As I'm about to show you, we know historically that
the document called the Sinaiticus was changed.
You can't get around it.
Something that was snow white became dark and stained
--all throughout 694 pages!
But who would do something like that?
Or logically speaking, who HAD to have either done it,
or been in partnership with whoever did it?
It's unbelievable, but I don't see another option.
And it sheds a harsh light on my education and
even some of my own assumptions. Want to hear what I learned?
Hi, I'm David Daniels from Chick Publications.
In my last video, "Is Sinaiticus a Fake?",
I showed you how sometime during the 1800s
the huge codex (big book) we call Codex Sinaiticus
was changed from white to stained and dark.
Let's break that down a bit. I am indebted to researcher
Steven Avery once again for his painstaking research.
Listen to this timeline.
In 1844-1850 all of Sinaiticus --meaning the so-called
Septuagint Old Testament with embedded Apocrypha, and
including the New Testament, plus the Epistle of Barnabas and
the Shepherd of Hermas --every bit of it was clearly white,
witnessed as white, described as white.
Two sections of it were taken away in 1844,
ultimately to the king of Saxony. That's in Leipzig,
in modern Germany.
And anyone can see that the Codex Friderico-Augustanus
(CFA for short) is white, to this very day.
Then Porfiry Uspensky of Russia saw what was left of it the next year,
and described it as white in 1845. Then he visited again in 1850.
It was still white. He published that fact
in his two books on his journeys, published in 1856 and 1857.
That covers 1844 to 1850, 6 to 7 years.
And, maybe because Leipzig is right there in Germany,
people saw the CFA so white and thought the whole Sinaiticus
was white, as well.
In 1910 the Encyclopaedia of Religion and Ethics:
Bible in the Church said "the Sinaitic Manuscript" was
"wonderfully fine snow-white parchment."
And listen to this 1913 description by another writer,
J.A. McClymont:
"...Sinaiticus... was rescued from oblivion...
by the famous critic, Tischendorf... and now lies in
the Library of St. Petersburg [that's Russia].
It is written on snow-white vellum, supposed to have been made
from the skins of antelopes."
So according to two authors, the Sinaiticus was what?
"Snow white."
But there's just one problem: IT WASN'T!
In point of fact, after 1859 it was actually dark.
That is after Tischendorf got hold of it.
How do we know that, since those later writers described it
as "snow white"?
From Tischendorf himself! Listen.
In 1862 Tischendorf described them as
"sufflava" --a Latin word that means "yellowed."
Also in 1862 Tischendorf allowed another scholar,
Tregelles, to examine Sinaiticus for three days.
So if it were changed after that date, Tregelles would have known it.
In 1864 Frederick Scrivener, in his own book,
A Full Collation of the Codex Sinaiticus
with the Received Text of the New Testament, said
"the vellum leaves" were "now almost yellow in colour."
And in 1911, Helen and Kirsopp Lake
photographed the Sinaiticus in color, so there was no hiding
what they saw.
They said "... the thicker leaves... are inclined to a yellowish tint."
So people who actually saw the big part of the Sinaiticus,
thought it was yellow.
Those who saw it before Tischendorf had it,
or only saw the CFA in Germany, said it was snow white.
And the CFA, which was quickly (1844) sent to the king of Saxony,
in modern Germany, was and still is white.
So why did people still think it was all white,
after Tischendorf published the Sinaiticus in 1862?
My thought: people could see
the CFA part in Germany. People could not see
the rest, all the way in Russia.
People had no reason to doubt that the whole Sinaiticus
looked the same. So whoever saw
the snow white CFA assumed it was all white.
But those who saw the rest of the Sinaiticus
that Tischendorf spent all that time with,
assumed it was all yellowed and dark, with those stains.
There were two sets of people, writing about two colors of Sinaiticus,
at the same time.
And nobody even noticed! Because not until
the last couple of years has anyone
put all the known pieces of the Sinaiticus together
where we can see them with our own eyes.
What does this tell us? There are only so many years
between when we knew the Sinaiticus as a whole was white,
and when a large part of it became dark.
1844-1850: white.
1862: dark.
But wait. Tischendorf got
the big part of it in 1859. And remember,
when he got the CFA --his story says he only got
a third of what he saw. So if someone else had darkened it,
Tischendorf would have known, because it was part of the pages
of the Bible he got in 1859. Then he could have cried foul!
"What are you doing, destroying the most ancient
text of the Bible?"
But he didn't. He had to have known
that the Sinaiticus was actually snow white.
He himself said he saw, not just 43 leaves, but another 86!
Those were part of what he brought back from
St. Catherine's monastery in 1859.
That means one of two things:
1. It was darkened between 1850 and 1859,
and Tischendorf knew, but said nothing about it.
2. It was darkened sometime after he got it in 1859,
and he hoped no one would ever know it was white.
So either Tischendorf did it, or he knew who did it,
and was an accomplice.
Tischendorf doesn't sound too good right now, does he?
But let's look at it from a totally different angle.
How does God deal with hidden things?
In Luke 8:17 and a lot of other places, Jesus said,
17 "For nothing is secret, that shall not be made manifest;
neither any thing hid, that shall not be known
and come abroad."
Jesus also said in Matthew 10:27,
27 "What I tell you in darkness, that speak ye in light:
and what ye hear in the ear, that preach ye upon the housetops."
And remember what Jesus thanked God for?
In both Matthew 11:25 and in Luke?
Listen to Matthew 11:25.
25 "At that time Jesus answered and said,
I thank thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth,
because thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent,
and hast revealed them unto babes."
See? That is God's pattern. He reveals His truth
to humble people. And then he wants
everyone to know about it.
Anyone studying Tischendorf will realize he was proud and loud
and kowtowed to the pope, even though he was a Protestant.
It seems that Tischendorf had his own "holy grail," so to speak,
called the Codex Vaticanus.
He spent years doing favors for Catholic leaders,
so they would write letters to the pope, to say
that Tischendorf was worthy to see it.
Sinaiticus and Vaticanus have something in common.
They were both allegedly under the care of monks or Catholics,
and kept hidden from the common Christians for centuries.
Does that sound like the fulfillment of God's promise
to preserve His words? In hidden places?
In secret? Away from the people
for close to 2,000 years? And the only way
they could get them is to kowtow to monks
or Jesuits or do favors for kings or the pope?
That's something that never sounded right to me,
not even when I was told all this in Bible college.
And what was the result?
In Luke 8, a woman with a flow of blood
tried to just grab the hem of Jesus' garment
in the midst of a big crowd. She thought she was hidden,
as she asked in faith for God to heal her.
Look at verse 47.
Luke 8:47 "And when the woman saw
that she was not hid, she came trembling,
and falling down before him, she declared unto him
before all the people for what cause
she had touched him, and how she was healed
immediately. 48 And he said unto her,
Daughter, be of good comfort:
thy faith hath made thee whole; go in peace."
See? The woman
could not be hidden from God. The truth came out,
and she fell before Jesus and declared everything!
It was awesome! I hope I can see the video
in heaven!
And what did Jesus say to her? "Thy faith hath made thee whole..."
Let me ask you:
Did Tischendorf's alleged "discovery" bring him to his knees?
Did Tischendorf fall on his face and from pure conviction before God,
spread the gospel and preach Christ crucified
and salvation by grace through faith for the rest of his life
out of his gratefulness for such a find?
Nope. He was still proud.
He was still sneaky. He or someone he knew
darkened the Sinaiticus parts he had, to make them look old.
He lied about that, even if nothing else.
He engaged in intrigue to "borrow" or "buy" or "steal"
the manuscripts --unless, of course,
he forged them himself. Then he's a liar
and a counterfeiter and a con man.
These are not the actions of a man of faith.
And I cannot see God rewarding that with
the "discovery of the century." But hey, that's just me.
And it doesn't matter if it was made by
Alexandrian intellectuals in 325-350,
or was made from scratch in the 1800s,
it doesn't bear the marks of something holy to God.
It isn't based on faith.
It doesn't produce faith.
In fact, it spawns doubt.
It doesn't lift up Christ. It lowers Christ!
The god of the Sinaiticus didn't keep his promises.
But our God did.
And we have the proof, with 400+ years' worth of testing:
God's preserved words in English, the King James Bible.
I am finally beginning to believe
that Constantin Tischendorf did something to the text,
and never admitted it.
Nor did anyone else around him admit it.
So it may have happened before anyone of them
actually saw what he had done.
All he had to do was
NOT show the two parts together,
and discredit anyone who had seen them all before 1859.
And by the way, that is exactly what he did.
And it worked --until just a few years ago.
But remember, even if every textual critic
and teacher and even preacher in the world
told you the opposite, the truth I just showed you
is now coming out.
Don't be afraid. As Jesus said in Matthew 10:26,
26 "Fear them not therefore: for there is nothing covered,
that shall not be revealed; and hid,
that shall not be known."
Listen to this:
2 Corinthians 4:2 "But [we] have renounced
the hidden things of dishonesty,
not walking in craftiness,
nor handling the word of God deceitfully;
but by manifestation of the truth
commending ourselves
to every man's conscience
in the sight of God."
I can't trust the Sinaiticus. But remember,
if I cannot trust the Sinaiticus, then neither can I trust
almost ANY BIBLE ON THE MARKET,
that is, except the King James
or other preserved Bible.
The more I know, the more I like
--no, the more I love-- my King James.
God bless you, and have a wonderful day.