>> FRED SANDERS: Welcome to the first plenary
session of our Evangelical Theological Society
meeting.
The theme of our meeting this year is the
New Testament, and I'm very proud to say we
have a distinguished textual scholar, author
of some books on the syntax of New Testament
Greek, a passionate defender of the integrity
of the Bible.
Dr. Dan Wallace teaches at the Dallas Theological
Seminary.
He's director of the center for the study
of New Testament manuscripts.
He told our student body in convo this morning
that he discovered himself 11 more previously
unknown manuscripts of the New Testament.
I'm probably stealing your thunder there.
Just last fall—he loves to poke around old
libraries, archives, I guess archeological
digs, all kinds of places finding these manuscripts
and studying them deeply.
Tonight he'll be discussing the work of the
center which is just absolutely fascinating.
You won't to miss tonight's session.
At this session he will—his topic will be
"Tischendorf and the discovery of Codex Sinaticus:
a reassessment."
Now I'm not quite sure what there is to be
reassessed on that matter, so I'm very curious
to hear.
Dr. Wallas was born in California.
He lives in Texas.
He has come all the way east to Virginia to
speak to us, so let's give him a warm welcome,
Dr. Dan Wallace.
>> DAN WALLACE: Thanks Fred.
Well good afternoon.
Can you all hear me okay?
Very good.
Did they all get the outlines, the outlines
for this message?
Was that printed off?
That's okay.
I think you all can follow without an outline.
Okay, let's not worry about it.
That's okay.
I understand.
You're wooly minded.
That means you're a professor, so.
Tischendorf and the discovery of Codex Sinaticus:
a reassessment.
Most of you have heard the fantastic story
of Constantin von Tischendorf's discovery
and rescue of Codas Sinaticus at a monastery
in the Middle East, and its subsequent journey
to the British Library.
It may have been a few years since you read
the report in Metzger’s text of the New
Testament, and the details may be a bit fuzzy.
Some of you may have heard of the new finds
at St. Catherine’s Monastery-the cash of
manuscripts stumbled upon in 1975.
It is one of the most important archeological
discoveries of the 21st century, but most
of you have probably not heard of it at all.
This lecture will go over old ground for some,
but ground that has become overgrown with
weeds.
New ground for most, and it will offer a reassessment
of Tischendorf and the discovery of Sinaticus.
The reassessment is especially in light of
the new finds in my own visit to St. Catherine’s
Monastery in 2002, along with my frequent
correspondence with the librarian of the convent.
Before I mention exactly what I am reassessing,
I need to offer a background to two key entities:
The Monastery at Mount Sinai and the scholar,
Tischendorf.
I'll begin with a brief history of what has
become the most famous convent in the world:
The Holy Monastery of St. Catherine.
This abbey is in Egypt, situated in the Sinai
Peninsula between the Gulf of Suez and the
Gulf of Aqaba-the two northern prongs of the
Red Sea.
It is at the base of what many believe is
Mount Sinai, and the maps and satellite images
of St. Catherine's and the whole area are
curtesy of Google.
Mount Sinai is the site where Moses met with
God in the burning bush, where he struck the
rock that gave forth water, and where he received
the Ten Commandments.
And the site in the Sinai Peninsula where
the monastery's located has a long tradition
behind it.
Whether this is the authentic Mount Sinai
or not is for the archaeologists to debate.
As one scholar wrote, a visit to the traditional
Mount Sinai suffices to dispel all these doubts.
The huge granite formations are an awe-inspiring
spectacle.
The atmosphere, the light, and the colors,
the incredible stillness all conspire to make
the scene and unforgettable for the meeting
of God with man.
Of course that sentiment sounds similar to
those who prefer the garden tomb to the Church
of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem as the
place of Jesus' burial-in spite of the fact
that few scholars today take the garden tomb
seriously.
Whether this Mount Sinai is the Mount Sinai
cannot be determined simply on the basis of
its inspirational value.
When I visited St. Catherine's in September
2002, I asked Father Justin, who was then
our host and is now the librarian, if he thought
the convent was at the base of the real Mount
Sinai where Moses met God.
Whether it is or not, the site has been venerated
by Christians since the third century, he
declared.
Thousands of pilgrims of the centuries have
come here.
For that reason alone, it is a holy site.
I got a taste then for what I would come to
appreciate about Father Justin.
He is as wise as serpents and gentle as doves.
What is called Mount Sinai today is known
as Jebel Musa in Arabic, or the Mountain of
Moses.
Christian pilgrims camped out there during
the third century.
The Emperor Constantine's mother, in her job
to verify certain sacred sites in Palestine
and the Middle East, declared it authentic.
From the fourth century until today, monks
have lived there.
Because of persistent attacks on the fires
by local nomads-on the friars, sorry—by
local nomads, finally in the sixth century
a monastery was built.
It was a towering fortress.
The original walls still stand to this day,
with the northern face having been repaired
by Napoleon during his Egyptian expedition.
Justinian, the last Roman emperor whose native
tongue was Latin, sought to restore the empire
to its former glory.
He embarked on an ambitious building program,
and extended his kingdom in several directions.
He was the one who built the monastery.
He did so at the urging of cenobites who had
settled at Mount Sinai and were living in
tents and caves.
He petitioned the emperor to build a monastery
fort to keep the better ones at bay.
Nearby, a colony of mercenary soldiers with
200 families was established to further protect
the brotherhood.
According to tradition, these mercenaries
later intermarried with local Bedouins, forming
the tribe of Jabaliya, who though having become
Muslim still serve the Monastery today.
Inside the walls, the only original building
that is still there is the sanctuary.
There's an ancient inscription on the beams
of the churches roof.
It reads: "For the salvation of our pious,
sovereign Justinian.
For the memory and rest of our empress Theodora."
We know that Justin's wife Theodora died in
548, and the emperor died 17 years later.
Thus, we can pinpoint the building of the
placate to be between 548 and 565.
It is the oldest, continuously inhabited monastery
in the world.
And most importantly, it has never suffered
serious damage or attack.
The monastery was built on the traditional
site of the burning bush.
You notice in the next three slides that that
bush is still inside the compound.
And just in case it catches on fire again
there's an extinguisher close by.
Father Justin told me that the bush never
needs pruning with almost a thousand visitors
to the monastery every day, the tourists prune
the bush themselves.
In the next several slides you'll see the
sanctuary and its northeastern edge, the chapel
of the burning bush.
Over the centuries, numerous gifts have been
given to the convent including icons, manuscripts,
buildings, and today, digital camera equipment.
There are more than over 2,000 icons at St.
Catherine’s.
This is a surprisingly massive number, but
because of its remote location, and because
it was in Muslim Egypt, it escaped the iconoclast
movement of the 8th and 9th centuries.
Ironically, the largest collection of icons
in the world was protected from marauding
Christian zealots by Muslim conquerors.
Among its many icons the most precious is
that of the pantokrator, Christ the Almighty.
This was painted in the 6th Century, and is
considered to be the oldest icon of icon known
of Christ to exist.
There is possibly one painting of Christ that
is older.
It's in St. Paul’s grotto, a cave on the
northern slope of Nightingale Mountain in
Ephesus.
As you stand in the amphitheater and look
out across what used to be the canal to the
Aegean, the mountain is on your left.
On trip to photograph New Testament manuscripts
in Constantinople in 2004, which I'll briefly
tell you in my lecture tonight, three of us
spend a couple of days touring Ephesus.
On the second day we paid a small sum to the
chief archaeologist of Ephesus who then took
us up the mountain to visit a cave he had
recently discovered, which is still not yet
open to the public.
Inside the grotto were paintings of the 12
apostles, Mary, Paul, and Thecla, and Jesus.
The painting of Christ is now defaced.
It has been dated to sometime between the
4th and 6th centuries.
In the least, one can unequivocally say that
the painting of the pantokrator at Mount Sinai
is the earliest well-preserved icon of Christ.
St. Catherine’s monastery has been described
as Christendom’s most vivid link with the
past.
It is a place in which many things remain
as they did in the 6th century when the convent
was founded.
The seven hours of daily divine services,
the liturgy, meals, fasts, clothing ensure
the ascetic life all have ancient roots.
I've been in many orthodox monasteries.
Although each has its own rhythm, its own
character, they all share a great deal in
common, and what has truly impressed me is
how deep the traditions go.
But there's one thing that makes St. Catherine's
significantly different from most other monasteries.
I've been in Eastern Orthodox abbeys which
segregated the non-orthodox from the orthodox
during meal time and liturgical services.
At one of these, twice I stood in the entire
early morning service which began at 3:30,
and did not end until 7 am, never being permitted
to enter the sanctuary.
I was not allowed in the dining room during
meals until all the orthodox had departed.
But at two monasteries the segregation was
hardly felt.
At the monastery of St. John, the theologian
on Patmos, I was invited to sit in the seat
of honor in the sanctuary for the dedication
of the new museum.
And orthodox friend of mind said that he had
never hear of this sort of thing being done.
He called it a miracle.
And both on Patmos and at St. Catherine’s
I ate with the monks and priests.
At the monasteries of Mt. Athos in Northeastern
Greece no women are allowed, nor have they
been for over a millennium.
In fact, even the animals must be male.
At St. Catherine’s not only are women permitted
to be there, but they may even do more.
Dr. Barbara Aland, the former director of
the Institute for New Testament Tet Research
in Munster, Germany, told me that on her visit
to the monastery in 1980 she dined with the
monks.
Why would there be such disparity among orthodox
monasteries regarding outsiders?
I can't speak for all of them, but St. Catherine’s
has been a Christian oasis in a Muslim world,
almost from the beginning.
If the monks did not learn how to get along
with their Saracen neighbors they would not
have survived.
And this brings me to one of the most unorthodox
incidents in the orthodox monastery's history.
In 628 a delegation of monks from St. Catherine’s
allegedly visited Muhammad seeking his protection.
In response he allegedly dictated, since he
is illiterate, what is known as the patent
of Muhammad.
There's a great deal of suspicion that the
patent is not authentic, but Muslims accept
it, because if they were to object it, and
it if it proved to be genuine they would have
hell to pay.
The patent was reissued every year for centuries.
The original document was taken from the monastery
to Istanbul in 1517 by the sultan Selim I,
and a copy was left in its place.
Here's some salient points in the patent.
"This is a message from Muhammed Ibn Abdullah
as a covenant to those who adopt Christianity
near and far.
We are with them.
Verily I, the servants, the helpers, and my
followers defend them,
because Christians are my citizens,
and by Allah I hold out against anything that
displeases them.
No compulsion is to be on them.
Neither are there judges to be removed from
their judges
nor their monks from their monasteries.
No one is to destroy a house of their religion,
to damage, or to carry anything from it
to the Muslim's houses.
No one in the nation is to disobey the covenant
until the last day."
Some claim that this may be the most important
document in the monastery’s vast collection.
The Jabaliya have always honored it.
The firmin has probably deterred some Muslim
forces from harming the monastery.
It apparently came in handy in the year 1009.
In that year, a man who has been labeled psychotic,
and for good reason, Caliph Al-Hakim destroyed
the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem.
He then set out to destroy St. Catherine's.
What happened next varies by accounts.
Some reports suggest that monks came out to
meet the Caliph, and they showed him the patent
of Muhammed which caused him to turn away.
Another is they met him halfway between Jerusalem
and Mt. Sinai imploring him not to destroy
the monastery since it enshrined a holy place
to Muslims.
Meanwhile back at the convent, monks were
busy capping off a two-story tower with minaret,
effectively turning the tower into a mosque.
Its minaret is of inferior construction, one
scholar noted, suggesting that the mosque
was built in a very short time.
But the mosque seems to have been built about
100 years later, in 1106 during the reign
of one of AL Hakim’s successors.
There's an inscription, in fact, that gives
that date as the completion of the mosque.
The mosque was used occasionally for worship
services by Muslims up through the middle
of the 19th century.
Whether the monks built a mosque in time to
deter Al-Hakim, or more likely showed him
the patent, they exercised great ingenuity
in diffusing the situation.
And because they did, when Tischendorf visited
the abbey in the mid 1800s, there was a particularly
old manuscript waiting for him.
Born in 1815, Lobegott Fredrick Constantine
von Tiscendorf grew up during the rise of
the Tubigen schools spearheaded by F.C. Baur
by applying Hegelian dialectic to the New
Testament, asserted that Paul wrote only four
epistles ascribed to him.
John’s gospel was not written until AD 70,
and the historical narratives in the New Testament
were pure myth.
In the face of Baur and the Tubigen school,
Tischendorf became driven by an evangelical
zeal to find the oldest manuscripts of the
New Testament in order to give greater certainty
to the wording of the original and a greater
claim of its historical reliability.
In 1841 he visited the Bibliotheque nationale
in Paris, and deciphered a 5th century New
Testament parchment that had been scraped
clean centuries after its original composition
by a scribed who then penned Ephrium the Syrian's
sermons on top.
Such reused manuscripts are known as palimpsests.
Scribes in the Middle Ages frequently gave
into the temptation to cannibalize old parchments
rather than use fresh hides and take them
through the arduous process of preparing them
for usage as usable writing surface.
It got so bad that Charlemagne made an edict
against the palimpsest work, but to no avail.
Today, many of our New Testaments are the
under text of a palimpsest.
The manuscript in Paris is known as Ephraemi
Rescriptus, or Codex C.
The under text was so difficult to read that
all of Tischendorf's predecessors had failed
at the task.
In the 1830s, long before Tischendorf came
to Paris, chemical reagents were applied to
the manuscript.
Even with the reagents, Tischendorf had a
hard time reading it, but after two years
of work he was able to decipher 99% of the
text.
This brought him immediate fame as a textual
critic, and it paved the way for funding for
his next project.
In spring of 1844, under the patronage of
Fredrick of Saxony, he ventured to the Middle
East in the search of biblical manuscripts-taking
a 12-day, sometimes harrowing, camel ride
from Cairo.
With Bedouin guides, he finally arrived at
St. Catherine's.
In order to gain access to the monastery,
he needed to have a letter of recommendation.
Then, after it was verified, he was hoisted
by rope up the northern wall to a covered
shaft 30 feet of the ground.
You can see some pictures here of the shaft
which until 1861 was the only way in which
visitors could gain entrance into the abbey.
And the rope pull still works today even though
few visitors want to take it to get inside.
Notice the net that is used at another monastery.
This net was used at one of the monasteries
of Metaora in central Greece, which are as
high as 1,000 feet above the valley below.
Only a rope was needed at St. Catherine's.
In Tischendorf's own words, "It was in April
1844 that I embarked at Leghorn for Egypt.
The desire which I felt to discover some precious
remains of any manuscripts-more especially
biblical-of a date which would carry us back
to the early times of Christianity was realized
beyond my expectations.
It was at the foot of Mt. Sinai, in the convent
of St. Catherine, that I discovered the pearl
of all my researches.
In visiting the library of the monastery,
in the month of May 1844, I perceived in the
middle of the great hall a large and wide
basket full of old parchments.
And the librarian, who was a man of information,
told me that two heaps of paper like these,
moldered by time, had been already committed
to the flames.
What was my surprise to find, amid this heap
of papers was a considerable number of sheets
of a copy of the Old Testament in Greek which
seemed to be one of the most ancient that
I had ever seen.
The authorities in the convent allowed me
to possess myself of a third of these parchments,
or about 43 sheets-all the more readily as
they were destined for the fire.
I could not get them to yield up possession
of the remainder.
The too lively satisfaction which I had displayed
had aroused their suspicions as to the value
of this manuscript.
I enjoined on the monks to take religious
care of all such remains which might fall
in their way."
Constantine Tischendorf was 29-years-old.
Tischendorf returned to Sinai in 1853 when
he received no help from the monks regarding
the now famous codex.
They gained no knowledge of the manuscript.
He did, however, manage to acquire a small
fragment of 11 lines of Genesis from this
Codex, which was being used as a bookmark.
How he acquired it is not known.
It was on that visit that he gave the monastery
a very important gift: the second edition
of his Greek New Testament in which he penned,
in modern Greek, a note of appreciation to
the holy fraternity.
This not will become important in our later
discussion.
Tischendorf returned once more to Sinai in
1859.
This time he went under the patronage of Tsar
Alexander the Second.
Back to Tischendorf's own words: "Several
motives, and more especially the deep reverence
of all Eastern Monasteries for the emperor
of Russia led me in the Autumn of 1866 to
submit to the Russian government a plan of
a journey for making systematic researches
in the east.
This proposal only aroused the jealous and
fanatical opposition in St. Petersburg.
People were astonished that a foreigner and
a protestant should presume to ask the emperor
of the Greek and Orthodox church for a mission
to the east.
But the good cause triumphed.
The interest which my proposal excited, even
within the empirical circle, inclined the
emperor in my favor.
It obtained his approval in the month of September,
1858, and the funds which I asked for were
placed at my disposal.
In the commencement of January of 1859 I again
set sail for the east."
After spending a few days in the monastery
examining significant manuscripts-though nothing
compared to Sinaticus, Tisendorf was about
to leave.
His narrative continues.
"On the fourth of February I was talking-taking
a walk with the steward of the convent in
the neighborhood, and as we returned towards
sunset, he begged me to take some refreshment
with him in his cell.
Scarcely had he entered the room when resuming
our former subject of conversation, he said,
'And I too have read a Septuagint.'
And so saying he took down from the corner
of the room a bulky kind of volume wrapped
up in a red cloth, and he laid it before me.
I unrolled the cover, and discovered to my
great surprise, not only those very fragments
which 15 years before I had taken out of the
basket, but also other parts of the Old Testament,
the New Testament Complete, and in addition
the Epistle of Barnabus and a part of the
Shepherd of Hermas.
Full of joy, which this time I had the self-command
to conceal from the steward and the rest of
the community, I asked-as if in a careless
way-for permission to take the manuscript
into my sleeping chamber to look it over more
at leisure.
I knew that I held in my hand the most precious
biblical treasure in existence-a document
whose age and importance exceeded all the
manuscripts which I ever examined during 20
years of study and research."
It should be noted that the details of all
three of Tischendorf’s visits to Mt. Sinai
have never been corroborated by anyone or
anything else.
But one Codex Sinaticus made its way out of
St. Catherine’s, Tischendorf becomes just
one of many voices claiming that their story
is the true one.
And the sound is a veritable cacophony.
There is simply too much material to go through
in a short lecture such as this, so I will
highlight certain points.
After unsuccessful negotiations with the monastery
to remove the manuscript for examination,
Tischendorf left empty handed, but later he
persuaded the abbot to permit him to examine
the manuscript in Cairo where there was a
daughter convent of St. Catherine's.
The abbot agreed, and under close watch, in
a two-month period, Tischendorf and two assistants
transcribed more than 110,000 lines of text.
At least that's what Tischendorf’s son in
law claimed.
But if so, why then did Tischendorf need to
take the manuscript to St. Petersburg to have
it copied accurately so that fact simile could
be made.
That task would take another three years.
Something in the story just doesn't seem to
line up.
As satisfying as the feat of such a massive
transcription-if it really happened-must have
been, it was not enough.
Tischendorf wanted to get the manuscript published,
and he wanted it to find a home away from
the Egyptian's hands.
The German scholar never really had very high
respect for the monks of Sinai.
He disliked their manner, and thought their
seven hours of daily prayer could be better
spent studying Scripture.
And their treatment of holy writ was hardly
the same as a protestant scholar's.
As a later fictional protégé of Tischendorf
would say, "This piece belongs in a museum."
At this point in our story the reports get
a little foggy.
In the text of the New Testament, Bruce Metzger
says that Tischendorf suggested that it would
be to the monks’ advantage if they made
a gift to the Tsar of Russia whose influence
as the protector of the Greek church, they
desired-in connection with the election of
the new archbishop-what would be more appropriate
as a gift for this ancient Greek manuscript.
The codex was then sent to St. Petersburg
and ten years after its discovery was on display
in the national library in Russia.
Metzger's text of the New Testament-from the
first edition in 1964 to the fourth co-authored
by Bart Ehrman in 2005-leaves the distinct
impression that Tischendorf was simply shrewd
in brokering the gift of Sinaticus in exchange
for the appointment of the archbishop that
St. Catherine's monks wanted.
This is the text that most of us were weaned
on in matters related to New Testament textual
criticism.
That is Metzger's text, not Sinaticus.
Buried in a footnote, however, we see different
views on these events to which we will return
momentarily.
Suffice it to say that Metzger's massive influence,
coupled with a somewhat one-sided view of
things has contributed heavily to the western
perception of the monks of Sinai as careless
about their treasures and no better than Esau
who sold his birthright for a mess of porridge.
Before we look at the journey of Sinaticus
to England and the new finds, a brief note
should be mentioned of perhaps the most bizarre
aspect of this whole story.
When Tischendorf brought the manuscript to
Europe, the news was electrifying.
This was the oldest complete New Testament,
and still is, by 500 years.
And the only one written in majuscule, or
uncial script, it was also the only Greek
manuscript to have four columns per page,
and was the largest format Greek manuscript
ever discovered.
Besides that, it had the Epistle of Barnabus
it, a document only known by ancient testimony
until the discovery of Sinaticus, and it differed
markedly from the Byzantine text- so many
unique features.
All this sounded too good to be true, and
to some it was.
In particular, one Constantine Simonides-a
Greek man who Tischendorf had exposed as a
forger, although a brilliant forger-decided
to bust Tischendorf’s bubble.
Writing in the British magazine,
The Guardian, on the third September 1862,
Simonides claimed that he penned Sinaticus
in 1840.
He created quite a stir.
Several publications declared that Tischendorf
had lied on the basis of Simonides’s letter.
They were all too ready to condemn him.
The reason: it was simply too fantastic to
believe that a complete New Testament had
been found, let alone such an old one, and
that it differed markedly from the Byzantine
text.
There are some today, in fact, who still cling
to the notion that Simonides was indeed the
forger of the manuscript.
In large measure because they don't care for
the fact that such an old manuscript would
part company from the textus receptus.
Samual Purdo Trigellus wrote to F.J. Hort
after examining the manuscript for several
days, "I know of no reason for judging it
to be more recent than the fourth century,
and I need hardly say the story of Simonides-that
he wrote the manuscript-is as false and absurd
as possible.
A man might as well pretend that the Alexandrian
and the Vatican is a modern work.
Henry Bradshaw, the keeper of the manuscripts
at Cambridge University library visited Tischendorf
in Leibsegen July 1862, and he declared, "For
myself I have no hesitation that I am absolutely
certain of the genuineness and antiquity of
the Codex Sinaticus as I am of my own existence."
More can be said.
First, if Simonides penned Sinaticus, his
wealth must have been vast in light of how
much it would have cost to produce this manuscript.
It was made up originally of 365 animal skins.
According to one estimate, the cost of production
would be roughly the equivalent of a lifetime
of work.
But when Simonides supposedly penned it he
was only 20-years-old, and this manuscript
was, in his own admission, the poor work of
his youth.
Second, in 1761 an Italian scholar, Italiano
Donati, visited St. Catherine’s and described
the manuscript he saw there that matches Siniticus
to a tee.
This was 79 years before Simonides forged
it and 59 years before Simonides was born.
Third, the new finds in 1975 revealed that
more leaves of the manuscript were still at
Sinai.
How did they get there if Simonides forged
the manuscript somewhere else?
Well the Codex resided in St. Petersburg until
1933.
After the Bolshevik revolution of 1917, the
new communist government was badly in need
of funds, especially so once the depression
began to sweep over the world.
Through a London bookseller the British government
purchased the manuscript from Russia for 100,000
pounds-approximately half a million in that
day.
This was, at the time, the most money ever
spent for manuscript.
Nowadays manuscripts go for a whole lot more
than that.
P75 was sold by the Bodmers to the Vatican
for an undisclosed, but Yale University offered
50 million dollars for it and they were turned
down.
This was, at the time, the most money ever
paid for a manuscript.
the British raised the money through a subscription,
promising to pay half the bill out of the
government's coffers if individual citizens
would donate the rest.
The British citizenry did much more than comply;
they gave far more than half the price for
the manuscript.
The codex came to the British museum on December
27, 1933.
According to one source, many British wrote
to their American friends and relatives who
in turn contributed heavily to the purchase
of the codex.
In exchange, several pa-papery were sent to
American universities, perhaps as a guilt
offering.
So next time you're at the British library,
just ask if you can borrow Sinaticus and bring
it back to America to reside for the next
80 years, and we'll give them back those papery.
I've thought about doing that.
In 1873 when the British library separated
from the British museum, Codex Sinaticus moved
with it.
It now sits in the John Ritblat Gallery next
to Codex Alexandrinus, and not too far away
from a first edition of the Beatle's White
album.
Now back to Tischendorf in St. Catherine’s.
We all know about the discovery of the Dead
Sea Scrolls and the Nag Hammadi Codices, but
very close in importance to these remarkable
discoveries is another event that occurred
at St. Catherine’s in the 20th century.
In November, 1971 a fire broke out at St.
George's tower on the north wall.
After sufficient funds were raised to do some
restoration, the archimandrite Sophronious
began a cleaning project on May 25, 1975.
In the outer part of the wall facing the ancient
sanctuary was a wide opening that had been
filled in earth and wood.
Sophronius was tasked with cleaning this up
before restoration of the wall could begin.
But as some of the ruble was being removed
by Bedouin assistants he noticed a small piece
of parchment in the degree.
As he dug further into the opening into the
wall the next day he found a complete manuscript
leaf.
Day after day he made his way further into
the abandoned room and found more and more
manuscript leaves, but he had no flashlight,
only an oil lamp.
The dust was so thick that the oil lamp did
virtually no good.
He had to grope his way through the dust and
dark, trying not to damage any leaf fragments
that would be in his path.
He would usually last only two or three hours
before the dust chocked him too much, and
he'd have to depart.
On June 5th, 1975 he discovered a large, four-column
manuscript leaf with capital letters written
in the columns.
It was a leaf from Codex Siniticus from the
book of Numbers.
As the days continued on, and as the Scivovofolux
did his work in secret, telling only the archbishop
about his discovery, more leaves of Sinaticus
were found and many other manuscripts too.
After 4 days of physically painful work and
oppressive conditions, Sophronius had filled
47 large boxes with manuscripts and manuscript
fragments.
He estimated that they weighed about 2,000
lbs. altogether, one ton.
But what had he found?
Now the busy work of cleaning, stretching,
and cataloguing had to be done.
The national library in Athens sent scholars
to help decipher the manuscripts.
After 23 years they published their findings
in a catalogue called The New Finds.
At first it was published only in Greek, and
I received my copy from Father Justin just
weeks after it came out.
The next year, 1999, an English translation
also appeared.
What was in this forgotten storeroom?
About 1,200 manuscripts and 50,000 fragments
of manuscripts.
Among these were hundreds of liturgical, patristic,
and miscellaneous books-also 150 Septuagint
manuscripts, 90 New Testament manuscripts,
and 12 complete leaves, and 14 fragments of
Codex Sinaticus.
The Codex is probably the oldest manuscript
in the find, though there are some papyrus
fragments that are yet to be analyzed.
The latest manuscript is from the 18th century.
Archbishop Damianos had suspected for some
time that there might be treasures hidden
in the northern wall of the monastery.
This was where the sacristy had been previously.
When I visited St. Catherine's in 2002 with
a colleague from Dallas Seminary and an orthodox
priest, I had the opportunity to examine four
Greek manuscripts in the new finds collection.
The librarian, Father Simeon, told us that
we were the first outsiders permitted to examine
any of the Greek new finds manuscripts.
Remarkably, while looking at just four manuscripts
during the eight days we were there, I discovered
another two within them.
As I examined a majuscule of Paul's letters
from the 9th century, I began to notice under
text that had been scraped away.
It turned out to be a majuscule of the major
prophets.
The upper text is now identified as Gregory-Aland
0278, but the under text is still be analyzed.
Majuscule manuscripts of the prophets are
exceedingly rare.
I also came to the monastery to transcribe
the text of the Protoevangelium of James.
This was an ancient apocryphal work that even
the archbishop did not know that they had
a copy of.
It enjoyed wide popularity, even through the
Middle Ages.
As I worked through the Codex, I noticed halfway
through-when we switched to a second choir-that
the text had changed.
I was on a new fold or quire and was no longer
reading the Protoevangelium.
Instead it became the assumption of the virgin.
This was a very rare find.
As far as I know there are only five copies
of The Assumption in Greek that are still
extent-five copies.
This one is coeval with the oldest of them.
During our week at the monastery, I spent
much time with Father Justin.
He is the only American to find his home at
St. Catherine’s.
He used to be known as Russel Hicks of El
Paso.
Now Father Justin Sinaites is his name.
After Simeon retired, Father Justin was asked
by the archbishop to assume the role of Librarian.
Expensive digital camera equipment was installed,
and he is filling his spare time with the
painstaking task of digitizing the entire
collection of St. Catherines library.
With the new finds, the count now comes to
about 3,300 manuscripts, second only to the
Vatican in the world in terms of its manuscript
holdings.
Father Justin at one point took us to the
Genizah, where the new find's manuscripts
had been discovered.
It was nearly pitch black in the room.
The only way we could see anything was when
the flash went off on the camera.
You will notice in the pictures that the room
is quite filthy, and that it has kind of a
loft with a couple smaller compartments as
well.
Notice also the weave baskets on the floor,
now useless.
These same baskets were the kind used to carry
manuscripts as in this room, and in the library,
and kindling for the fires.
There is an extensive amount of work to be
done on the new find's manuscripts, which
are in almost a dozen different languages.
So, if you have a hankering to visit Egypt,
write to Father Justin sometime to see if
you might be able to examine one or two of
the manuscripts.
Just to digitize the collection, Father Justin
once told me would take 300 years at the current
price-pace.
But the archbishop is very pro-technology,
and the monastery isn't going anyplace.
Finally, I want to put all of this together
and make a reassessment of the discovery of
Codex Sinaticus.
Here are the salient facts and issues regarding
Tischendorf's discovery.
First of all, the new find's manuscripts are
a game-changer in my opinion.
Except for the scrap of parchment from Genesis
used as a bookmark, Tischendorf never found
any part of the Old Testament earlier than
1 Chronicles.
This allowed him to change that the monks
had been tearing out leaves of the Codex and
consigning them to the flames.
But when leaves, the leaves from the Pentateuch
were discovered-the Pentateuch were discovered
in 1975, as well as leaves from the Shepherd
of Hermas, a different picture emerges.
As is well known, because it is everyone's
experience, the outer leaves tend to fall
off.
Just take a look at some of the well-worn
paperbacks in your personal library sometime.
Now if the monks had been ripping leaves out
of the Codex and tossing them page by page
into the fire, one would expect the beginning
of the Old Testament to go first, but if leaves
from the Pentateuch and from the Shepherd
of Hermas were discovered in 1975 then a different
explanation comes to mind.
These would have been part of the outer choirs
of the Codex.
Rather than burning up these leaves, the monks
had moved the manuscripts from one part of
the compound to another, and the outer leaves
on several manuscripts had simply been left
behind.
Second, the latest manuscript stored in the
Genizah was in the 18th century.
This is significant, because it shows that
the practices of the monks at close to the
time that Tischendorf came there, was to store
manuscripts instead of burn them.
This is keeping with the practices known from
antiquity of Christian and Jewish scribes.
The great papyrologist, C.H. Roberts, who
in 1934 discovered P52, the oldest New Testament
Manuscript, gave the prestigious Shwipe Lectures
at Oxford University in 1977.
And he made the following comments about manuscript
preservations.
"It was a Jewish habit both to preserve manuscripts
by placing them in jars and also to dispose
of defective, worn out, or heretical scriptures
by burying them near a cemetery.
Roberts gave several examples of both kinds
of preservation.
For example, the Dead Sea Scrolls, the Chester
Beatty Papyri, the **Nagumati Codexes, the
Greek Psalter, and a coptic copy of John's
Gospel ranging over several centuries were
either put in jars or buried, but they were
not destroyed.
Robert Stein adds, "If the hypothesis is accepted
that Christians adopted the Jewish institute
of a Genizah or depository for manuscripts,
it would also explain why collections such
as the Ceser Beatty or Bodmer includes manuscripts
of differing date, and occasionally more than
one copy of the same book.
They would have deposited at different times.
Roberts did not know about the new finds at
the time of these lectures.
It seems that the monks at Sinai were following
an old tradition of walling up disused and
warn out manuscripts and leaves of manuscripts
that were on the outside of books rather than
burning them as Tischendorf claimed.
As I've already argued, the monks at Sinai
give us a window on the past.
It would be unthinkable for them to change
their modus operandi of how the dealt with
manuscripts within the space of a century.
In fact, some scholars would say that there's
virtually no evidence that Christian scribes
ever destroyed copies of Scripture.
At least, I think it's highly unlikely that
they would've been doing this at Sinai-especially
since that monastery had a long tradition
of its own manuscript production.
Third, we know that the monastery's manuscripts
were kept in more than one location for many
centuries, and in the mid 1700s a central
location on South wall was created, but even
then there was no rigorous system of keeping
the manuscripts in the library.
They would be spread out in several sites,
and as archbishop Damianos suspected, a logical
place for a storeroom of old discarded parchments
would be close to the sacristy where the more
sacred vessels and liturgical items would
be kept.
Since the common library was across the compound,
it makes since that a smaller library may
have well have been at St. Georges tower.
The very fact that a monk in 1859 could show
Tischendorf a 4th century majuscule which
he kept in his cell is testimony that although
they may have been careless about where the
manuscripts were, this does not mean that
they were tossing them into the flames.
Fourth, even apart from the long held traditions
about the sacredness of manuscripts and other
artifacts, the monks of Sinai would surely
have embraced there is the great implausibility
that they were burning parchment leaves.
Parchment is very difficult to burn, and the
heat generated cannot offset the vicious attack
on the olfactory and ocular organs.
If Tischendorf took the 43 Old Testament leaves
in 1844 without permission, from the archbishop
at least, perhaps buying them from one of
the monks, this may account for why he was
met with stubborn silence about the rest of
the codex on his second visit to the monastery
in 1853.
It certainly is not unheard of that the orthodox
would give manuscripts as gifts to outsiders.
Recall the gift of Codex Alexandrinus to King
Charles in 1627 by the patriarch of Constantinople,
**, nor were they averse to selling them.
But if Tischendorf, as a man barely 29-years-old
did not follow strict protocol at the monastery,
he would at least have received the cold shoulder
on a later visit.
This is the same today.
At some of the stricter monasteries, if the
scholar has not submitted in writing weeks
in advance a request to examine a particular
manuscript, he may not do so-even if he is
sitting right next to the manuscript in the
library.
I even know of one scholar who was permanently
banned from returning to a convent, because
he asked if he could look at a manuscript
which he had not requested in writing previously.
Sixth, did Tischendorf fabricate his story
of the monks burning leaves of manuscripts?
Perhaps.
The new finds certainly cast the most serious
doubts on his narratives.
After all, what he took from Sinai would be
perceived better if it looked like a rescue
mission rather than theft.
Alternatively, he may have been mistaken,
and he filled in some of the details that
were simply not true.
The same kinds of woven baskets that were
found in Genizah had been used to carry both
manuscripts and firewood.
If Tischendorf did not go into one of the
kitchens when the monks were baking bread
but stood outside of the doorway during the
prayer over the bread and the stoking of the
fires, he would no doubt have seen woven baskets
near the oven.
And he could have assumed that what was going
on into the ovens, going into the ovens were
manuscript leaves rather than some other kinds
of kindling.
From there he could have easily added vividness
to his story as though he were present with
the monks when they were tossing the kindling
into the furnace.
We know that his modern Greek was abysmal
at this time.
He claimed that he could neither understand
what the Greeks were saying, nor they him
because of his araspian pronunciation, and
that raises the question as to who in the
monastery would communicate with him?
I know the feeling.
On one of my expeditions to Greece I visited
the island of Lesbos and went to a retirement
home which owned its own Greek New Testament
manuscript.
What on earth would a retirement home be doing
with a lectionary manuscript?
When I got there I inquired about the document.
No one understood me, but when I opened my
request the doors of communication swung quite
open.
In 1960 a Russian scholar, Igor Savchenko,
while visiting St. Catherine’s discovered
a note penned by Tischendorf in which he promised
to return Codex Sinaticus whenever they asked
for it back.
If this note is authentic, it raises serious
doubts about whether the convent really intended
to give the Codex as a gift to the Tsar.
Just the texts of its contents were published
by Savchenko in 1964.
But here's a photograph in the note.
Written in modern Greek in the photograph
is courtesy of Father Justin.
And here's the translation.
I thee undersigned Constantine, Tischendorf
attest that the holy fraternity of Mr. Sinai
has delivered to me as a long and ancient
manuscript of both testaments being the property
of the aforesaid monastery and containing
346 leaves and a small fragment.
These I shall take with me to St. Petersburg
in order that I may colic the copy previously
made by me with the original at the time of
publication of the manuscript.
This manuscript, I promise to return, undamaged,
and in a good state of preservation to the
wholly confraternity of Sinai at its earliest
request.
Eight, is this document authentic?
Did Tischendorf really write it?
As we saw earlier, St. Catherine's brothers
were apparently not above forging a document
to save their skins.
They almost surely did this with a patent
of Muhammad several centuries earlier.
Is it possible that now they forged Tischendorf's
signature and note in attempt to get their
manuscript back?
In my visit to Sinai in 2002 I asked the then
librarian Simeon if he had any of the written
documents by Tischendorf.
He thought long and hard, and then, as the
lights suddenly came on, he replied, "Yes!
He penned a note of his Greek New Testament
that he gave to St. Catherine’s that he
gave on his second visit in 1853.
I had seen this New Testament in the library
display case earlier on my visit, but it was
a closed book.
So I asked Father Simeon if I could see the
note and photograph it.
He brought the book to me and granted me permission,
and here is the photograph.
And the text reads: "the present New Testament
has been published or written as a small gift
by me, the undersigned for the common library
of Sinai in the month of May, 1853, Constantine
Tischendorf.
To my knowledge, since the memo of 1859 has
never been published, no one has evaluated
the handwriting to make sure it is Tischendorf's.
But we now have a standard of comparison-the
note in the New Testament that Tischendorf
definitely penned in 1853.
Since Father Simeon was not in the least going
out of his way to prove the authenticity of
the signature, and since, to my knowledge,
no one else had ever taken a photograph of
it-any motive a forgery vanishes.
So what do the two documents tell us?
First of all, the greek handwriting is almost
identical between the two.
And second, there are two major differences.
One, Tischendorf messed up in the writing
of his own name in 1853 for getting the new
after the omega in Constantinas which he then
corrected.
And two, in his note in the New Testament,
the surname is not properly introduced.
With the genitive Tischendorf coming immediately
after the normative article haw, while in
the promise of 1859, he writes more properly
haw two and then Tischendorf.
How can these discrepancies be explained?
Since the note written 1853 is indisputably
Tischendorf's, one cannot attribute the beginning
of the New to a Forger.
And the reason for the more correct Caw two
in 1859 is most likely due to Tischendorf's
increasing comfort in composing Greek.
The discrepancies therefore, rather than suggesting
that the memo promising to return the manuscript
as a fake argues that it is authentic.
It fits well with growing ease that the German
scholar would have and proposing Greek, still
displays an awkwardness with the language.
Again, something that a forger would hardly
reproduce.
In conclusion, there is still much to learn
about Tischendorf's visits to St. Catherine’s.
There are many questions left unanswered at
least for now.
But what has been presented in the west for
many decades, that the original Indiana Jones
rescued one of the most important biblical
manuscripts from destruction, just in the
nick of time is almost surely a myth.
And in the end, this has the salutary effect
of restoring the Sinai brotherhood to its
rightful place of honor.
Thank you.
