These manuscripts were probably mostly made for emperors and kings, or the few 'great cathedrals' in the major cities of the Holy Roman Empire.   Obviously only royalty could dream of owning a private copy of such a treasure.

The National Library of Russia site tells us:

"Nicholas I was given a precious eleventh-century purple Gospel which had once belonged to the Christian community of Gumushane (also in Asia Minor). This volume written in gold and silver and adorned with miniatures was produced in the imperial Byzantine scriptorium. Another work from the same source is the Codex Petropolitanus, a sixth-century purple Gospel which Nicholas II bought from the village of Sarmisahly with the assistance of the Russian Archaeological Institute in Constantinople."

Codex Petropolitanus Purpureus, designated by N or 022, is shown below, in a much crappier photo:

Petropolitanus (6th cent.)

Nazaroo

Wolves in Sheep's Clothing: Modern Evangelicals

The current fight over the text of the New Testament is one of the main battlefields in an ideological war, paradoxically fought right in the heart of the American Bible Belt and community.

It is easy to understand how this deep split has developed over time.

The Early Reformation (c. 1500-1700)

The first wave of the Reformation was a reaction to widespread sloth, dereliction of duty and corruption in the European Churches, built up through centuries of doctrinal disputes, money grubbing and power mongering , in the face of external threats, economic disasters, massive plagues and spreading illiteracy.

The 'lucky' combination of the new independence of local 'kingdoms', the importation of paper-making, the invention of efficient printing (movable type), and the deep faith of the Middle Ages made possible the mass distribution of Bibles, and a sudden increase in general literacy and interest in religion and science.

From the beginning however, the Reformation itself was plagued by inner divisions, heretical nonsense, and stubborn bigotry and ignorance.  The seeds of fracture and failure were sown from the start.   At the same time, men were inquiring and investigating issues of history and science, and knowledge of the natural world expanded rapidly.

More and more of religious thought and belief, once taken for granted, was placed in the skeptical light of human investigation and challenged by suspicion and doubt.   The Enlightenment era and the following period of Rationalism and historical inquiry seemed to leave traditional Christianity in a shambles of confusion, and opened the door to complete independence and rejection of all things religious, in favor of strict natural science.



The Second Reformation (19th - 20th cent.)

In parallel with the rising apostacy of the 19th century, large groups of people still seeking religious answers joined various cults, led by an ever increasing fountain of charismatic religious leaders.   New cults and denominations were invented as fast as men could start them.

The turn of the 19th/20th century not only saw the founding of a dozen large denominations, but also of less rigid and more vague movements, such as the Pentecostal and Evangelical and Charismatic branches of Christian thought and life.

Prior to this, in reaction to the conservativism and bigotry of the day, a significant number of Christians turned to the Unitarian movement and train of thought, in which even basic doctrines like the Trinity and the Deity of Christ were considered suspect and unimportant, and the social gospel was given higher priority.    This was often a good thing, as issues of poverty and maltreatment of children, the abolition of slavery, the emancipation of women, and education took center stage in political and community activity.

But the seeds of religious doubt and apostacy were deeply sown into Western culture.  The German 'rational'/skeptical approach had done immense damage to the traditional Christian worldview. 

The Attack on the Traditional Christian Bible (1830-1970)

In hand with this heavy skepticism came repeated attempts to 'renovate' the Bible, especially the New Testament, in a misguided effort to remove 'Roman Catholic alterations' and superstitious nonsense, leaving behind a supposedly reliable 'historical' core.   The various early copies and translations, and quotations were sifted for differences in wording or 'holes' indicating something might have been added later.    In a few cases (i.e., 1st John 5:7 etc.) it did indeed look as though a zealous bishop or misguided scribe had inadvertantly added something to the text.  This gave a 'smoking gun' look to the problem, and encouraged a near-hysterical suspicion of standard Christian texts and doctrines.

A few of the oldest manuscripts (c. 4th century) also presented a significantly truncated text, missing a few large sections like Jn 7:53-8:11 and the Ending of Mark (Mk. 16:9-20), and many shorter segments.   This led rational-minded critics to class these passages as deliberate "additions" or "interpolations" into the traditional text by scribes or editors.   The summit of this tendency to favor the shorter text came with Westcott & Hort (1882) and the Revised Version.

Those who favored this approach were for the most part Unitarians and fringe-Christians who had their own ideas about what early Christianity must have looked like, before the alleged accrual of 'later Romanist doctrines'.   The Unitarian movement lived on for quite a while in American Universities and Seminaries, being an attractive compromise between modern historical science and ancient religious ideas.

The new Textual Critics became stubborn and dogmatic in their own position, insisting that the 3rd and 4th century ecclesiastical texts were the 'original' readings, and the traditional text used by the majority of Christians for the last millenium was a later artificially fabricated edition.

The trouble was, these earlier texts also showed all the signs of being ecclesiastically managed and edited texts manufactured in the 3rd century for liturgical use, and subject to the activities of unknown editors and 'correctors'.   Their own credibility as 'primitive' texts was clearly shattered by their own appearance, features and their date of manufacture.



The Attack on the Christian Old Testament: (c. 1900-1970)

The academic 'attack' upon the traditional Christian Bible did not stop however, but turned with new energy to the O.T. text.   The first probable error in the early Reformation had been the uncritical adoption of the Medieval Jewish O.T. text by Martin Luther, following the example of St. Jerome (c.400 A.D.), in an attempt to convert the Jews of Europe.  When that failed, Luther became vitriolic, publishing slanderous pamphlets against the Jews, and helping to feed the growing wave of European anti-semitism which led to Hitler's insanity.

By this time however, the damage had been done, as Protestants everywhere followed Luther's example and adopted the Hebrew O.T. in preference to the ancient Greek O.T. that had been approved by the early Church and used for nearly two thousand years.  This movement began in Germany and continues to be driven from there today, in part buoyed by Roman Catholic scholarship and support.

Partly as a backlash from the disaster of World War II (i.e., guilt re: the Holocaust), Christians in the West continued in a rather futile 'dialogue' with modern Jews, toning down their dreams of 'converting the Jews', and essentially capitulating to Jewish ideas about how the O.T. should be translated and interpreted.  (The 'Dean' has blogged on this subject).

This movement to Judaize the Christian O.T. was spearheaded by Bruce Metzger and those sponsoring the Revised Standard Version (RSV), which was revised and repackaged repeatedly to disguise its source and purpose (as the NRSV).   Metzger was also heavily involved in continuing to promote the truncated and mutilated New Testament of Hort and others who had abandoned both traditional Christianity and the traditional text.


The Modern "Evangelical" Position:

Now the battle has moved to America's Christian seminaries and Christian Universities, which were formerly independent of the secular University system, but in seeking recognition and legitimacy by secular academia have adopted many of the positions and attitudes of secular Biblical scholars.

The modern "Evangelicals" are nothing like their original founders, all of whom held strong beliefs in the primacy of the Holy Scriptures, and who rejected mutilated versions of the N.T. like the RV, and similarly perverted versions of the O.T. like the RSV and NRSV.

The modern "Evangelical" Movement seeks recognition and respect from academia at large, and has essentially switched over to the secular academic position:

(1) There is no "Divine Inspiration" for the Bible entrusted to the Church.  Whether or not the 'originals' were inspired, the current copies of the Holy Scriptures are not inspired, nor are they necessarily reliable copies of the originals. 

(2) There is no "Divine Preservation" of the text.  They have been subject to the whims and random chance that all secular hand-copies of early books have been subject to.   Its full of errors, both historical and docrinal.

This sadly, is the modern "Evangelical" position.  It resembles nothing like the vision and faith of the early Reformers, and it resembles nothing like the positions of the original Evangelicals of America.

Peace
Nazaroo

What Causes LARGE Omissions?

Back in the 19th century, maverick textual critics were not afraid to confront the two biggest textual variants in the NT, namely Mark's Ending (Mk 16:9-20) and the Pericope de Adultera (Jn 7:53-8:11).   It was considered essential in those days to investigate them and have a position on such important matters.   Nowadays, flying a holding-pattern is the norm and critics rarely come in to land on either side of any issue.  Its hard to get anything except the standard Metzger quote when inquiring about either passage.

But every critic knows in his heart that the standard explanations and canons of TC simply cannot accommodate such gigantic variants.  "Prefer the shorter reading." appears absurd next to something as monumental as Mark's Ending, for no mere copyist could have invented it.  Describing John 7:53-8:11 as a "marginal gloss" is just ludicrous, when manuscripts don't even have margins that big.

Its no surprise then, that early critics gave their shot at a more plausible mechanism and account of the matter.   Mark's Ending seems to be just about the size to fit on a lost last page.  The so-called Western order Had Matthew, John, Luke and Mark last, making the ending the final page not only of a copy of Mark, but also of many a copy of the Four Gospels bound together.

As early as the 1880s, Rendel Harris posited the idea that the PA had slipped out of a quire in some early copy of John.  He supposed that it was spread  in four pieces, filling a small folded papyrus quire-sheet.    But this need not be the only arrangement in an early papyrus that could have resulted in the lost text.  It could also (perhaps with more likelihood) have covered both sides of a single folio, having been flexed or torn out of an early Gospel.

Click to Enlarge: Backbutton to return

Intriguingly, G. D. Bauscher in 2009 proposed a kind of homoeoarcton error, where two columns written in Syriac had begun with similar looking string of letters:

Click to Enlarge

  Any one of these common scenarios could have caused the initial omission, and subsequently also have caused suspicion to fall upon either passage, as confused copyists noted the absence of the verses.

It is easy to imagine how any initial error could have generated much deliberate interference later, and caused quite a complex history among at least a handful of early manuscripts, just as we seem to see now in the transmission record.

peace
Nazaroo

What Good Manuscripts look like

I just had to share this close-up of probably one of the most beautiful manuscripts ever produced in the era of hand-written documents.

It is on display in Portugal.

This is the kind of manuscript one could be excused for being tempted to admire it perhaps too much.   Wouldn't you love to own something like this, rather than the extravagantly printed facsimile of say, Codex Vaticanus? 
I wish they'd offer this in a quality reproduction!

Here's a few more:

 labeled as a Hand-written Bible Manuscript from possibly the 12th century

Click to Enlarge

Page spread from the Book of Hours (France, late fifteenth century) 
showing the Adoration of the Magi on the left page.

Click to Enlarge

Here's a bargain: A 15th century prayerbook with full color illustrations, just sold for a mere 1,500. 


Bloomsbury French Prayerbook

On the other hand, Christie's Auction House wanted some $350,000 for their rare manuscript recently.



peace
Nazaroo

Sinaiticus & Mark's Ending (Pt 13): Burgon's Vindication on Dating

We may appropriately close this series of articles on Sinaiticus and Mark's Ending with the original Appendix by Dean John Burgon (1871) in his classic defense of the ME,

On the Relative Antiquity of B & Aleph

א Lacks Ancient Features

I. “Vix differt aetate a Codice Sinaitico,”, says Tischendorf, (ed. 8va, 1869, p. ix,) speaking of the Codex Vaticanus (B). Yet does he perpetually designate his own Sinaitic Codex (א) as “omnium antiquissimus.” Now,

(1) The (all but unique) sectional division of the Text of Codex B, — confessedly the oldest scheme of chapters extant, is in itself a striking note of primitiveness. The author of the Codex knew nothing, apparently, of the Eusebian method. But I venture further to suggest that the following peculiarities in Codex unmistakably indicate for it a later date than Codex B.

(2) Cod. א , (like C, and other later MSS.,) is broken up into short paragraphs throughout. The Vatican Codex, on the contrary, has very few breaks indeed: e.g. it is without break of any sort from S. Matth. xvii. 24 to xx. 17: whereas, within the same limits, there are in Cod. א as many as thirty interruptions of the context. From S. Mark xiii. 1 to the end of the Gospel the text is absolutely continuous in Codex B, except in one place: but in Cod. א it is interrupted upwards of fifty times. Again: from S. Luke xvii. 11, to the end of the Gospel there is but one break in Codex B. But it is broken into well nigh an hundred and fifty short paragraphs in Cod. א .   There can be no doubt that the unbroken text of Codex B, (resembling the style of the papyrus of Hyperides published by Mr. Babington,) is the more ancient. The only places where it approximates to the method of Cod. א , is where the Command- ments are briefly recited (S. Matth. xix. 18, &c.), and where our LORD proclaims the eight Beatitudes (S. Matth. v.)

(3) Again; Cod. א is prone to exhibit, on extraordinary occasions, a single word in a line, as at —

S. MATTH. XV. 30.
ΧΩΛΟΥΣ
ΤΥΦΛΟΥΣ
ΚΥΛΛΟΥΣ
ΚΩΦΟΥΣ

S. MARK X. 29.
Η ΑΔΕΛΦΑΣ
Η ΠΑΤΕΡΑ
Η ΜΗΤΕΡΑ
Η ΤΕΚΝΑ
Η ΑΓΡΟΥΣ

S. LUKE XIV. 13
ΠΤΩΧΟΥΣ
ΑΝΑ ΗΡΟΥΣ
ΧΩΛΟΥΣ
ΤΥΦΛΟΥΣ

This became a prevailing fashion in the 6th century; e.g. when the Cod. Laudianus of the Acts (E) was written. The only trace of anything of the kind in Cod. B is at the Genealogy of our LORD.

(4) At the commencement of every fresh paragraph, the initial letter in Cod. slightly projects into the margin, — beyond the left hand edge of the column; as usual in all later MSS. This characteristic is only not undiscoverable in Cod. B. Instances of it there are in the earlier Codex; but they are of exceedingly rare occurrence.

(5) Further; Cod. א abounds in such contractions as ΑΝΟΣ, ΟΥΝΟΣ (with all their cases), for ΑΝΘΡΩΠΟΣ, ΟΥΡΑΝΟΣ, &c. Not only ΠΝΑ, ΠΗΡ, ΠΕΡ, ΠΡΑ, ΜΡΑ (for πνευμα, πατηρ-τερ,-τερα, μητερα ), but also ΣΤΡΘΗ, ΙΗΛ, ΙΗΛΗΜ, for Σταυρωθη, Ισραηλ, Ιερουσαλεμ.
But Cod. B, though familiar with ΙΣ (Ιησους), and a few other of the most ordinary abbreviations, knows nothing of these compendia: which certainly cannot have existed in the earliest copies of all. Once more, it seems reasonable to suppose that their constant occurrence in Cod א indicates for that Codex a date subsequent to Cod. B.

(6) The very discrepancy observable between these two Codices in their method of dealing with “the last twelve verses of S. Mark's Gospel,” (already adverted to at p. 88,) is a further indication, and as it seems to the present writer a very striking one, that Cod. B is the older of the two. Cod. א is evidently familiar with the phenomenon which astonishes Cod. B by its novelty and strangeness.

(7) But the most striking feature of difference, after all, is only to be recognised by one who surveys the Codices themselves with attention. It is that general air of primitiveness in Cod. B which makes itself at once felt. The even symmetry of the unbroken columns; — the work of the prima manus everywhere vanishing through sheer antiquity; — the small, even, square writing, which partly recalls the style of the Herculanean rolls; partly, the papyrus fragments of the Oration against Demosthenes (published by Harris in 1848): — all these notes of superior antiquity infallibly set Cod. B before Cod.א; though it may be impossible to determine whether by 50, by 75, or by 100 years."

 The special feature we discussed in the previous article, Dean Burgon had not noted, but in point (4) he fully notices the general frequency of "outdenting" the first letter of every paragraph so prevalent in Sinaiticus but almost nonexistent in Vaticanus, itself suggesting a significant difference in style and age.

Peace
Nazaroo

Undocumented Edits to the NT in modern versions

Fact or Fiction: You decide:

 

Here are some examples of completely undocumented mutilations of the NT text, which find their way readily into modern versions, also without so much as a footnote indicating text has been ripped out or drastically altered. In the following list "MV" means Modern Versions collectively, although one or two might have a note where the majority have nothing at all:

Matt. 15:8 UBS2 undocumented ΤΩ ΣΤΟΜΑΤΙ αυτων και
Matt. 20:7 UBS2 undocumented και ο εαν η δικαιον ληψεσθε
Matt. 20:16 UBS2 undocumented πολλοι γαρ εισιν κλητοι ολιγοι δε εκλεκτοι
Matt. 20:22 UBS2 undocumented το βαπτισμα ο εγω βαπτιζομαι βαπτισθηναι...
και το βαπτισμα ο εγω βαπτιζομαι βαπτισθησεσθε
Mark 11:8 UBS2 undocumented KΑI ΕΣTΡΩNNΥON ΕIΣ THN OΔON
Mark 12:33 UBS2 undocumented KΑI ΕΞ OΛHΣ THΣ ΨΥXH
Luke 4:5 UBS2 undocumented O ΔIΑΒOΛOΣ ΕIΣ OΡOΣ ΥΨHΛON
Luke 17:9 UBS2 undocumented (αυτω)
Luke 19:45 UBS2 undocumented εν αυτω και αγοραζοντας
Luke 22:68 MV undocumented μοι η απολυσητε
John 5:16 UBS2 undocumented και  εζητουν αυτον αποκτειναι
John 6:11 UBS2 undocumented τοις μαθηταις οι δε μαθηται
John 8:59-9:2 MV undocumented και διελθων δια μεσου αυτων [επορευετο] και παρηγεν ουτως
John 11:41 UBS2 undocumented ου ην  ο τεθνηκως  κειμενος
John 17:12 UBS2 undocumented εν τω κοσμω

BY THE WAY, ALL OF THE ABOVE EXAMPLES ARE KNOWN PROBABLE HOMOEOTELEUTON ERRORS.
Instead of guessing how 'unlikely' it might be for scholars to be wrong, dishonest, or have a hidden agenda, open a copy of the UBS text, and see if they deleted the half-verses or not.
Check the apparatus, and see if they documented the alterations or not.
Check for yourself, and answer the question for yourself.

These aren't just Majority Text and Byzantine text-type readings.
They are readings that have been in the NT text in both Greek and Latin for 1000 years. ( - that is, the texts used by the vast majority of Christians everywhere in the Roman Empire).

Its not that critics altered the verses: its that they altered the verses without telling the reader.
What is your definition of honest?

Middleton (1892) on Vellum Production & Cost

Some interesting background on vellum for manuscripts is given in Middleton's volume: 
Here is an exerpt:

Illuminated Manuscripts in Classical
and Mediaeval Times: And Their Art and ...

By J. Henry Middleton

Originally published in 1892 (reprinted. Cambridge 2010)

Chapter XIV. (p. 224-225)

The Materials and Technical Processes of the Illuminator.

Vellum for scribes ¹ The most remarkable skill is shown by the perfection to which the art of preparing vellum ² for the scribe was brought. The exquisitely thin uterine vellum, which was specially used for the minutely written Anglo-Norman Vulgates of the 13th century, has been already described (see p. 113). For ivory-likebeauty of colour and texture nothing could surpass the best Italian vellum of the 15th century.

One occasional use of the very thin uterine vellum should be noted.
For example in a German 12th century copy of the Vulgate, now in the corpus library in Cambridge, some fo the miniature pictures have been painted on separate pieces of uterine vellum, and then pasted into their place on the thicker vellum pages of the manuscript. This, however, is an exceptional thing.

The vellum used for illuminated manuscripts appears to have been costly, partly on account of the skill and labour that were required for its production, and, in the case of uterine vellum on account of the great number of animals' skins that were required to provide enough material for the writing of a single manuscript such as a copy of the Vulgate.

Even the commoner kind of parchment used for official documents was a rather costly thing. The roll with the Visitation expenses of Bishop Swinfield, Bishop of Hereford from 1282 to 1317, shows that 150 sheets of parchment cost 3s. 4d., about 4 lb in modern value ³.

The vellum used for manuscripts has a different texture on its two sides. One side, that on which the hair grew, has a matt, unglossy surface; the other (interior) side of the skin is perfectly smooth and, in the case of the finest vellum, has a beautifully glossy texture like that of polished ivory.

In writing a manuscript the scribe was careful to arrange his pages so that two glossy and two dull pages came opposite each other. ⁴

The are of preparing vellum of the finest kind is now lost; the vellum made in England is usually spoilt first by rubbing down the surface to make it unnaturally even, and then by loading it with a sort of priming of plaster and white lead, very much like the paper of a cheap memorandum book.

The best vellum is still made in Italy, especially in Rome. Good, stout, undoctored vellum of a fine, pure colour can be procured in Rome, though in limited quantities, and at a high price, ⁵ but nothing is now made which resembles either the finest ivory-textured vellum of 15th century Italian manuscripts, or the exquisitely thin uterine vellum of the Anglo-Norman Bibles.

---

1. See Peignot, Essai sur l'histoire du parchemin et du vellin, Paris, 1812.

2. Strictly speaking, the word vellum should denote parchment made from calf-skin,
but the word is commonly used for any of the finer qualities of parchment which were
used for manuscripts.

3. Quoted by Hook, Lives of Archbishops of Canterbury, Vol. III, p.353; the Rev. Canon G.F.  Browne kindly called my attention to this passage. Other examples of the cost of vellum are given in the preceeding chapter.

4. The same arrangement is to be seen in books printed on vellum.

5. For example, the mere vellum required to print a small thick folio, such as Caxton's Golden Legend, would now cost about 40 lbs.

---

On note 3, the cost of vellum:

  One Pound Sterling (GBP) in 1892 had the purchasing power of about £72.41  today.  'Times four' that would give about £290, or  $472.41 American for 150 sheets of ordinary parchment, = $3.00 per sheet in 1892, with quantities limited.  

This seems quite low, and the real value should be measured instead against what an ordinary laborer could afford, or against the available resources for other community projects:

£4 (150 sheets of ordinary parchment) in 1892 converts to the following in modern money:

£322.00	using the retail price index	A Commodity. If your are asking about the "present worth" of buying a loaf of bread, or the amount of money spent today on such things? If so, use the price index
£430.00	using the GDP deflator	If the question is how much it cost compared to the present cost of materials or labor, you would use the the GDP deflator value.
£1,930.00	using the average earnings	how "affordable" this would be to the average person, the compensation of a production worker is given by the average earnings figure,
£2,450.00	using the per capita GDP	another estimate of how "affordable" this would be to the average person, is the GDP per capita.
£3,970.00	using the share of GDP	In the past there were less materials and labor available for all projects. So to measure how important this project was to the community (vs. other projects) use the share of GDP indicator.

These numbers now give a more realistic range of values based on real conditions 100 years ago, such as expected earnings and availability of resources.

You can get estimates for purchasing power 100 years ago and today here:
Measuring Worth

You can convert to American dollars here:
Currency Conversion

peace
Nazaroo