Source manuscripts, and you blame God for them, the main one having more than 14,000 errors.Originally Posted by Boo
Take a close look at those source manuscripts. Three of those first four manuscripts were handed to us by one man. That man was Tischendorf, a man who could have a personal audience with the Pope, and was one of the few men ever to be given the privilege of seeing the Codex Vaticanus.
These manuscripts were first given alphabet letter designations by Johann Jakob Wettstein, who held Arian and Socinian views. Wettstein did not believe in the Deity of Christ, nor did he believe that Christ performed miracles. When Wettstein gave the Uncials their alphabetical designations, the Codex Sinaiticus did not exist. He gave Codex Alexandrinus an (A), Codex Vaticanus a (B), Codex Ephraemi a (C), and so fourth. When Tischendorf found the Codex Sinaiticus, it was moved to the front, and given the designation (N), for aleph, meaning one, or first.
It should be noted that while (B) Codex Vaticanus 1209 was in existence prior to Tischendorf, there was no true collation available, as the collation by Cardinal Mai, the Vatican Librarian, was a false copy, according to the words of Tischendorf. The Codex Vaticanus 1209 lay hidden in the Vatican Library, and Tischendorf was given access to it. It was Tischendorf’s collation that was used in the work of the UBS/NA editions of the Greek text, from which all new translations are derived.
It should also be noted that (C) Codex Ephraemi also existed prior to Tischendorf, but according to the words of Tischendorf had not been readable for six Centuries. It was a “palimpsest”, meaning the original words had been erased, and written over with new words. According to Tischendorf, he was able to decipher the manuscript in its entirety.
The new manuscript, Codex Sinaiticus was moved to the front of the pack, and what a story behind this manuscript. In the words of Tischendorf, he left from a meeting with the Pope, and the following year he found his pearl, the Codex Sinaiticus, in a trash basket. Not the whole Codex Sinaiticus, but 43 leaves of the Old Testament, and gives the name of those 43 leaves the Codex Frederick Augustus. Nine years later he goes back looking for more of his “precious pearl”, and finds a fragment of Genesis. Another six years go by, fifteen years total from finding the first 43 leaves, and Tischendorf is back looking for more of his pearl. Guess what, he finds the New Testament complete, not a word unreadable. So Tischendorf takes his Codex Frederick Augustus, which he had found fifteen years prior, and puts it with his new find, and names it Codex Sinaiticus. Consider that the Old Testament portion had many fragmented portions, with many whole books missing, while the New Testament was complete without a word unreadable, and yet it is considered all one manuscript, all written at the same time, as purported to be, one of the earliest manuscripts found.
The story is not finished on the Codex Sinaiticus. Along comes the greatest forger of the nineteenth Century claiming he wrote it, Constantine Simonides, a man who had no peers in paleography. There was a dispute over whether Simonides wrote the Codex Sinaiticus, and the dispute made its way into “The Guardian Newspaper”, and also the British Library.
Charges were made against Simonides claiming he lied. Simonides said he could prove that he wrote the Codex Sinaiticus. Simonides claimed he had left his mark on certain pages, and he named the pages. There was an arbitration panel which said they would consider that proof, if it was true. When they examined the Codex Sinaiticus, every place Simonides said he left his mark, there was an erasure, but the dispute was not settled because the claim was made that somebody had told Simonides about these erasures (or smudges) and that was how Simonides knew about them.
Simonides then presented two lithographed letters, that he had written to his friend at the time he was writing the Codex Sinaiticus. The counter claim was that Simonides was skilled enough to do his own lithographs, and produced the letters at a later time then was the date of those letters. When the foreman of the shop, that Simonides claimed the lithography was done at, was questioned, he remembered the letters. Those letters are now supposedly in the possession of the British Library.
Another point in favor of Simonides was that, at that time prior to the Sinaiticus there was no known copy of “The Shepherd of Hermes” written in Greek, and yet at that time, Simonides was the only man to have proclaimed observing “The Shepherd of Hermes” in Greek. When the Codex Sinaiticus was produced, it had “The Shepherd of Hermes” in Greek in it.
One of the main advocates against Simonides was Henry Bradshaw, the British Librarian. If you remember it was Hort that sent Tischendorf to find rich material with which to altar the vile “Authorized Version”. It was also one of Hort’s best friends that defended Tischendorf’s “Codex Sinaiticus”, as not being a forgery. That friend was Henry Bradshaw, the friend of Hort, who helped Hort put down the dissidents against “Papal Aggression” at Cambridge. A small world isn’t it?
It was after this that the UBS/NA Greek Texts came out using the manuscripts that Tischendorf produced, and designating the one that Tischendorf did not produce as inferior, because it did not follow close enough to Tischendorf’s manuscripts.. That manuscript being the Codex Alexandrinus.
Amazingly, that small committee that produced the UBS/NA Greek Texts had as one of its editor’s one of the highest leaders in the Vatican, Cardinal Carlo Martini. Another man was Bruce Metzger, who left 40 per cent of the Bible out in his English edition, including two of the last four verses in the Bible, which say not to add or delete words. Not surprising that under Bruce Metzger’s tutelage, Bart Erhman would denounce much of the New Testament as false.
Some may not like what is written here, but if you think anything said here is false, please present it.
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