Sinaiticus as a Commentary on John's Apocalyse?

Sinaiticus as a Commentary on John's Apocalyse?

That's the issue raised at the Sinaiticus conference by Juan Hernández Jr. (Bethel University, St. Paul). Juan has been educating us about the text of John's Revelation for 3 or 4 years now. In this paper, he writes, "[The Apocalypse in Codex Sinaiticus] exhibits dozens of differences at key points, reflecting the concerns...of its earliest copyists and readers. Taken as a whole, Sinaiticus' text of Revelation may constitute one of our earliest Christian commentaries on the book..., anticipating the later concerns of Oecumenius and Andrew of Caesarea." He qualifies this claim to an extent, but reinforces it by concluding "[W]e can discern a concerted effort to elucidate the Apocalypse's message by scores of changes throughout."

Juan states that Sinaiticus differs substantially from modern critical editions. It is difficult to evaluate this claim without seeing the differences relative to other manuscripts. Could we say the same about any witness to Revelation? Which mss come closer to NA27? Compared with NA27, Juan cites Sinaiticus as having 182 additions and 389 omissions, with 207 word losses. Juxtaposing this data with the same data of other mss would help ascertain how substantially different Sinaiticus is from NA27, and whether the scribe of Sinaiticus really did make a concerted effort to alter the text.

As part of his thesis that the scribe of Sinaiticus deliberately altered the text, Juan argues that there is a number of theologically motivated variants: Jesus is the beginning of the church, not the beginning of creation (Rev 3:14); Jesus does not vomit (avoidance of base bodily functions, 3:16); both God and the Lamb are ascribed the blessings, honor and "glory of the Almighty" (instead of "and the power," 5:13); Jesus summons Jezebel, rather than throwing her (2:22); Jesus himself opens the door rather than any man (3:20).

Someone remarked that it might be significant that the corrector fixed all these variants (except the last one, involving the mere change of an eta to an omega.). If the corrector corrected these before it left the scriptorium or some time while the Christological issues were raging, then perhaps the charge that scribes deliberately altered texts for theological reasons is somewhat mitigated.

One also must ask if theological motivation really is the cause of alteration; perhaps, as might be the case with 3:20, the change was accidental, rather than arising from "intelligent design" (P.J. Williams' terminology). Moreover, as Tommy Wasserman argued in his SBL Rome paper in regard to theologically motivated alteration, one should ask if a given scribe was consistent in altering texts before ascribing motivation; Tommy demonstrated that this was not the case with many of Bart Ehrman's passages, and one wonders the same for Sinaiticus in Revelation.

Less spectactorily, Juan gave a helpful list of orthographical variations, nonsense readings, grammatical and contextual alterations, dittographic and haplographic reeadings, singular readings, etc. There was also an interesting list of alterations, possibly from liturgical interference.

Lacking expertise in many of these issues, I withhold judgment, except to say that it is a rather spectacular claim that the text of Sinaiticus reflects a "concerted effort" in its transmission history to improve "the Apocalypse's message" by incorporating "scores of changes throughout."

Codex Sinaiticus Conference Programme + Two Workshops in Birmingham

The latest version of the programme looks as follows:

Monday, 6 July 2009

9:30-10:30
Registration

10:30-10:45
Welcome address

10:45-12:45
Codex Sinaiticus in its historical context
Harry Gamble - Codex Sinaiticus: the book and its readers in the fourth century
David Trobisch - Codex Sinaiticus and the formation of the Christian Bible
Emanuel Tov - The Septuagint section in Codex Sinaiticus compared with other sources

12:45-14:00
Lunch

14:00-15:30
Parallel sessions

The making and conserving of Codex Sinaiticus
Helen Shenton - The conservation of Codex Sinaiticus
Christopher Clarkson - Book-making in the fourth century
René Larsen - Parchment production in the fourth century

The scribes of Codex Sinaiticus
Dirk Jongkind - Scribal habits of Codex Sinaiticus
J. Verheyden - 'That awful scribe B': some observations on the text of Hermas as compared to that of the Prophets
Peter Head - Scribe D in the New Testament of Codex Sinaiticus

15:30-16:00
Coffee

16:30-18:00
Experiencing Codex Sinaiticus
David Parker - The fourth century New Testament text of Codex Sinaiticus
Amy Myshrall and Rachel Kevern – Transcribing Codex Sinaiticus
Kristin de Troyer – Reading Judges for the first time
Klaus Wachtel – The corrected New Testament text of Codex Sinaiticus

18:15-19:00
Key note address
Eldon Epp - Codex Sinaiticus in modern Biblical scholarship

19:00-20:30
Reception and Exhibition


Tuesday, 7 July 2009

9:30-11:00
The New Finds
Archbishop Damianos - tbc
Panayotes Nikolopoulos - tbc
Father Justin -

11:00-11:30
Coffee

11:30-13:00
Parallel sessions

The travels of Codex Sinaiticus
Christfried Böttrich - The history of 'Codex Sinaiticus'
Nicholas Fyssas - tbc
Ekaterina Krushelnitskaya – The St Petersburg fragments of Codex Sinaiticus: history, storage, publicity
William Frame – The British Museum purchase of Codex Sinaiticus

Reports on related projects
Ulrich Schmid - Citations of the Septuagint in their New Testament versions
Jan Krans – The digitisation of Codex Boreelianus
Juan Garcés – Codex Sinaiticus and the mass-digitisation of Greek manuscripts at the British Library

13:00-14:00
Lunch

14:00-15:30
Parallel sessions

Codex Sinaiticus and the history of biblical texts
Daniel Batovici - The Shepherd of Hermas in Codex Sinaiticus: textual and reception-historical
Juan Hernández - Codex Sinaiticus: the earliest Christian commentary on John’s Apocalypse?
Albert Pietersma and Cameron Boyd-Taylor – The Psalms in Codex Sinaiticus

Codex Sinaiticus in the present
Peter Robinson - Creating a 21st century edition of Codex Sinaiticus
Steve Walton - Codex Sinaiticus and its importance for contemporary Christianity

15:30-16:00
Final address
Ulrich Schneider – The future of Codex Sinaiticus

For registration and further information, see the Codex Sinaiticus Project homepage.

Following this conference there will be two one day workshops in Birmingham. The following information is cited from the ITSEE conferences and seminars webpage:

Wednesday, 8 July: a day focusing on the Mingana Collection, to celebrate the launch of the first phase of the Virtual Manuscript Room, a resource on the internet for scholars working with manuscripts and texts. Speakers include a number of experts in Arabic texts and manuscripts. Details will appear shortly on this website. If you are interested in attending, please contact Frouke Schrijver.

Thursday, 9 July: The International Greek New Testament Project is hosting a one-day seminar. The subject is a single Greek manuscript of the Gospels, Birmingham University Library, Mingana MS Peckover Gr. 7 (Gregory-Aland 713 and L586). A number of speakers will discuss different aspects of the manuscript, including its miniatures, a comparison between the art-historical and textual evidence (Kathleen Maxwell), the recent history (Lionel North), the palaeography (David Parker or any other interested party), the lectionary evidence and the palimpsested manuscript (Chris Jordan), the textual history (Klaus Wachtel), the possible Diatessaronic unique logion of Jesus at Mt 17.21, together with its relationship to the Syriac and Armenian versions of Ephrem's commentary (Ulrich Schmid and David Taylor). Then we will assess where this integrated approach to MS and textual study has got us to and is leading us. Further details will appear soon on this webpage. If you are interested in attending, please contact Dr Helen Ingram. If anybody is interested in offering any other presentation on this MS (especially the codicology/palaeography) we can provide an advance link to the digital images.

For anybody who is thinking also of attending the Codex Sinaiticus conference, we are looking at providing transport from London to Birmingham on the Tuesday evening.

Sinaiticus Conference: Some More Details

Some further details about the Sinaiticus Conference have emerged (see previously announcement and busy week); although the web-site has not yet been up-dated and no timed programme is yet available. For anyone still wondering whether it will be worth coming to the conference this list may be useful (although it has no official status).

A provisional list of speakers and topics is as follows:
Daniel Batovici The Shepherd of Hermas in Codex Sinaiticus: textual and reception-historical
Christfried Böttrich The history of the 'Codex Sinaiticus'
Christopher Clarkson Book-making in the fourth century
Archbishop Damianos The New Finds
Eldon J. Epp Codex Sinaiticus in modern Biblical scholarship
Harry Gamble Codex Sinaiticus and its fourth century readers
Juan Garcés Codex Sinaiticus and the mass-digitisation of Greek manuscripts at the British Library
Peter M. Head Some Observations on Various Features of Scribe D in the New Testament of Codex Sinaiticus
Juan Hernández Codex Sinaiticus: the earliest Christian commentary on John’s Apocalypse?
Dirk Jongkind Scribal habits of Codex Sinaiticus
Father Justin The New Finds
Rachel Kevern Transcribing Codex Sinaiticus
Jan Krans The digitisation of Codex Boreelianus
Ekaterina Krushelnitskaya Codex Sinaiticus Petropolitanus
René Larsen Parchment production in the fourth century
Scot McKendrick Codices Sinaitici
Amy Myshrall Transcribing Codex Sinaiticus
Panayotes Nikolopoulos The New Finds
David Parker The fourth century New Testament text of Codex Sinaiticus
Albert Pietersma Psalms in Codex Sinaiticus
Peter Robinson Creating a 21st century edition of Codex Sinaiticus
Ulrich Schmid Citations of the LXX in their New Testament versions
Ulrich Schneider The future of Codex Sinaiticus
Helen Shenton The conservation of Codex Sinaiticus
Emanuel Tov The Septuagint of Codex Sinaiticus
David Trobisch Codex Sinaiticus and the early editorial history of the Bible
Kristin de Troyer Reading Judges for the first time
J. Verheyden 'That awful scribe B': some observations on the text of Hermas as compared to that of the Prophets
Klaus Wachtel The corrected New Testament of Codex Sinaiticus
Steven Walton Codex Sinaiticus as a manuscript of the 21st century