Freethought & Rationalism Archive

noah · 03-30-2005, 01:43 AM

Hey All!

I'm new here. I have not posted before, although I sure have learned a lot from all your posts.
Can anyone tell me anything about the Syriacus Sinaiticus? I understand it says that Joseph was Jesus' father. Is it considerd legit? I ask because I don't see it mentioned very much by bible critics.

Regards,

Noah

fta · 03-30-2005, 02:48 AM

The Catholic Encyclopedia explains away the difficulty thus:

Quote:

The friends of modern theology at first believed that they possessed a solid foundation for denying the virgin birth in the Codex Syrus Sinaiticus discovered by Mrs. Lewis and Mrs. Gibson in 1892, more accurately investigated in 1893, published in 1894, and supplemented in 1896. According to this codex, Matthew 1:16 reads: "Joseph to whom was espoused Mary the Virgin, begot Jesus who is called Christ." Still, the Syriac translator cannot have been ignorant of the virgin birth. Why did he leave the expression "the virgin" in the immediate context? How did he understand verses 18, 20, and 25, if he did not know anything of the virgin birth? Hence, either the Syriac text has been slightly altered by a transcriber (only one letter had to be changed) or the translator understood the word begot of conventional, not of carnal, fatherhood, a meaning it has in verses 8 and 12.

andrewcriddle · 03-30-2005, 07:25 AM

There are in effect three readings of Matthew 1:16

a/ 'And Jacob begot Joseph the husband of Mary of whom Jesus was born who is called Christ' supported by the vast majority of manuscripts.

b/ 'And Jacob begot Joseph to whom being bethrothed the virgin Mary bore Jesus who is called Christ' supported by a few 'Caesarean' type Greek manuscripts some Old Latin and (with minor variations) the Curetonian Syriac and the Armenian.

c/ 'Jacob begot Joseph; Joseph, to whom was bethrothed Mary the virgin, begot Jesus who is called Christ' supported by the Sinaiticus Syriac and dubiously by a few scattered citations in later works mainly Syriac. (These are genuinely dubious evidence for reading c/ which has no unequivocal support apart from the Sinaiticus Syriac.)

The probabilities are that reading c/ is a paraphrase, maybe an exclusively Syriac paraphrase, of reading b/ and that the only genuinely ancient readings of Matthew 1:16 are a/ and b/.

Andrew Criddle

03-30-2005, 01:43 AM	#1
noah Regular Member Join Date: Jan 2005 Location: Canada Posts: 287	Syriacus Sinaiticus Hey All! I'm new here. I have not posted before, although I sure have learned a lot from all your posts. Can anyone tell me anything about the Syriacus Sinaiticus? I understand it says that Joseph was Jesus' father. Is it considerd legit? I ask because I don't see it mentioned very much by bible critics. Regards, Noah

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03-30-2005, 07:25 AM	#3
andrewcriddle Veteran Member Join Date: Sep 2004 Location: Birmingham UK Posts: 4,876	There are in effect three readings of Matthew 1:16 a/ 'And Jacob begot Joseph the husband of Mary of whom Jesus was born who is called Christ' supported by the vast majority of manuscripts. b/ 'And Jacob begot Joseph to whom being bethrothed the virgin Mary bore Jesus who is called Christ' supported by a few 'Caesarean' type Greek manuscripts some Old Latin and (with minor variations) the Curetonian Syriac and the Armenian. c/ 'Jacob begot Joseph; Joseph, to whom was bethrothed Mary the virgin, begot Jesus who is called Christ' supported by the Sinaiticus Syriac and dubiously by a few scattered citations in later works mainly Syriac. (These are genuinely dubious evidence for reading c/ which has no unequivocal support apart from the Sinaiticus Syriac.) The probabilities are that reading c/ is a paraphrase, maybe an exclusively Syriac paraphrase, of reading b/ and that the only genuinely ancient readings of Matthew 1:16 are a/ and b/. Andrew Criddle

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