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Sinaiticus and Vaticanus


Λύχνις Δαν

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Hi ya,

 

  I am looking at these, not the images but the transcriptions. http://www.accordancebible.com/store/details/?pid=GNT-VATand http://www.accordancebible.com/store/details/?pid=GNT-SI. These are only the new testament portions according the website. Does Accordance have full text transcriptions of these ? I realize such are available in various places on the web but I am interested in using the side by side with LXX.

 

  In addition, regarding these two above, am I correct in assuming that they will scroll in parallel with other bible texts ?

 

Thx

D

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Hi, Daniel,

 

Yes, they scroll in parallel with other texts but (sadly!) do not include the LXX portions of those manuscripts.

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That's a shame!

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Thanx Abram. Yep its a pity. Perhaps a text exists somewhere and I get to dust off my bible import skills. I'll have to look.

 

Thx

D

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Well, it's online.

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Ok so Sinaiticus is available for non-commercial use under Creative Commons License from http://codexsinaiticus.org/en/project/transcription_download.aspx. It's in an XML derivative of TEI so some processing required for a user bible but should be doable.

 

thx

D

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Hi ya,

 

  Ok so I took the International Greek New Testament Project's file above and wrote a bunch of code. The XML is very simple in a sense but very detailed but they have good documentation for the most part. The reason it's so detailed is that it stores formatting elements to represent the layout of the text in the original manuscript. But a bit of help from the xml.dom.minidom package and the heavy lifting is done. The just walk the DOM and print out what you want. That is all the good news.

 

  The bad news at least so far is this. On importing the bible text there are a number of constraints. I was just using Psalms because that is what I wanted it for in the first place. The problem is that there are constraints on the expected number of verses in chapters. Now Psalms is complicated in a number of respects in this regard because the MT and the LXX numbering differ. Thus at chapter 10 I am told that there are too many verses preceding chapter 10.

 

post-32023-0-84151500-1423715679_thumb.jpg

 

  At this point I am not exactly sure what to do. There is a suggestion for fudging verse numbers in the User Bible documentation. That could be easier said than done with Psalms. I'm pretty sure there is a verse break in chapter 9 or 10 somewhere. Yep 9 is split - see Tony Pile's chart in http://www.accordancebible.com/forums/topic/14751-lxx-versification-issues-for-user-tool/. Ok I can probably code this up in the tool I've written. More later.

 

  But just to whet your appetite here is Psa 1 with Rahlfs and Sinaiticus transcript in parallel.

 

post-32023-0-50819800-1423716251_thumb.jpg

 

Thx

D

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Ooh!

I've been interested in something like this for a while, but don't have the technical skills to know what to do with the XML file. It would be fantastic to be able to have the transcription as a user Bible, and maybe the other transcription information as a user tool. I don't know that the nature of the license would allow the development of modules to be a profitable venture for Accordance.

In other news, a digitised version of Vaticanus is now online! http://digi.vatlib.it/view/MSS_Vat.gr.1209At the moment it looks like it is photos only, no transcription. But it's photos of the manuscript, rather than photos of an old facsimile… :-)

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Hi Tony,

 

  I've been holding off saying much on this because I'm not done yet. I coded up a programmatic conversion of the OG-MT Psalms chapters and verses based on your table. I'm really not happy with what I have so I want to rework the code. But I have the Psalms loaded as a User Bible and I'm tweaking it. One other thing I had not counted on was that the IGNTP file contains all the correctors as well. Not so easy to handle in a user bible - I've used a different colour in the text for the main corrector. I was thinking to use multiple colours - one per corrector but haven't done it yet. But ideally I'd like to be able to put it in Instant Details. I haven't got poetic formatting done yet either the way I want.

  But a question for you : do you know if the Sinaiticus has OG versus MT number issues all the way through like Psalms or not ? If so do you know if a reliable mapping published anywhere ? I've been focussed on Psalms and so have not checked yet but I'm going to have to check it out sometime to get the rest done.

 

  BTW, what do you mean above when you say "the other transcription information as a user tool" ?

 

Thx

D

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My understanding is that the XML file contains all kinds of information beyond transcription and corrections, e.g., notes on the physical state of the page (damage, holes, etc.). It would be nice to have that kind of info at hand, too. It could really enrich a lecture on textual criticism, for one.

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Ah ok looks like it's in the editorial notes scattered throughout the document such as this example :

 

<note  type="editorial"> There is a possible trace of ink on the thick strand of parchment near beginning of line. This is visible in the 2008 image but is no longer present in 2009. The fragment is slightly crumpled, which is why lines 3-4 look closer together than the norm. The 2008 image shows them as better spaced. There is a trace of the upper diagonal of κ.</note>

 

I'm not processing those but of course it could be done. Hyperlinked properly to the text it would be a nice pair of resources to be sure.

 

thx

D

 

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Daniel,

I have to ask how anyone knows that Vaticanus has the LXX or that any other manuscript is a manuscript of the LXX.  I mean does Vaticanus say "Here is the LXX," or does it just present a Greek OT?  Can we assume that whoever got together a Greek OT was not concerned about preserving the LXX, but was concerned to have an accurate Greek OT?

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Enoch,

 

If I can jump in, your question exposes a problem of terminology in the field. "LXX/Septuagint" is often used as a shorthand for "the Old Testament in Greek," with or without a knowledge of the underlying complexity.

 

As such, Codex Vaticanus is a representative witness of the Old Testament in Greek in the 4th c. AD; as a relatively complete witness, the only rival is Codex Sinaiticus (which may or may not be 30 or so years older).

 

The relationship between the text in Vaticanus, the "Old Greek" (meaning, roughly, the first translation into Greek of a given OT book), and the work of the seventy (-two?) elders in Alexandria translating the Pentateuch (to which the label "Septuagint" properly applies—assuming Aristeas isn't just telling a tale…) is a more difficult question.

 

Apologies if this is all old hat to you; I wish one could assume this was common knowledge at least among biblical scholars…

Tony

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I should add: "LXX" is also used as shorthand for Rahlfs's little blue Greek OT with apparatus (let the confusions bear fruit and multiply…)

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Hey Enoch,

 

I confess to not using the term especially precisely, and not because I'm not aware of the issues Tony mentions, though I've not made a study of them. I do tend to say LXX when I mean GOT. The most accurate way in which I use the term is in reference to the Rahlf's module provided by Accordance where LXX is used as the short form code. And in fact that's how I used it above. But what I'm really interested in is seeing the various documents side by side and reading them or being able to compare. It's basically the same issue reading KJV, NASB and ESV side by side, just a different language. That's why I was asking about Aquila, Theodotion and Symmachus in other posts.

 

Thx

D

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  • 2 months later...

Hey ya,

 

  I have now finished, well as far as I need/want to go now, with the User Bible of the Codex Sinaiticus. I've been using it with the Psalms in a Year for a bit now. It went up on the exchange this week through the good offices of Monsieur Ken, and approval of the Codex Sinaiticus project. If you use it and have issues or suggestions or comments let me know.

 

Thx

D

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Wahoo! If I could like that one hundred times…

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Hey ya,

 

  I have now finished, well as far as I need/want to go now, with the User Bible of the Codex Sinaiticus. I've been using it with the Psalms in a Year for a bit now. It went up on the exchange this week through the good offices of Monsieur Ken, and approval of the Codex Sinaiticus project. If you use it and have issues or suggestions or comments let me know.

 

Thx

D

 

Awesome! Thank you so very much.

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Thank you for giving me honorary titular French, or French-Canadian citizenship!

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This is exceptional, Daniel. Thank you so much for doing this!

 

Peter

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