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Defect in Sinaiticus?


Enoch

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Looking at a photo of Sinaiticus, first page of Matthew, I see centered at the top of the page what looks like "KATA MATHTHAION." But the Accordance text leaves that off. Should the heading be added to your electronic edition?

 

(I am trying to find out if the earliest mss of the gospels have indications of the authorship on them or not. You would think that was easy; but it seems like pulling teeth to find out.)

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Looking at a photo of Sinaiticus, first page of Matthew, I see centered at the top of the page what looks like "KATA MATHTHAION." But the Accordance text leaves that off. Should the heading be added to your electronic edition?

 

(I am trying to find out if the earliest mss of the gospels have indications of the authorship on them or not. You would think that was easy; but it seems like pulling teeth to find out.)

 

Enoch,

 

You've asked a similar question like this before, but in relation to a text like NA27. The answer here is pretty much the same. Our digital transcriptions of MSS are compiled in a manner that do not always preserve the titles to the books they contain. For example, in Mark 16.8 and John 21.25 you can see the titles to Mark and John as they occur in the MS.

 

A better resource for studying this particular question would be a textual commentary or apparatus. Note this shot from Comfort's NTTTC:

 

post-5629-127378022265_thumb.png

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Looking at a photo of Sinaiticus, first page of Matthew, I see centered at the top of the page what looks like "KATA MATHTHAION." But the Accordance text leaves that off. Should the heading be added to your electronic edition?

 

(I am trying to find out if the earliest mss of the gospels have indications of the authorship on them or not. You would think that was easy; but it seems like pulling teeth to find out.)

 

Enoch,

 

I concur with Rick that your answer is best addressed by means of the preponderance of textual critical data, as accessible in NTTTC or other various modules. There is one thing I would mention, as well, that may assist in your use of the tagged Uncials: the Uncials are best used for linguistic, syntax, or grammar research. I think Rex Koivisto's paper perspicaciously delineates and describes the purpose of the tagged uncials. You can access Rex's paper on the Accordance Site (Home Page → About Tab → Articles → Scroll down to "Special Morphological Tagging Requirements for Individual Greek Manuscripts). I have also provided the link below:

 

http://www.accordancebible.com/content/common/common.download_file.php?action_special=download_file&sid=e983e8aed1757f2475afd0bdee2fffe1&download_file_path=files/documents/20969.pdf&download_file_title=Tagging+Greek+MSS.pdf

 

Shalom,

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Enoch,

 

I concur with Rick that your answer is best addressed by means of the preponderance of textual critical data, as accessible in NTTTC or other various modules. There is one thing I would mention, as well, that may assist in your use of the tagged Uncials: the Uncials are best used for linguistic, syntax, or grammar research. I think Rex Koivisto's paper perspicaciously delineates and describes the purpose of the tagged uncials. You can access Rex's paper on the Accordance Site (Home Page → About Tab → Articles → Scroll down to "Special Morphological Tagging Requirements for Individual Greek Manuscripts). I have also provided the link below:

 

http://www.accordanc...g+Greek+MSS.pdf

 

Shalom,

 

The information on the titles in the NT MSS is listed in our CNTTS Critical Apparatus as well. The next release will have all of the papyri for the Gospels, so that release will have even more info since a few of the papyri also have the beginnings of books. In looking at this, you'll also want to consider the explicits (the notes after the endings of the books) and not just the implicits (the titles and related notes at the beginnings of the books). I have a PhD student who will be looking at exactly these two features in his dissertation, so you'll get a boatload of info in a couple of years on this! :) If you want more info than what is currently in print or available via the various modules in Accordance, feel free to contact me to see what we have beyond the CNTTS Critical Apparatus module in its current release. Paz y gracia, Bill Warren, Director of the Center for NT Textual Studies

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How does Accordance gain by leaving off part of a manuscript? Why would you want to leave off a title?

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How does Accordance gain by leaving off part of a manuscript? Why would you want to leave off a title?

Good question, Enoch. I don't presume to speak on Accordance's behalf, but since I am directly related to the production of (some) MS modules, let me briefly reiterate the process. Accordance does not assume an eclectic production of its modules. That is to say, the module seeks to represent the hard copy from which it was made (typically the information pertaining to MS can be found in the Read-Mes). The GNT-SI module was produced from "Greek New Testament Bibliorum Codex Sinaiticus Petropolitanus, ed. by Constantine Tischendorf. St. Petersburg: 1862." As such, the GNT-SI module seeks to faithfully reduplicate this specific MS of Sinaiticus. There are times when a decision may be made to diverge from the copy, but this relates to a putative error evidenced in the copy. Modern scribes are equally prone to committing blunders as were the ancient scribes (unfortunately keyboards haven't remedied the problems associated with textual transmission :-)), hence the disclaimer in the Read-Me states, "As with all electronic NT tools, inadvertent errors and global mistakes can be made (modern scribal errors!). Make sure to check this electronic edition against a hard copy or textual apparatus to be sure of your conclusions. And, as always, report any errors to the above E-mail address so we can constantly improve this electronic edition of Codex Sinaiticus." It could be that the Petropolitanus did not contain the implicit, I don't have access to this specific MS used in the production of GNT-SI to verify; however, as listed in the Apparatus, א does contain the implicit title KATAMAQQAION (you can view א online here: http://codexsinaitic...er=0#33-1-20-6; and here: http://www.csntm.org...pt/View/GA_01). Note however, that the module is not specifically designed for textual critical reasons. Rather, GNT-SI is best used for linguistic research; this is also addressed in the Read-Me: "NOTE: The chief value of this electronic edition of Codex Sinaiticus New Testament is its morphological searchability. Since all of the words in the NT section are morphologically tagged, the Codex can be more easily evaluated from a morphology standpoint, and compared to other MSS and/or the standard printed editions. As always, the final arbiter is the actual MS, since I have made my share of errors in this electronic transcription."

 

 

I am confident that we have either a parablepsis or a formatting issue. To best address the solution would be to email "the editor" as recommended in the Read-Me, about your observation of the missing implicit(s).

 

The time invested into the production of a module can be extensive and is an ongoing process. Users of Accordance are invaluable for the maturation of a MSS, thus I am sure he would be delighted into addressing your query.

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OK. I guess that what Accordance is saying is that Accordance knows that its Sinaiticus is defective to the extent that it lacks the superscription which is part of Sinaiticus. But Accordance does not consider that a bug in its module because Accordance did not make the module and cannot add the superscription to the text without violating some legal agreement, and Accordance has no way to tell the purchaser that this module has that defect in it?

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OK. I guess that what Accordance is saying is that Accordance knows that its Sinaiticus is defective to the extent that it lacks the superscription which is part of Sinaiticus. But Accordance does not consider that a bug in its module because Accordance did not make the module and cannot add the superscription to the text without violating some legal agreement, and Accordance has no way to tell the purchaser that this module has that defect in it?

 

No, that is not what we're saying. First, and I mean this in no way against James, but his comments are not representative of OakTree (he even said as much).

 

What we're saying, in part, is that this module is not an exact representation of the Codex Sinaiticus. In certain cases it will differ from the facsimile from which it was derived (ed.Tischendorf and in the PD), and the actual manuscript itself (as housed in the BL and viewable through the Codex Sinaiticus project). In this specific case the titles for all the books of the Bible which are contained in the MS are not included. Part of this is because of how superscriptions and titles are handled for Biblical texts within Accordance. Because the book of the Bible is indexed within the search engine itself, when book titles are included in a text (even an English text) they are not duplicated in the text of the module. In the case of GNT-SI, I can see why you would want it, though it is not necessarily within the bounds of why this module was prepared. As such your request is not a bug in the module or app.

 

If you purchased this module for the precise purpose to study superscriptions, titles and the like, then this may not be what you want.

 

To my knowledge, which is not comprehensive, yours is the first request for this in one of our GNT MS modules. We are currently discussing the potential of adding the titles to the books.

 

On another note, I think it is pretty cool that the director of the CNTTS has chimed in to dialogue with you about your interest in NT MSS. As you can see there is a wealth of information available within Accordance to aid you in your studies. To that end, I hope you fair well.

 

Hope this helps to clarify things.

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Enoch,

 

After further discussion we have agreed upon adding the book titles, when present, to the MSS modules. But, we can not currently give a date when an update with this info will be available.

 

Thanks

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Well, I am overwhelmed with gratitude.

 

May the Lord bless Accordance & those who work thereon!

 

Enoch,

 

After further discussion we have agreed upon adding the book titles, when present, to the MSS modules. But, we can not currently give a date when an update with this info will be available.

 

Thanks

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