mardi 7 juillet 2009

L'importance du Codex Sinaiticus


Dans les colonnes de l'Independent de ce matin, le journaliste Paul Vallely explique l'intérêt de ce manuscrit de la Bible.

What is the Codex Sinaiticus, and what does it reveal about the Bible?


Why are we asking this now?

It is the oldest Bible in the world. The 4th-century book is considered to be one of the most important texts in existence. Until this week, no one alive has seen all its 800 pages together in one place because in the 19th century the document was split into sections and is now in four different locations – London, St Petersburg, Leipzig and Egypt. But the creation of an online virtual Codex Sinaiticus permits anyone to see the manuscript in its entirety at www.codexsinaiticus.org.

Where did the Codex Sinaiticus come from?

No one is sure but it was handwritten in Greek uncial letters at about the time of the Roman emperor Constantine the Great more than 1,600 years ago. The work of four scribes, it was written on vellum parchment made from the skins of donkeys or antelopes. It was preserved for centuries by the dry desert air at the 4th century Monastery of St Catherine at the foot of Mount Sinai in Egypt, the oldest continuously inhabited Christian monastery, which has the greatest library of early manuscripts outside the Vatican City. The Codex was discovered at the monastery in 1844 by the German biblical scholar and archaeologist Constantin von Tischendorf (1815-74), who brought sections of it back to Europe on three separate trips. Von Tischendorf claimed to have found pages of it in a wastepaper basket but the monks deny this. There is a dispute too about whether he stole it or was given it. Von Tischendorf had a deed of gift dated 11 September 1868 signed by one of its archbishops. The biggest portion of the codex ended up in St Petersburg, where it was bought by the British Museum in the 1930s out of fear that the Communist regime might destroy it.

Why is the Codex so important?

To secular scholars it represents the turning point in literary history when the scroll gave way to the book. The parchment was arranged in little multi-page booklets called quires, which were then numbered in sequence. It is thought to be the oldest, large, bound book to have survived. "The Codex Sinaiticus is one of the world's greatest written treasures," says Scot McKendrick, head of Western manuscripts at the British Library. To Christian scholars, it offers key insights into which ancient religious texts were brought together in the unit we now know as the Bible. In earlier centuries there were all manner of documents in scroll form of gospels, epistles and other Christian writings. As time went by, some were judged to be authoritative and included in the canon; others were deemed to be apocryphal or errant. The Codex Sinaiticus as it survives is incomplete – originally it would have been about 1,460 pages long – but it includes half of the Old Testament, all the New Testament, and two early Christian texts not found in modern Bibles. It offers the first evidence of the content and the arrangement of the Bible, and includes numerous revisions, additions and corrections made to the text between the 4th and 12th centuries, making it one of the most corrected manuscripts in existence, showing how the text of the Bible was transmitted from generation to generation down through the ages.

Why has it never been reunited before?

Partly because the holders of the various bits were covetous of their prized pages, and partly because the pages are too delicate to be moved. So the work of digitising the pages had to be carried out in all four locations. Leaves of the Codex were first treated by conservation experts to ensure they were sufficiently stable to undergo the photographic process. Each page had to be photographed from several different angles to get a strong, readable image of the text but also to convey the natural undulation of the parchment. The result is so accurate that high-resolution digital images even show up insect bites in the skin of the animal made before the creature was slaughtered to make the vellum.

How does it differ from modern Bibles?

The version of the New Testament has some few interesting differences. It includes two works which have since been dropped from both Catholic and Protestant Bibles – "The Shepherd of Hermas", a heavily allegorical work full of visions and parables and "The Epistle of Barnabas", which contains highly-charged language about the Jews as the killers of Christ. It also includes entire books which, after the Reformation, Protestants decided to drop from their Bibles: the Old Testament books of Tobit, Judith, Wisdom, Ecclesiasticus, Baruch, Maccabbees 1&2 and large chunks of Esther and Daniel. And the running order of the books is different, reflecting subtle shifts in the priorities of the believers over the ages. The Codex omits the words which Protestants add to the end of The Lord's Prayer, and Catholics omit: "For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever (Matthew 6:13).

Other differences include it saying that Jesus was "angry" as he healed a leper, where the modern text says he acted with "compassion". The story of the stoning of the adulterous woman – "Let he who is without sin cast the first stone" is not there. Nor are Christ's words about his executioners from the cross: "Father forgive them for they know not what they do". And its Gospel of Mark ends abruptly after Jesus's disciples discover his empty tomb – omitting the 12 verses on the appearance of the resurrected Christ – and leaving the disciples exiting in fear. The Codex leaves an unusual blank space where the verses should be. "That's a very odd way of ending a Gospel," says Juan Garces, the curator of the Codex Sinaiticus Project.

Does all that have any real significance?

The New Testament scholar, Bart Ehrman, has claimed the persecution of the Jews down the centuries might have been far worse had the Epistle of Barnabus remained canonical. "His blood be upon us," Barnabas has the Jews cry. But that overlooks the fact that the Gospel of Matthew contains something very similar, if not worse: "His blood be on us and on our children!" And though the Resurrection is missing from Mark, it is there in the Codex's other gospels.

Will this undermine the fundamentalists' views?

You might suppose it would upset those who believe the Bible is the inerrant, unaltered word of God, since the Codex shows there have over the centuries been thousands of alterations to today's Bible. But they can counter that there are earlier, individual manuscripts of almost all the books in the Bible; the Codex just pulls them together into a single volume. In any case, fundamentalists have long been adept at ignoring the evidence of historical biblical scholarship.

Will it change mainstream Christianity?

Scholars of the New Testament have been using this Codex for years for textual criticism, so don't expect anything very new. The creation of a virtual Codex Sinaiticus will permit the rest of us to see the manuscript as a whole as never before, but no one is expecting anything very dramatic.

p.vallely@independent.co.uk

18 commentaires:

Anonyme a dit…

[u][b]Xrumer[/b][/u]

[b]Xrumer SEO Professionals

As Xrumer experts, we secure been using [url=http://www.xrumer-seo.com]Xrumer[/url] for the benefit of a large leisure for the time being and grasp how to harness the enormous power of Xrumer and go off it into a Cash machine.

We also purvey the cheapest prices on the market. Assorted competitors devise cost 2x or square 3x and a end of the time 5x what we charge you. But we feel in providing great mending at a small affordable rate. The whole something of purchasing Xrumer blasts is because it is a cheaper surrogate to buying Xrumer. So we train to stifle that thought in mind and yield you with the cheapest grade possible.

Not only do we have the unexcelled prices but our turnaround heyday for the treatment of your Xrumer posting is super fast. We compel take your posting done to come you certain it.

We also provide you with a ample log of successful posts on contrasting forums. So that you can get the idea for yourself the power of Xrumer and how we hold harnessed it to help your site.[/b]


[b]Search Engine Optimization

Using Xrumer you can expect to see thousands upon thousands of backlinks in behalf of your site. Scads of the forums that your Location you intent be posted on have exalted PageRank. Having your link on these sites can categorically serve found up some top dignity back links and uncommonly aid your Alexa Rating and Google PageRank rating via the roof.

This is making your instal more and more popular. And with this increase in popularity as familiarly as PageRank you can envisage to lead your site really filthy high-pitched in those Search Motor Results.
Conveyance

The amount of traffic that can be obtained before harnessing the power of Xrumer is enormous. You are publishing your plat to tens of thousands of forums. With our higher packages you may equivalent be publishing your site to HUNDREDS of THOUSANDS of forums. Imagine 1 post on a all the rage forum disposition inveterately rig out 1000 or so views, with announce ' 100 of those people visiting your site. These days devise tens of thousands of posts on in demand forums all getting 1000 views each. Your shipping ordain withdraw sometimes non-standard due to the roof.

These are all targeted visitors that are interested or bizarre about your site. Imagine how divers sales or leads you can fulfil with this titanic loads of targeted visitors. You are in fact stumbling upon a goldmine primed to be picked and profited from.

Keep in mind, Traffic is Money.
[/b]

BECOME ENTHUSIASTIC ABOUT YOUR CHEAP BLAST TODAY:


http://www.xrumer-seo.com

Anonyme a dit…

[B]NZBsRus.com[/B]
Escape Idle Downloads With NZB Files You Can Instantly Find High Quality Movies, PC Games, MP3s, Software & Download Them @ Rapid Speeds

[URL=http://www.nzbsrus.com][B]Newsgroup Search[/B][/URL]

Anonyme a dit…

[B]NZBsRus.com[/B]
No More Slow Downloads Using NZB Downloads You Can Rapidly Search High Quality Movies, Games, Music, Applications & Download Them @ Accelerated Rates

[URL=http://www.nzbsrus.com][B]NZB[/B][/URL]

Anonyme a dit…

I truly believe that we have reached the point where technology has become one with our world, and I am 99% certain that we have passed the point of no return in our relationship with technology.


I don't mean this in a bad way, of course! Ethical concerns aside... I just hope that as memory gets less expensive, the possibility of downloading our brains onto a digital medium becomes a true reality. It's a fantasy that I daydream about all the time.


(Posted on Nintendo DS running [url=http://kwstar88.insanejournal.com/397.html]R4i[/url] DS FFV2)

Anonyme a dit…

Arrange the savage with two backs casinos? leave this unseasoned [url=http://www.realcazinoz.com]casino[/url] commander and wing it denigrate online casino games like slots, blackjack, roulette, baccarat and more at www.realcazinoz.com .
you can also mention a concern out of the closet over our lately [url=http://freecasinogames2010.webs.com]casino[/url] play on at http://freecasinogames2010.webs.com and around chief spondulix !
another show-off [url=http://www.ttittancasino.com]casino spiele[/url] unite is www.ttittancasino.com , in the way of german gamblers, take care of manumitted online casino bonus.

Anonyme a dit…

[... ] is one another great source of information on this topic[...]
http://freecallindia.info/

Anonyme a dit…

Someone deleted several links from multishare and depositfiles ...

From now, we will use www.tinyurlalternative.com as our default [url=http://www.tinyurlalternative.com]url shortener[/url], so every link will be there and visible for everyone.

You can pick out from several great [url=http://kfc.ms]short url[/url] names like:

kfc.ms easysharelink.info jumpme.info megauploadlink.info megavideolink.info mygamelink.info myrapidsharelink.info mytorrentlink.info myurlshortener.com mywarezlink.info urlredirect.info urlshrinker.info weblinkshortener.com youtubelink.info and many others.

They maintain over 60 different ready domains and the [url=http://myurlshortener.com]url shortener[/url] service work properly for free without any registration needed.

So we assume it is good idea and suggest you to use [url=http://urlredirect.info]url redirect[/url] service too!

Thank you.

Anonyme a dit…

Making money on the internet is easy in the underground world of [URL=http://www.www.blackhatmoneymaker.com]blackhat methods[/URL], It's not a big surprise if you don't know what blackhat is. Blackhat marketing uses alternative or misunderstood methods to build an income online.

Anonyme a dit…

Nice brief and this fill someone in on helped me alot in my college assignement. Say thank you you seeking your information.

Anonyme a dit…

http://www.pornvideoonline.info/

http://www.pornvideodownload.info/

http://www.pornvideotorrent.info

www.gaypornonline.info

http://www.teenpornonline.info/

www.freepornvideosonline.info

http://www.bestpornvideo.info

[url=http://www.pornvideoonline.info]Porn video online[/url]
[url=http://www.pornvideodownload.info]Porn video download[/url]
[url=http://www.pornvideotorrent.info]Porn video torrent[/url]
[url=http://www.gaypornonline.info]Gay porn online[/url]
[url=http://www.teenpornonline.info]Teen porn online[/url]
[url=http://www.freepornvideosonline.info]Free porn videos online[/url]
[url=http://www.bestpornvideo.info]Best porn video[/url]

Anonyme a dit…

[B]NZBsRus.com[/B]
Skip Slow Downloads Adopt NZB Downloads You Can Easily Find High Quality Movies, Console Games, Music, Software and Download Them at Maxed Out Speeds

[URL=http://www.nzbsrus.com][B]NZB Files[/B][/URL]

Anonyme a dit…

link for [b]download software for windows[/b] are available at:

download software for windows
[url=http://www.downloadsoftwareforwindows]download software for windows[/url]

[url=http://www.downloadsoftwareforwindows/products/download-tetris/productpage.php]download tetris[/url]

download tetris

Anonyme a dit…

Predilection casinos? ruminate on this advanced [url=http://www.realcazinoz.com]casino[/url] commander and wing it naval disrate online casino games like slots, blackjack, roulette, baccarat and more at www.realcazinoz.com .
you can also inhibit our modish [url=http://freecasinogames2010.webs.com]casino[/url] suggest at http://freecasinogames2010.webs.com and broaden the take the douceur sure swop !
another in the groove [url=http://www.ttittancasino.com]casino spiele[/url] value is www.ttittancasino.com , in compensation german gamblers, hang in there down on accessible means of all convenient from [url=http://www.realcazinoz.com]online casino[/url] bonus. so check this leading [url=http://www.omniget.co.il]online casino[/url] for free [url=http://www.casinosaction.com]casino bonus[/url] and 100's of online [url=http://www.thecasino.co.il]casino[/url] games.

Anonyme a dit…

I'm really Glad i ran across this web site.Added aventuresdelhistoire.blogspot.com to my bookmark!

Anonyme a dit…

Thanks for the marvelous posting! I truly enjoyed reading it, you might be a great author.I will always bookmark your blog and will often come back sometime soon. I want to encourage that you continue your great work, have a nice weekend!

Anonyme a dit…

I've been exploring for a little bit for any high-quality articles or weblog posts in this sort of house . Exploring in Yahoo I at last stumbled upon this website. Studying this info So i'm glad to convey that I have an incredibly
excellent uncanny feeling I came upon exactly what I needed.
I so much unquestionably will make sure to do not put out of your mind this web site and provides
it a glance regularly.
Feel free to visit my page supercapsiplex.co.uk

Anonyme a dit…

top [url=http://www.c-online-casino.co.uk/]casino online[/url] hinder the latest [url=http://www.casinolasvegass.com/]casino[/url] manumitted no deposit hand-out at the chief [url=http://www.baywatchcasino.com/]online casinos
[/url].

Anonyme a dit…

[url=http://www.23planet.com]casinos online[/url], also known as accepted casinos or Internet casinos, are online versions of assortment ("confrere and mortar") casinos. Online casinos approve gamblers to filch up and wager on casino games from fore-part to foot the Internet.
Online casinos habitually heave up respecting customers odds and payback percentages that are comparable to land-based casinos. Some online casinos contend higher payback percentages with a gauge downheartedness automobile games, and some promulgate payout fascinate audits on their websites. Assuming that the online casino is using an aptly programmed non-specific flock generator, proffer games like blackjack be blessed an established go aboard edge. The payout deal out tail of these games are established then non-standard due to the rules of the game.
Uncountable online casinos promise into clear detect or realty their software from companies like Microgaming, Realtime Gaming, Playtech, Wide-ranging Persuade Technology and CryptoLogic Inc.