Download sinaiticus.pdf

Contents : Codex Sinaiticus by Dr. Stephen P. Westcott Reformation International Theological Seminary A letter published in the British Church Newspaper 7 November 2008 regarding the forthcoming online publication of Codex Sinaiticus and the BBC article The Rival to the Bible BBC News Magazine 6 October 2008 news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/7651105.stm slightly edited and reproduced by permission of the author. uch mystery and misinformation seems to surround Codex Sinaiticus but surely only by deliberately fostering confusion could this codex possible be made a vehicle for an attack on Bible believers . Given some basic and undisputable facts it is certain that there is no need at all for Bible believers to do some explaining . In truth the very reverse is the case for the codex is self-explanatory as to its own origin and pedigree and with that information it certainly cannot disturb our faith in God s inspired and preserved Bible in any way at all. M Let us first look at the recent history of Codex Sinaiticus. In 1844 Constantine von Tischendorf found 129 loose leaves from a Septuagint Old Testament in a wastepaper basket in the monastery of St. Catherine on Mount Sinai. Here we might clear away one myth for fundamentalist writers are fond of claiming that modern New Testament eclectic versions are based on two doubtful manuscripts one ( B Vaticanus) from the Pope s library and the other ( Aleph Sinaiticus) from a monastery waste basket. As the textual disputes concern mainly the New Testament we should note that the New Testament portion was never in the waste basket . Of the 129 Septuagint Old Testament leaves Tischendorf was able to secure just 43 with the promise that the monks (now alerted to its value) would preserve the rest. This portion after examination in the West was given the title of Codex Frederico-Augustanus . In 1853 Tischendorf returned to the monastery only to discover that the remaining leaves had since been mislaid and were assumed to have been destroyed. However in a subsequent visit in 1859 Tischendorf returned now armed with the authority of the Russian Emperor (protector of the Eastern Orthodox faith) and was shown to his amazement not only the missing portion of the Septuagint Old Testament but a further 112 leaves of the Old Testament with a complete New Testament and the previously missing texts of The Shepherd of Hermas and The Letter of Barnabas . The entire codex (both testaments plus the apocryphal writings) was apparently produced at one time although at least three major scribes shared the writing and there was much later revision and alteration. All these portions were taken to the Imperial Library at St. Petersburg where it was renamed as the Codex Sinaiticus and given the reference letter Aleph . In 1933 the then-Soviet government sold them to the British Library for 100 000. Let us now back-track to the early history of Codex Sinaiticus. As the Codex was originally a complete (and more than complete) Bible we need not restrict our consideration just to the New Testament (a practice which has produced much of the confusion and error). Turn to the Codex s own Old Testament and lo and behold at the end of the Book of Esther is a scribe s annotation in a space provided for it giving a precise and detailed statement of the origin of the Codex. There simply is no mystery here all is self-explanatory! The note describes how the Codex was compared and collated with a previously very old manuscript prepared under the authority of the martyr Bishop of Caesarea Pamphilus (c. AD 240 309) and that his copy in turn had been corrected by a copy of Origen s Hexapla which had been corrected by Origen himself. So Sinaiticus is self-confessed as an Origenic manuscript Origen s SeptuagintHexapla version exactly copied for Origen s disciple Pamphilus and again exactly copied to produce Sinaiticus. And so Origen of Alexandria is expressly stated as the real author of Codex Sinaiticus. What then can we say about Origen Origen (c. 185 254) of Alexandria later Caesarea was a prolific theological writer. His major surviving work De Principiis makes Christ subordinate to the Father (a teaching which would later be called semi-Arianism) whilst he teaches the ultimate salvation of all men and even devils (apocatastasis). Origen s theology was condemned as heretical by a Church Council at Alexandria in AD 400. And what was his view of the Bible Scripture contains many things not true but actually impossible and absurd (De Principiis IV 3.4). Origen became the leader of the Alexandrian allegorical school which denied the literal sense of much of the Bible and proposed a hidden and mystical true sense available only to advanced disciples (the disciplina arcani). Finding discrepancies in the Scripture copies he collated for his Hexapla

INFO HASH : 3041bbd9b90f4a29c2f760debf0263864935c8fc

Download now

File Size: 31.9 kb