Sinaiticus Research Articles

Afterbirth and rebirth in 4 Maccabees’ portrait of (wo)manly courage

In 4 Maccabees’ skillfully woven tale of seven brother martyrs and their mother, a rather puzzling phrase appears in the emotionally-charged scene of the mother looking upon the mutilated corpses of her seven sons. The graphic description—burned flesh, severed hands, scalped heads, corpses upon corpses—includes, in most editions of the text, a side reference to the place filled with many spectators because of the children’s torments (4 Macc 15:20; NRSVue). These editions and translations reflect an ancient scribal emendation to the Greek text of Codex Sinaiticus that reads χόριον (afterbirth) as χορίδιον/χωρίδιον/χωρίον (place). What is surprising about this emendation is that it disrupts the focus of the encomium—the mother’s exemplary courage despite seeing the extreme mutilation of her children—whereas the earlier reading, afterbirth, is an apt description of the corpses within the context of the scene and complements the portrayal of the mother’s role throughout the book. This article considers how the erasure of afterbirth in 4 Macc 15:20 obscures the significance of the birthing metaphor in 4 Maccabees’ portrayal of the mother’s role, particularly as it relates to the image of her rebirthing (ἀνατίκτω) her sons into immortality (4 Macc 16:13). Far from a scribal error in need of emendation, afterbirth in 4 Macc 15:20 is a key feature of the birth imagery, which functions in concert with the masculinization of the mother to paint a portrait of her as the embodiment of both masculine and feminine ideals, the ultimate example of Torah piety, and a generative force of immortality.

Ancient Textual Restoration Using Deep Neural Networks

Ancient text restoration represents a critical area in computer science because it reflects an imagination about human life in early eras. Deep leaning plays a crucial role in AI last few years, specifically Generative Adversarial Networks (GANs), to regenerate and acclimatize old manuscripts that have suffered from the time effects, degradation, or deterioration. This work used Codex Sinaiticus dataset that preprocessed by encoding the dataset after that number and special character have been removed, new line symbol has been removed, tokenization process has been used to separate each word as an instance. Class target has been generated by removing character making it as a target and replacing it with special character. Using produces Generative Adversarial Networks (GANs), which consist of generator and discriminator inside in one learning framework. The generator part responsible for generating the missing text while the discriminator evaluates the generated text. But using an iteratively procedure these networks together collaboratively to provide a very sensitive reconstruction operations with the same format of ancient manuscripts, inscriptions and documents. Three prediction models used as proposed techniques for retrieving missing ancient texts are LSTM, RNN, and GAN and the results was validation accuracy 86%,92% and 98% respectively.

Mark 1:1: How to Display Differences in Biblical Manuscripts in Editions and Translations

AbstractThis study has selected Codex Sinaiticus and Mark 1:1 as a test case to propose a new way for Greek New Testament editions and translations to present textual uncertainties in manuscripts. The article suggests that editors and translators use a partial cancellation type of erasure in a continuous line over problematic text. This method draws inspiration from a technique used by Martin Heidegger and Jacques Derrida known as sous rature (under erasure). This form of limited cancellation aims to expel indifference and elicit a visceral reaction in the reader. The technique also has a philosophical and theological aim, namely, to work within Heidegger’s view of truth as a process of hiding and revealing. Finally, the limited cancellation, which both conceals and shows, fits with the theme of “messianic secret” in Mark’s Gospel, wherein Jesus both reveals and hides his identity.

The Date of Codex Sinaiticus: Revisiting Milne and Skeat’s Numerical Argument

Abstract This article presents new evidence relevant to H. J. M. Milne and T. C. Skeat’s argument for the date of Codex Sinaiticus, which they described as ‘not likely to be much later than about A.D. 360’. Such precision derived in part from their observation of an ‘old system’ of scribal figures for numerals in the thousands found in the codex. In addition to presenting many new relevant comparanda, this study also provides a critical examination of the argument itself. It is argued that although many of Milne and Skeat’s observations were correct, their appeal to numerals to establish a terminus ante quem for Codex Sinaiticus is invalid.

‘두 아들의 비유’(마 21:28-32)의 본문 유형과 국문 번역사 고찰

The present article attempts to study the text types of Matthew 21:28-32 (the parable of the two sons) and its Korean translation history, and to put forward a suggestion for the upcoming revision of the New Korean Revised Version (NKRV). There are mainly three text types of Matthew 21:28-32. The first type represented by the Codex Sinaiticus portrays the first son as the naysayer but fulfilling his father’s will. The second type as in the Codex Vaticanus favors the second son as being obedient in the end. The third type as appears in the Codex Bezae describes the first son as repentant to answer his father’s request, but it features Jewish leaders who give Jesus a perverse answer that ironically commends the second.BR The current NKRV provides a translation based on the second type of the text. In contrast, the Korean New Testament (KNT, 1900), the first full NT translation in Korea considered the first type to be the original. At that time, the Board of Official Translators used Chinese bibles to draft the Korean translation, which then was emended and improved based on the KJV, the ERV, and the Palmer’s Greek New Testament (1881). They also referred to the three critical commentaries written or edited by Charles J. Ellicott, Heinrich A. W. Meyer and Henry Alford. It is interesting to note that all these resources prefer the first type as the original for Matthew 21:28-32. This can explain why the translation in the KNT (1900) is different from the present NKRV.BR This difference was, in fact, occasioned by the KRV (Korean Revised Version, 1938). Since the Korea-Japan Annexation Treaty in 1910, Koreans got used to Japanese bible. Thus, the revision committee used not only the NTG12 (1923) but also the Taisho Revised Version (1917) as its source text. It should be noted that these two Greek and Japanese bibles show Matthew 21:28-32 in accordance with the second type. This gave rise to the change of the text type in the KRV. From this revision onward, its translation has been passed down to the current NKRV with no great change in its content. However, the majority of the Matthean scholars and textual critics now consider the first type closer to the original for Matthew 21:28-32. Accordingly, it is necessary to reconsider its text type for the future revision of the NKRV.

Observations Concerning the Origins and the Relation of Codex Vaticanus to Codex Sinaiticus

Abstract This paper analyzes the origin of Codex Vaticanus and its relation to Codex Sinaiticus. It presents observations that point towards an origin in Caesarea/Palaestina. Although most authors who have written about the relation and origin of Codex Vaticanus and Codex Sinaiticus seem to be convinced about their view, it is, as even some quite determined authors admit, a matter of interpretation of some details. In this situation, additional observations may be welcome.

The Date of Codex Sinaiticus

Abstract Codex Sinaiticus is generally described as one of ‘the great fourth century majuscule Bibles’, and its construction is often assigned to a more precise date in the middle of the fourth century. This essay surveys the evidence for the date of production of the codex and concludes that it could have been produced at any point from the early fourth century to the early fifth century. This time span may seem uncomfortably wide, but this particular range of dates makes Codex Sinaiticus an ideal candidate for AMS radiocarbon analysis. The shape of the radiocarbon calibration curve during this period means that a well-executed radiocarbon analysis of the codex should have the potential to shed further light on the date the codex was produced.

The Prophets

The Prophets Isaac Kalimi, Christopher T. Begg, Thomas Hieke, and Richard A. Taylor Isaac Kalimi Johannes Gutenberg Universität Mainz Christopher T. Begg Catholic University of America Thomas Hieke Johannes Gutenberg Universität Mainz Richard A. Taylor Dallas Theological Seminary 876. [LXX Isaiah in Codex Sinaiticus] Ken M. Penner, Isaiah (Septuagint Commentary Series; Leiden/Boston: Brill, 2020). Pp. 722. $239. ISBN 978-90-04-42677-1. This book consists of an introduction to and transcription and translation of, as well as a commentary on, the Greek translation of Isaiah in the Codex Sinaiticus. It comments on the Greek used in the translation and how it is stretched beyond its normal usage in the translation. It addresses such features of Codex Sinaiticus, including its history, scribes, divisions, and orthography. In line with the aims of the Brill Septuagint Commentary Series, it mainly discusses not how the translation was produced, but how it was read. The book ends with a comprehensive bibliography and series of indexes: authors, Greek words, Hebrew words, biblical sources (HB/OT + NT), and primary texts. [Adapted from published abstract—I.K.] [End Page 307] Google Scholar 877. [The City in Isaiah 24–27] Erich Bosshard-Nepustil, Die Stadt in Jesaja 24–27 (AThANT 111; Zurich: TVZ, 2021). Pp. 178. €47. ISBN 978-3-290-18364-6. Isaiah 24–27, the so-called "Isaiah Apocalypse" (IA), poses many long-discussed and inconclusively answered questions. Among these questions is that concerning the identity/significance of the unnamed "city," mentions of which recur throughout the four chapters where it appears as a "high-profile" and oppressive entity, which, however, is destined to end up an abandoned hilltop and which is further associated with the region of Moab in Isa 24:10. In seeking an answer to the above question, B.-N. focuses on two converging lines of evidence: (1) the intra- and intertextual connections between Isaiah 24–27 and, inter alia, Isaiah 13–23 (where the coming overthrow of a series of major, named cities as well as that of Moab [see chaps. 15–16] is announced) and the materials in Genesis 1–19 concerning the Flood and the destruction of the wicked city of Sodom, which itself eventuates in the birth of "Moab," Lot's son in Gen 19:37, and (2) the geo-political situation in the southern Levant in the period extending from the end of the 4th through the 3rd cent. b.c.—the likely time of composition of the IA. In proposing this dating for the IA, B.-N. notes that the period in question was characterized by the establishment of numerous cities as centers of Hellenistic culture and military strongholds which were perceived by many Judeans of the time as alien and a threat to their way of life and the emergence of the Nabataeans as the dominant power in what had been the territories of Moab and Edom as another such threat. Synthesizing the indications supplied by these two bodies of evidence, B.-N. suggests that the "city" in Isaiah 24–27 is both a culmination of all the reprobate cities featured in Isaiah 13–23 and a cipher for the emerging Hellenistic cities of the author's time, while "Moab" represents a recurrence of reprobate "Sodom" of old that is now embodied in the Nabataeans who are in the process of making themselves masters of the southern Transjordan. The hope articulated by the author of the IA is that, in the context of a world-wide divine judgment, both the "city" and "Moab" will be deprived of their current power, thus opening the way for the restoration of the land of Israel to its full Davidic extent and whose inhabitants will include Judeans, Samaritans, and Diaspora returnees with Jerusalem as their common religious center.—C.T.B. Google Scholar 878. [The Immaginary of Daniel 2–6] Luigi Santopaolo, Sogno, Segno e Storia. Genesis e Fenomenologia dell'immaginario in Dn 2–6 (AnBib 223; Rome: G&BP, 2019). Pp. 172. Paper €24. ISBN 978-88-7653-711-0. S.'s study seeks to synthesize the iconographical canons of the visions featured in Daniel 2–6, thereby showing...

Time Travelers: Victorian Encounters with Time and History, edited by Adelene Buckland and Sadiah Qureshi

Reviewed by: Time Travelers: Victorian Encounters with Time and History ed. by Adelene Buckland and Sadiah Qureshi Norman Vance (bio) Time Travelers: Victorian Encounters with Time and History, edited by Adelene Buckland and Sadiah Qureshi; pp. xxvii + 285. Chicago and London: Chicago University Press, 2020, $82.50, $27.50 paper. Time Travelers: Victorian Encounters with Time and History is exciting and scholarly. This edited collection by Adelene Buckland and Sadiah Qureshi shows how the Victorians could travel in imagination through time and space, above and beneath the earth and under the sea. They could draw on the work not just of historians but of geologists, geographers, oceanographers, anthropologists, archaeologists, paleontologists, and more-or-less well-informed fantasists such as Jules Verne and H. G. Wells. The twelve chapters travel widely across different disciplines, using ideas of time to illuminate many facets of the Victorian knowledge explosion, from the age of the earth to the ambivalences of the new machine age, from Anglo-Saxon poetry and biblical scholarship to submarines and deep-sea cables. Verne's 20,000 Leagues under the Sea (1876) is used in Clare Pettitt's chapter "At Sea," and Wellsian fantasy is briefly mentioned by Daniel Wilson in the concluding chapter on "How We Got Here," but Wells's The Time Machine (1895) and the time traveler who uses it are oddly absent. So is Verne's Journey to the Centre of the Earth (1864), which was inspired by geology and paleontology, which brought prehistoric creatures back to life and paved the way for later dinosaur fantasies such as Arthur Conan Doyle's The Lost World (1912) and Steven Spielberg's film Jurassic Park (1993). Despite some helpful cross-referencing, the sheer range and diversity of encounters with time and history described in the book present problems of coherence. Rachel Bryant Davies's "Through the Proscenium Arch," an entertaining chapter on children's toy-theater focused on a cheerfully jumbled version of "The Siege of Troy" (a popular 1833 equestrian re-enactment), is interesting in itself, but it is a long way from the seemingly grown-up science and apparent high seriousness of other chapters. At first sight the four sections labelled "Narratives," "Origins," "Time in Transit," and "Unfinished Business" do not seem to have very much to do with each other. But Romanticism, particularly the Romantic quest and the Romantic cult of mystery and gothic strangeness, provides an understated continuity or common thread, even if the quests of scholars, scientists, and spiritualists were often inconclusive and the dawning awareness of complex antecedents and of unimaginable antiquity disconcertingly eroded earlier certainties. As Michael Ledger-Lomas observes in his chapter "On Pilgrimage," "the venerable urge to be a pilgrim shaped how Victorians thought about the passage of time and the scholarly investigation of time" (157). This extended to geological time. Well-travelled Lord Byron in Childe Harold's Pilgrimage (1812–18) read about geology and made imaginative use of it, as Clare Pettitt observes. The influential geologist Charles Lyell, a contemporary of the younger Romantics, read his Byron, while Victorians such as the Tennyson of In Memoriam (1850) read their Lyell and found no comfort in the abysses of geological time that he disclosed. Simon Goldhill makes a valiant attempt to hold things together in an ambitious chapter on the quest for origins, "Ad Fontes." His title invokes Erasmus and, behind him, the Latin Bible. Goldhill contrasts humanist delight in Greek culture as the source or fountainhead of all knowledge with the sadder and wiser Victorian acceptance of the [End Page 585] elusiveness of their quest for ultimate sources and the destabilizing nature of the enterprise. A classical scholar himself, he draws on the history of textual scholarship, both classical and biblical, to illustrate the point. Special textual authority attaches to the original manuscript, but the original manuscripts of ancient texts have not survived. One of the great discoveries in nineteenth-century biblical scholarship was Codex Sinaiticus, now in the British Library, a fourth-century manuscript containing the earliest surviving text of the entire New Testament. Its scholarly primacy is indicated by identifying it as "aleph," the first letter of the Hebrew alphabet, though the manuscript was a...

바티칸 페르시아어 마태복음 필사본 Vat. Pers. 4 - 13~14세기 페르시아어 성경 번역본들과의 관계성 연구 -

This article deals with the Vat. Pers. 4, a 14<SUP>th</SUP> century Persian translation of the Gospel of Matthew. This manuscript was copied in 1312 in Tabriz, the capital of the Ilkhanate, a territory in the Mongol empire. Let alone being the subject of a proper study, this copy has not even been edited critically nor has it been translated in modern languages. Only select passages are translated for specific purposes of this study, which then are compared with a few contemporary Persian translations ― namely the Persian Diatessaron, Walton’s Persian Gospels and Wheelocke’s Persian Gospels.<BR> The main results are as follows. First, the Vat. Pers. 4 shares phrases and terms with other Persian translations. The Persian terms used in Vat. Pers. 4 for baptism, disciples, law, synagogue, temple, glory, gospel, priest, and foolish also appear in other contemporary Persian translations. Thus a scholarly assumption that these terms are unique to Vat. Pers. 4 is refuted. Second, some unusual readings in the Vat. Pers. 4 have very similar wordings in the Persian Diatessaron. Hence the manuscript has a putative connection with Diatessaronic witnesses. Third, the readings also attest close affinities with Old Syriac Gospel versions, namely the Codex Sinaiticus and the Codex Curetonianus as well as Diatessaronic variants.<BR> With its origin in the Persian Diatessaron for Persian Diatessaronic witnesses, Vat. Pers. 4 consequently throws a significant light in the New Testament textual criticism. And it is also a very important primary source for the forgotten history of the Persian Christianity in the Mongol empire.

Studies in the History of the Greek Text of the Apocalypse: The Ancient Stems by Josef Schmid

Reviewed by: Studies in the History of the Greek Text of the Apocalypse: The Ancient Stems by Josef Schmid Russell Morton josef schmid, Studies in the History of the Greek Text of the Apocalypse: The Ancient Stems (Text-Critical Studies 11; Atlanta: SBL Press, 2018). Pp. xxxviii + 298. Paper $39.95. Since 1955, Schmid's two-volume Studien zur Geschichte des Griechischen Apokalypse-Textes has remained a valuable resource for textual criticism of Revelation. Its worth is confirmed by the fact that it has continued to be cited by commentators including David E. Aune (WBC, 1997–98), G. K. Beale (NIGTC, 1999), Craig R. Koester (AB, 2014), and Martin Karrer (EKKNT, 2017). Volume 2 of this classic resource, The Ancient Stems, has now been translated and edited by Juan Hernández, Garrick V. Allen, and Darius Müller. Schmid recognized that the text of the Apocalypse was "handled with little piety" (p. 157), resulting in a complex textual history. From the very early root, S. proposed that the textual tradition branched into four distinct "stems." The oldest of the stems is represented by the Codex Alexandrinus (A) and Ephraemi Rescriptus (C). Although each of these texts has its unique features, S. considered that their common "stem" was, perhaps, the one with the greatest agreement to a hypothetical Urtext, or original form. Nevertheless, even these manuscripts were not free from textual contamination. Thus, while S. highly regarded the A and C manuscripts, he rejected Westcott's and Hort's evaluation of them as representatives of a "neutral" text. Another early stem was represented by 𝔭47. At the time of S's research, this papyrus was the earliest known fragment of the Apocalypse. Nevertheless, S. understood 𝔭47's stem to reflect a development of Revelation's textual history subsequent to that represented by the A and C manuscripts. 𝔓47 is most helpful when its corrections are similar to those found in A, C. and Codex Sinaiticus. Although Sinaiticus shares common corrections with 𝔭47, the uncial, likewise, represents a distinct textual stem. S., however, considered Sinaiticus's text to be highly unreliable. Of all its unique readings, S. considered only one correction common to Sinaiticus and 𝔭47, found in Rev 9:20, to be representative of the Urtext (p. 120). The final stem was represented in the commentary by Andreas of Caesarea and the Koine (K) text. Although Wilhelm Bousset and Hermann von Soden thought these traditions were independent of one another, S. concluded that they shared a stem, which could be recognized by their common corrections (p. 155). In numerous places, K and Andreas's commentary provide better witnesses to the Urtext than the other stems, demonstrating that they are not simply dependent on earlier textual traditions. Schmid's Ancient Stems, while valuable, reflects the weaknesses one can expect in a pioneering work. First, S. never discussed his critical theory. Second, he "overrates agreement as evidence of a common lineage and underrates the possibility of coincidental agreement in errors" (p. xxxv). Finally, his language can be imprecise. For example, he never defined a hierarchy of textual forms. The last objection, however, is mitigated when we consider that S. did not think it was possible to recreate connections between the textual forms. In this regard, his understanding of textual development was clearly superior to Westcott's and Hort's hypothesis regarding the development of textual traditions. It is fortunate that the state of research has progressed since 1955. This fact is recognized both in the translators' introduction and the errata section at the end of the volume. The translators' introduction is helpful in various ways. First, it contextualizes S.'s contribution. The translators recognize that S.'s work was transitional. Also, they note that textual [End Page 720] criticism has advanced beyond his work. For example, the translators note that with digital tools and more adequate critical theory, such as the Coherence Based Genealogical Method (CBGM), the time has come for newer approaches to the textual history of the Apocalypse. The translators' introduction does, however, possess one major flaw. When references are made to S.'s Ancient Stems, the page numbers are to the German original, not to the translation. Thus, the incautious...

Digitizing Medieval Manuscripts: The St. Chad Gospels, Materiality, Recoveries, and Representation in 2D and 3D by Bill Endres

Reviewed by: Digitizing Medieval Manuscripts: The St. Chad Gospels, Materiality, Recoveries, and Representation in 2D and 3D by Bill Endres Andrew Prescott manuscript studies, digital humanities, digitization, imaging, Chad Gospels Bill Endres. Digitizing Medieval Manuscripts: The St. Chad Gospels, Materiality, Recoveries, and Representation in 2D and 3D. Medieval Media Cultures. Leeds: Arc Humanities Press, 2019. 120 pp. €69. ISBN: 978-19-4240-179-7 (hardback); 978-19-4240-180-3 (e-book). When I was a postgraduate student, I spent my days in the Public Record Office in London grappling with the massive and unwieldy [End Page 338] vellum rolls, sometimes too heavy for me to lift easily, produced by English law courts in the fourteenth century. Now I can readily access these rolls by means of digital images wherever I am in the world at any time of the day or night. The provision of hundreds of thousands of online images of manuscripts and archival documents is one of the most dramatic changes to have occurred in humanities scholarship since the Second World War. Libraries and archives, urged to widen their audiences and demonstrate engagement with modern technology, seek to maximize digital image coverage of their collections and produce as many digital images of manuscripts as funding and resources allow. While this reduces the need for scholars to travel to consult manuscripts, the stress on maximizing digital coverage has unfortunately meant that the possibilities offered by digital imaging for a more in-depth examination of a manuscript are often overlooked. Digital representations of manuscripts are sometimes no better than color microfilm. A number of projects have shown how the most exciting feature of digital imaging is the way it can reveal different layers of evidence in a manuscript and help probe its history more deeply. These projects, embodying what Lorna Hughes and I have called a "slow digitization" approach, include Kevin Kiernan's Electronic Beowulf, the work of Will Noel and others on the Archimedes Palimpsest, and the Codex Sinaiticus Project. Among the most energetic advocates of this more forensic form of digitization has been Bill Endres of the University of Oklahoma, who has undertaken a long-term project using a range of imaging techniques to investigate the eighthcentury St. Chad Gospels, Lichfield, Cathedral Library, MS 1. This new book by Endres provides a clear and accessible introduction to the methods he has used in his work on the St. Chad Gospels, forcefully demonstrating how a slower approach to digitization, gradually uncovering the different archaeological strata in a manuscript, can be more uitful than the mass coverage of a one-size-fits-all imaging approach. The three chapters at the heart of this book describe the methods used by Endres in his investigation of the St. Chad Gospels. This is not a "howto" book, but Endres's clear descriptions encourage scholars to think more analytically about how they use and manipulate digital images of manuscripts and will help scholars move beyond simply playing with contrast and brightness buttons in standard image viewing packages. Among the most [End Page 339] exciting techniques of digital imaging is the use of different light wavelengths to fluoresce ink traces, so that faded and damaged text can be recovered. In Chapter 1, Endres describes these methods and illustrates their use in recovering water-damaged and erased text. Endres reminds us that image processing can be just as useful as lighting under different conditions in recovering text and illustrates how this can be accomplished with his preferred ImageJ package and its Fiji and DStretch plugins. Endres has made use of DStretch to investigate the fading of pigments in the St. Chad Gospels. Chapter 2 discusses the use of Reflectance Transformation Imaging (RTI). This is a technique whereby many shots of an object are taken om different angles, then consolidated to create an image that can be manipulated to simulate the object's appearance when lit om different angles. Endres has been a pioneer in the use of RTI for the study of manuscripts. RTI has hitherto involved the use of a dome, which is impracticable for many manuscripts, but Endres makes use of a rig that does away with the need for a...

A Bias at the Heart of the Coherence-Based Genealogical Method (CBGM)

The Greek text of the New Testament for the latest Nestle-Aland edition is being edited by the Institute for New Testament Research (INTF) in Münster using a novel technique called the Coherence-Based Genealogical Method (CBGM). This study tests the CBGM against a hypothetical scenario inspired by 1 John 1:7 and concludes that the “potential-ancestor” criterion on which the method depends is biased against certain kinds of witnesses previously considered to be of utmost importance for reconstructing the text in 1 John, including Codex Sinaiticus and Codex Alexandrinus. This article also offers some suggestions for addressing or ameliorating the bias at the heart of the CBGM. Without such amelioration, the NA28 text in the Catholic Epistles and the new Editio Critica Maior volumes must be used with caution.

Exhibiting the Maqdala Manuscripts: African Scribes: Manuscript Culture of Ethiopia

The major purpose of this article is to document the exhibition “African Scribes: Manuscript Culture of Ethiopia” (hereafter “African Scribes”), which opened on 6 February 2018 in the Sir John Ritblat Treasures of the British Library Gallery in London.Items in the Sir John Ritblat Treasures of the British Library Gallery range from the 4th century Codex Sinaiticus to John Lennon's letters. The display tells the I literary history of Europe, Asia and the Middle East. Out of the 240 items on permanent display, there are only two items from Ethiopia representing Africa.The main objectives of the “African Scribes” exhibition were to pay tribute to unknown Ethiopian scribes and artists and also, to a certain extent, to direct attention to some diverse and significant items in the British Library collection that had never been on display before. The display explored the art, binding and calligraphy of manuscripts of Ethiopia.

Unholy alliances

Abstract By the inter-war years, British national cultural institutions struggled financially to compete in the international art markets. Ambitions to hold the finest collections in the world remained unchanged, however, and these museums and galleries stayed active in the acquisitions market, despite the limitations imposed by economic downturns in 1930s Britain. Evidence of the difficulties faced by such institutions can be seen in the acquisition of the Codex Sinaiticus – one of the world’s oldest Bibles – by the British Museum from the Soviet Government in 1933. The Prime Minister, Ramsay MacDonald, secretly instructed the Treasury to advance the funds to secure the manuscript before it came on to the open market, after agreeing with the trustees of the museum to meet half the costs if the museum would match them through what turned out to be a highly contentious public fundraising campaign.

The Codex Sinaiticus and Hermas: The ways of a crossed textual transmission

Abstract The Codex Sinaiticus, a 4th century biblical manuscript, offers an interesting point of view on the textual transmission of the Shepherd of Hermas, which is extremely complicate because of the fragmentary status of all its Greek sources and of the presence of several translations in different languages (Latin, Ethiopic, Coptic, Georgian and Middle Persian). New studies on some of the most significant sources like the new leaves Codex Sinaiticus (2010) and the Latin translation Vulgata (2014) enable a new reconstruction of Hermas’ textual transmission. The present article will evidence the key role of the Sinaiticus as point of contact between different textual versions of the Shepherd, which have had their autonomous life, and will offer a new reconstruction of Hermas’ textual transmission.

Text-Critical Witnesses and Methodology for Isolating a Distinctive D-Text in Acts

Within the past decade, a few leading New Testament textual critics have challenged two major, long-standing convictions by urging that we should speak no longer (1) of “text-types” or (2) of two textual streams in the Acts of the Apostles. Certainly the term “type” is too rigid and definitive to describe our textual groups, and “textual clusters” is more appropriate. The present essay concerns whetherdual textscan be identified certifiably in Acts, thereby distinguishing a “D-Textual Cluster” from an alternate cluster headed by Codex Vaticanus (B) and Codex Sinaiticus ( א). It is clear that all D-Text Primary witnesses are mixed texts that, over time in various ways, have been conformed and assimilated to the increasingly dominant B-Cluster, as well as to the ascending Byzantine text.A fresh method, however, is proposed and illustrated at length (1) to identify a tightly cohesive group of Primary witnesses to a D-Textual Cluster, which (2) reveals that these D-Text readings virtually always are opposed by the א-B-Cluster. The result is a strong testimony to the early existence of dual textual streams in Acts that stand firmly over against one another.The fresh aspect of the method involves, for each variation -unit, (1) identifying the Primary witnessesavailablefor a given reading; (2)countingthe number supporting a presumptive D-Text reading; (3)countingthose that do not; and (4) calculating thepercentagesof witnesses agreeing and not agreeing to the readings in question. Three or more Primary witnesses must be present in a variation-unit to be included. The global figures show that available Primary D-Text witnesses agree with one another 88% of the time on readings in 425 variation-units, while 97% of the time these readings are opposed by both א and B together.

El descubrimiento del Códice Sinaítico, narrado por su descubridor

El Códice Sinaítico (representado en las ediciones críticas con la letra latina S o la letra hebrea alef: א) es un manuscrito griego en forma de códice escrito en letras mayúsculas, cuyo texto se encuentra distribuido en cuatro columnas. Aunque hallado en forma fragmentaria, ha conservado casi todo texto del Antiguo Testamento y todo el Nuevo Testamento, además de otros documentos extracanónicos, como la Epístola de Bernabé y el Pastor de Hermas. De los testigos en formato de códice de la escritura bíblica, es el más completo de los textos antiguos; está fechado en el siglo IV de nuestra era. Fue descubierto en 1844 por Constantine von Tischendorf en el Monasterio de Santa Catalina, al pie del Monte Sinaí, en Egipto.A pesar de su importancia en los estudios de crítica textual y reconstrucción del texto bíblico, la historia de su descubrimiento es poco conocido, y no ha sido traducido completamente al español. La presente traducción tiene como origen la relación hecha por el mismo Tischendorf, publicada por primera vez en inglés como parte del libro When Were Our Gospels Written? An Argument by Constantine Tischendorf. With a Narrative of the Discovery of the Sinaitic Manuscript. Fue publicado originalmente en Nueva York para la American Tract Society, en 1866.

Codex Sinaiticus and the use of manuscripts in the Early Church

Codex Sinaiticus, the world’s oldest and most complete manuscript of a Greek Bible (4th century) has a complicated and exciting history. Re-discovered by the German Theologian Constantin von Tischendorf (1844/1859), the already split codex was transferred to Europe (Leipzig, St. Petersburg, London). The donation of its major part to Tsar Alexander II in 1869 caused controversies about ownership during the 20th century. Some years ago, the four different parts were, virtually, united again. This was the starting point for a new and intensive examination of this precious manuscript. The present article discusses some old issues in the light of new insights.

An Unseen Paleographical Problem with Milne and Skeat’s Dictation Theory of Codex Sinaiticus

This note highlights a previously unseen paleographical error in one of H. J. M. Milne and T. C. Skeat’s arguments for the dictation theory of Codex Sinaiticus ([inline-graphic 01] 01). In addition to their primary argument based on the orthographic peculiarities of the three scribes, the two scholars inferred from a curious string of seemingly meaningless characters found in 1 Macc 5:20 that א was copied aurally rather than visually. Although the dictation theory is not widely held today among textual scholars, this particular explanation of the strange reading in 1 Macc 5:20 for all practical purposes remains unanswered. An error in Milne and Skeat’s identification of one of the letters complicates the theory and all but extinguishes its explanatory force.