James White is wrong: Tischendorf DID find Sinaiticus in a trash basket

This is one of those side issues that should not be allowed to become a major bone of contention, but I'll give it one post and hope that's the end of it. The reason for posting on it is that it is one of the factual points that James White got wrong in the Moorman-White debate (and apparently in his book as well), insisting that the manuscript was not found in a wastebasket but presented to Tischendorf wrapped in red cloth.

The whole thing is cleared up in the comments about the Wikipedia article on Sinaiticus, on this post of Dr. Waite's notes on the debate. I got a couple of comments there on the subject of Tischendorf's wastebasket find, one from Damien, who I believe is from the site KJV Only Debate, and one from Steven Avery who has started his own blog, Pure Bible.

Damien seems to share Dr. White's confusion on the subject, saying:

The Wikipedia article does not say that Tischendorf found Sinaiticus in a waste basket - it says he found scraps of parchment in a wastebasket, which he concluded was the Septuagint. This discovery led him to Sinaiticus, which even the Wikipedia article says Tischendorf found in a "beautiful vellum."

I reread the Wikipedia article and responded:

It looks like I did confuse different parts of the story with each other, the finding of the Septuagint leaves with the later acquisition of the Codex Sinaiticus. But Tischendorf also gives the same story of finding the Sinaiticus in the rubbish. He's also reported as telling the story of coming back later and being shown the Sinaiticus wrapped in a red cloth as Dr. White describes it as having been found, but Tischendorf says this is the SAME Sinaiticus he had earlier found in the waste basket. Tischendorf seems to make it all up as he goes along and is hardly to be trusted, but in any case he SAID he'd found it in the trash and that part White left out. He should have acknowledged this instead of implying it was only a fabrication by KJVOs.

Also, it is objected that a manuscript in such fine condition would not have been put in the trash at all. BUT a manuscript in fine condition is a manuscript that hadn't been used and might very well have been discarded for that reason, and its disuse is a clue that Sinaiticus was not considered by anyone to be the true text of the Bible.

Avery then clears up the matter in his comment:

The "Septuagint leaves"are simply the first part of what Tischendorf got of Sinaiticus in the first visit.

This is very clear in the account, so James White either has major reading comprehension difficulties (for 15 years!) or he is being deliberately deceptive, pretending that the first visit with the waste basket ready for burning (according to Tishendorf) was not Codex Sinaiticus.

I have placed this together on two posts on two forums {I turned the bare links into titles -- Faith}:

Tischendorf's account of finding Codex Sinaiticus

[TC-Alternate-list] James White myths about Codex Sinaiticus

This is all rather simple, no great complications.
Hope that helps.

(Another forum where this could be easily discussed in WhichVersion on Yahoogroups)

Shalom,
Steven Avery
schmuel@nyc.rr.com

February 9, 2011 5:40 PM

The discussion at the first link he gives includes a link to Tischendorf's own description at Google books.