All modern non-King James Bibles, and all modern doubting footnotes,
including doubting footnotes in King James and
New King James Bibles, are based upon two
supposedly ancient Bibles: the Sinaiticus and the Vaticanus.
What if one of those two pillars, Codex Sinaiticus,
is a fake?
Hi, I'm David Daniels from Chick Publications.
Let me clarify:
When you open most modern Bibles to 1 John 5:7-8,
the words of the Godhead, "the Father, the Word,
and the Holy Ghost: and these three are one,"
it's missing. Why?
Largely because it's missing in the Sinaiticus.
That helped to tip the balance against those important words.
When you turn to Mark 16:9-20 in most modern Bibles,
it's got a note, a thick line,
a separate heading and/or a footnote
that says it doesn't belong; don't trust it.
Why?
Out of 620 manuscripts that contain Mark's gospel,
618 of them have those verses. That's all 600 minuscules
(that's lower case letters), all 15 uncials
(that's upper case letters), and 3 of 5 codices
(you know, "big books").
Only 2 of the 620 leave out those verses:
The Sinaiticus and the Vaticanus. And both of them
were only made public in the decade before
Westcott, Hort and others started the move to
completely change the Bible.
Sound suspicious? Believe it or not,
there is a hidden agenda in all of what
you are about you hear.
But for now, let's look closer at the Sinaiticus.
Researcher Steven Avery contacted me last year
and let me look at an amazing thing. Did you know
they put the Sinaiticus --what we have of it--
online?
Yeah! And the various pieces
from wherever they are stored, are digitally "together,"
so you can turn from page to page!
He asked me to look at a particular section.
You see, the Sinaiticus has at least two sections
that were removed on purpose.
The guy who says he discovered it
was Constantin Tischendorf.
In 1844 he said to his family that some materials had...
let's say "come into his possession."
He decided to take them to Leipzig University Library,
where they still are to this day. He gave them as a gift
to Frederick Augustus II of Saxony, who paid for his trip,
and were named Codex Friderico-Augustanus,
after him (CFA, for short).
Here's the first page of the CFA. Starts at 1 Chronicles 11:22.
Here's a middle page of the CFA. Tobit 1:7 -- 2:2
And here's the last page of this section.
Ends at Lamentations 2:20. Tischendorf published
what was in the CFA, 43 leaves, 172 pages,
in 1846.
Tischendorf went back in 1853.
Details are sketchy about that visit.
Then somehow, in 1859, when Tischendorf came back
to St. Catherine's Monastery in the Sinai Peninsula,
paid for by Tsar Alexander II of Russia,
with Russian government aid, he managed to return
with something he called the Codex Sinaiticus.
After that, with Russian backing,
he transcribed the text and in 1862, Tischendorf published
what we now call Codex Sinaiticus.
Here's where it gets a little strange.
In 2014, early last year, Steven Avery asked me
to look at this CFA, the part Tischendorf
gave to Frederick. I told him "I am not sure
what I could contribute -- though I don't mind looking."
So I just looked at the pages, back and forth,
over and over, for hours.
I was looking to see if someone had
whitened up the CFA for the King of Saxony.
You saw how white it was.
But what I found was even stranger:
Someone had darkened the rest
of Sinaiticus!
Take a look. These are either side of the book,
like this. On either side of the CFA sections,
it looks really funny.
It totally reminds me of coffee stains in my books
(I have them), except that it was more watery,
and brushed out over the page. Then after that
it kind of levels out, without the massive streaky look
on the next pages. But it still has that dark color.
Why would anyone darken the pages?
It gets creepier.
It turns out that two different guys
visited the monastery the year after Tischendorf did,
to see this manuscript among others,
after he took the CFA away. And one of them wrote about it,
Porfiry Uspensky, a Russian bishop.
He visited St. Catherine's in 1845, the year after Tischendorf.
This is white.
He said all of it was WHITE! But look at Matthew, for instance,
after Tischendorf got hold of it:
Does this look white to you? It looks like coffee stains,
tea stains, tobacco juice stains, something like that.
I smell a con.
I have books on forgeries and stuff, but Steven checked
through the 1800s for how they made books look old.
Guess what they used? Coffee, tea, stuff like that!
But why would anyone take a valuable, pristine,
lily-white ancient Bible and make it look old, and rotten,
and without covers? Oh, did I mention
it doesn't have a cover? It doesn't.
Nobody's ever seen one-- Well--not in modern times
and not since Tischendorf had it.
I have to save that for another vlog. It'll take too much time.
Sorry.
But I can say this, something that will
really make you think.
When you accept the Alexandrian manuscripts,
led by the (cough, cough) "oldest and best"
Sinaiticus and Vaticanus, you also accept
the Alexandrian scholars who wrote them.
When you accept the scholars who wrote them,
you say good things about their judgment
and their Christianity.
So a Roman Catholic can come up to you and say
something like this:
"You are using the Alexandrian Text, I see."
--Yes.
"That's the one we like. Where's the rest of it?"
--What?
"You have most of the Bible, but you forgot the rest of it.
You know, you call it the Apocrypha.
We call it the Deuterocanonicals. Same thing."
--What do you mean?
"Well, EVERY Alexandrian codex has a Greek Old Testament
and a Greek New Testament, but it also has the Apocrypha.
Your Bible is missing the Apocrypha. You said you trust the Alexandrians,
so go all the way. Put it back in.
And if you put it in, you will believe in Purgatory,
just like we do."
In 1966, the United Bible Societies
(as I proved in my book) did exactly that,
all around the world.
And the Roman Catholic can say to you,
"Now we can all agree on one Bible.
One world Bible, for one world church!"
God bless you, and have a wonderful day.