Lobegott Friedrich Constantin (von) Tischendorf (18 January 1815 – 7 December 1874) was a German biblical scholar. In 1844, he discovered the world's oldest and most complete Bible dated to around the mid-4th century and called Codex Sinaiticus after Saint Catherine's Monastery at Mount Sinai, where Tischendorf discovered it.
Tischendorf was made an honorary doctor by the University of Oxford on 16 March 1865, and by the University of Cambridge on 9 March 1865 following this find of the century. While a student gaining his academic degree in the 1840s, he earned international recognition when he deciphered the Codex Ephraemi Rescriptus, a 5th-century Greek manuscript of the New Testament.
Title page from Tischendirf's facsimile edition of the Codex Sinaiticus, published in 1862
Tischendorf was born in Lengenfeld, Saxony, near Plauen, the son of a physician. Beginning in 1834, he spent his scholarly career at the University of Leipzig where he was mainly influenced by JGB Winer, and he began to take special interest in New Testament criticism. Winer's influence gave him the desire to use the oldest manuscripts in order to compile the text of the New Testament as close to the original as possible. In 1838 he took the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, then became master at a school near Leipzig.
After a journey through southern Germany and Switzerland, and a visit to Strassburg, he returned to Leipzig, and set to work upon a critical study of the New Testament text.
In 1840, he qualified as university lecturer in theology with a dissertation on the recensions of the New Testament text, the main part of which reappeared the following year in the prolegomena to his first edition of the Greek New Testament. These early textual studies convinced him of the absolute necessity of new and more exact collations of manuscripts.
From October 1840 until January 1843 he was in Paris, busy with the treasures of the Bibliothèque Nationale, eking out his scanty means by making collations for other scholars, and producing for the publisher, Firmin Didot, several editions of the Greek New Testament, one of them exhibiting the form of the text corresponding most closely to the Vulgate. His second edition retracted the more precarious readings of the first, and included a statement of critical principles that is a landmark for evolving critical studies of Biblical texts.
A great triumph of these laborious months[peacock prose] was the decipherment of the palimpsest Codex Ephraemi Syri Rescriptus, of which the New Testament part was printed before he left Paris, and the Old Testament in 1845. His success in dealing with a manuscript that, having been over-written with other works of Ephrem the Syrian, had been mostly illegible to earlier collators, made him more well known, and gained support for more extended critical expeditions. He now became professor extraordinarius at Leipzig, where he was married in 1845. He also began to publish Reise in den Orient, an account of his travels in the east (in 2 vols., 1845–46, translated as Travels in the East in 1847). Even though he was an expert in reading the text of a palimpsest (this is a document where the original writing has been removed and new writing added), he was not able to identify the value or meaning of the Archimedes Palimpsest, a torn leaf of which he held and after his death was sold to the Cambridge University Library.
From Paris, he had paid short visits to the Netherlands (1841) and England (1842). In 1843 he visited Italy, and after a stay of thirteen months, went on to Egypt, Sinai, and the Levant, returning via Vienna and Munich.
Discovery of the Codex Sinaiticus Bible manuscripts
In 1844 Tischendorf travelled the first time to Saint Catherine's Monastery at the foot of Mount Sinai in Egypt, where he found a portion of what would later be hailed as the oldest complete known New Testament.
Of the many pages which were contained in an old wicker basket (the kind that the monastery hauled in its visitors as customary in unsafe territories) he was given 43 pages containing a part of the Old Testament as a present. He donated those 43 pages to King Frederick Augustus II of Saxony (reigned 1836–1854), to honour him and to recognise his patronage as the funder of Tischendorf's journey. (Tischendorf held a position as Theological Professor at Leipzig University, also under the patronage of Frederick Augustus II.) Leipzig University put two of the leaves on display in 2011.
Tischendorf reported in his 1865 book Wann Wurden Unsere Evangelen Verfasst, translated to English in 1866 as When Were Our Gospels Written in the section "The Discovery of the Sinaitic Manuscript" that he found, in a trash basket, forty-three sheets of parchment of an ancient copy of the Greek Old Testament, reporting that the monks were using the trash to start fires. And Tischendorf, horrified, asked if he could have them. He deposited them at the University of Leipzig, under the title of the Codex Friderico-Augustanus, a name given in honour of his patron, Frederick Augustus II of Saxony, king of Saxony. The fragments were published in 1846, although Tischendorf kept the place of discovery a secret.[citation needed]
Many have expressed skepticism at the historical accuracy of this report of saving a 1500-year-old parchment from the flames. J. Rendel Harris referred to the story as a myth.[9] The Tischendorf Lesebuch (see References) quotes that the Librarian Kyrillos mentioned to Tischendorf that the contents of the basket had already twice been submitted to the fire. The contents of the baskets were damaged scriptures, the third filling apparently, so cited by Tischendorf himself.[see Tischendorf Lesebuch, Tischendorf's own account]. In 1853 Tischendorf made a second trip to the Syrian monastery but made no new discoveries. He returned a third time in January 1859 under the patronage of Tsar Alexander II of Russia with the active aid of the Russian government to find more of the Codex Frederico-Augustanus or similar ancient Biblical texts. On 4 February, the last day of his visit, he was shown a text which he recognized as significant – the Codex Sinaiticus – a Greek manuscript of the complete New Testament and parts of the Old Testament dating to the 4th century.[citation needed]
Tischendorf persuaded the monks to present the manuscript to Tsar Alexander II of Russia, at the cost of the Tsar it was published in 1862 (in four folio volumes). Those[who?] ignorant of the details of his discovery of the Codex Sinaiticus accused Tischendorf of buying manuscripts from ignorant monastery librarians at low prices. Indeed, he was never rich, but he staunchly defended the rights of the monks at Saint Catherine's Monastery when he persuaded them eventually to send the manuscript to the Tsar. This took approximately 10 years because the abbot of St Catherines had to be re-elected and confirmed in office in Cairo and in Jerusalem, and during those 10 years no one in the monastery had the authority to hand over any documents. However the documents were handed over in due course following a signed and sealed letter to the Tsar Alexander II (Schenkungsurkunde). Even so, the monks of Mt. Sinai still display a receipt-letter from Tischendorf promising to return the manuscript to them in the case that the donation can not be done. This token-letter had to be destroyed, following the late issue of a "Schenkungsurkunde". This donation act regulated the Codex exchange with the Tsar, against 9000 Rubels and Rumanian estate protection. The Tsar was seen as the protector of Greek-Orthodox Christians. Thought lost since the Russian revolution, the document (Schenkungsurkunde) has now resurfaced in St Petersburg 2003, and has also been long before commented upon by other scholars like Kurt Aland. The monastery has disputed the existence of the gift certificate (Schenkungsurkunde) since the British Library was named as the new owner of the Codex. Now following the late find of the gift certificate by the National Russian Library the existence cannot be disputed in earnest.
In 1869 the Tsar awarded Tischendorf the style of "von" Tischendorf as a Russian noble. 327 facsimile editions of the Codex were printed in Leipzig for the Tsar (instead of a salary for the three-year work of Tischendorf the Tsar gave him 100 copies for reselling) in order to celebrate the 1000th anniversary of the traditional foundation of the Rus' state in 862 with the publication of this most amazing find. Supporting the production of the facsimile, all made with special print characters for each of the 4 scribes of the Codex Sinaiticus, was shift work and contributed to Tischendorf's early demise due to exhausting work for months also during nights. Thus the Codex found its way to the Imperial Library at St. Petersburg.
When the 4-volume luxury edition of the Sinai Bible was completed in 1862, C. Tischendorf presented the original ancient manuscript to Emperor Alexander II. Meanwhile, the question of transferring the manuscript to the full possession of the Russian Sovereign remained unresolved for some years. In 1869, the new Archbishop of Sinai, Callistratus, and the monastic community, signed the official certificate presenting the manuscript to the Tsar. The Russian Government, in turn, bestowed the Monastery with 9000 rubles and decorated the Archbishop and some of the brethren with orders. In 1933 the Soviet Government sold the Codex Sinaiticus for 100,000 pounds to the British Museum in London, England. The official certificate with signatures in Russian/ French/ Greek sections has been refound in St Petersburg.
In the winter of 1849 the first edition of his great work now titled Novum Testamentum Graece. Ad antiquos testes recensuit. Apparatum criticum multis modis appeared (translated as Greek New Testament. The ancient witnesses reviewed. Preparations critical in many ways), containing canons of criticism, adding examples of their application that are applicable to students today:
Basic rule: "The text is only to be sought from ancient evidence, and especially from Greek manuscripts, but without neglecting the testimonies of versions and fathers."
These were partly the result of the tireless travels he had begun in 1839 in search of unread manuscripts of the New Testament, "to clear up in this way," he wrote, "the history of the sacred text, and to recover if possible the genuine apostolic text which is the foundation of our faith."
In 1850 appeared his edition of the Codex Amiatinus (in 1854 corrected) and of the Septuagint version of the Old Testament (7th ed., 1887); in 1852, amongst other works, his edition of the Codex Claromontanus. In 1859, he was named professor ordinarius of theology and of Biblical paleography, this latter professorship being specially created for him; and another book of travel, Aus dem heiligen Lande, appeared in 1862. Tischendorf's Eastern journeys were rich enough in other discoveries to merit the highest praise.
Besides his fame as a scholar, he was a friend of both Robert Schumann, with whom he corresponded, and Felix Mendelssohn, who dedicated a song to him. His colleague Samuel Prideaux Tregelles wrote warmly of their mutual interest in textual scholarship. His personal library, purchased after his death, eventually came to the University of Glasgow, where a commemorative exhibition of books from his library was held in 1974 and can be accessed by the public.
The Codex Sinaiticus contains a 4th-century manuscript of New Testament texts. Two other Bibles of similar age exist, though they are less complete: Codex Vaticanus in the Vatican Library and Codex Alexandrinus, currently owned by the British Library. The Codex Sinaiticus is deemed by some[by whom?] to be the most important surviving New Testament manuscript, as no older manuscript is as nearly complete as the Codex. The codex can be viewed in the British Library in London, or as a digitized version on the Internet.
The Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible, generally known as Strong's Concordance, is a Bible concordance, an index of every word in the King James Version (KJV), constructed under the direction of James Strong. Strong first published his Concordance in 1890, while professor of exegetical theology at Drew Theological Seminary.
The purpose of Strong's Concordance is not to provide content or commentary about the Bible, but to provide an index to the Bible. This allows the reader to find words where they appear in the Bible. This index allows a student of the Bible to re-find a phrase or passage previously studied. It also lets the reader directly compare how the same word may be used elsewhere in the Bible.
Each original-language word is given an entry number in the dictionary of those original language words listed in the back of the concordance. These have become known as the "Strong's numbers". The main concordance lists each word that appears in the KJV Bible in alphabetical order with each verse in which it appears listed in order of its appearance in the Bible, with a snippet of the surrounding text (including the word in italics). Appearing to the right of the scripture reference is the Strong's number. This allows the user of the concordance to look up the meaning of the original language word in the associated dictionary in the back, thereby showing how the original language word was translated into the English word in the KJV Bible.
The 8,674 Hebrew root words used in the Old Testament. (Example: אֱנוֹשׁ (H582))
The 5,624 Greek root words used in the New Testament. (Example: λόγος (G3056))
New editions of Strong's may exclude the comparative section (1611 KJV to 1614) and the asterisks that denote differential definitions of the same Hebrew or Greek words; due perhaps to denominational considerations, definitions may also be altered.[citation needed]
Although the Greek words in Strong's Concordance are numbered 1–5624, the numbers 2717 and 3203–3302 are unassigned due to "changes in the enumeration while in progress". Not every distinct word is assigned a number, but rather only the root words. For example, αγαπησεις is assigned the same number as αγαπατε – both are listed as Greek word #25 in Strong's Concordance (αγαπαω).
Other authors have used Strong's numbers in concordances of other Bible translations, such as the New International Version and American Standard Version.
Due to Strong's numbers it became possible to translate concordances from one language into another. Thus, the Russian concordance of 30,000 words from the Russian Thompson Study Bible ("Новая учебная Библия Томпсона", La Buona Novella Inc, 2010, edition made by the Christian society "The Bible for everyone" in St.Petersburg, Russia) is a translation of the English concordance from Thompson Chain-Reference Bible (The New Thompson Study Bible, La Buona Novella Inc. & B.B. Kirkbride Bible Company, Inc., 2006). In the process of compiling the Russian concordance, the Hebrew/Greek word corresponding to the English concordance word was found, and then its Russian equivalent in the Russian Synodal translation of the Bible was added to the resulting Russian concordance text.
New editions of Strong's Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible remain in print as of 2016.
In the 1890 version, Strong added a "Hebrew and Chaldee Dictionary" and a "Greek Dictionary of the New Testament" to his concordance. In the preface to both dictionaries, Strong explains that these are "brief and simple" dictionaries, not meant to replace reference to "a more copious and elaborate Lexicon." He mentions Gesenius and Fürst as examples of the lexicons that Strong's is drawn from. His dictionaries were meant to give students a quick and simple way to look up words and have a general idea of their meaning.
Strong reportedly based his lexicons on the work of contemporary scholars such as Gesenius, Fürst, Liddell & Scott, Thayer, and Brown, Driver, and Briggs. According to the preface, he and his team also made "numerous original suggestions, relations, and distinctions... especially in the affinities of roots and the classification of meanings." The work is intended to represent the best of 19th century scholarship, and both a simplification of it and an improvement on it. An important feature of Strong's dictionaries is the listing of every translation of a source word in the AV (King James) after the definition itself.
It is important to note Strong's association with the committee working on the American Revised Version of the Bible. His work does not tend to support the authority of the King James Version. He was part of the effort to update and replace it with what the translators believed would be a better version. As a result, he contributed deeper and more thorough study of Biblical languages, especially etymology, but also an inherently suspicious attitude toward the Textus Receptus, the King James, and toward traditional, less "secular" definitions of original words. The translation committee was associated with the higher critical movement and with the Westcott-Hort version of the Greek text. Strong, a Methodist layman and college professor, was acceptable to the committee, but one cannot assume he shared all of its views.