For a start, in Greek MSS of that time there were no spaces between the words on a line. This made them much more difficult to read, which in turn demanded a much greater degree of care from anyone making a new copy of the manuscript.

SINAITICUS was found in 1844 A.D. by Tischendorf on the rubbish dump at St. Catherine's Monastery near Mount Sinai. It had been thrown out by the monks because of its terribly poor quality. It contains the Old Testament and nearly all of the New Testament, but in many places anywhere from 10 to 40 words are dropped THROUGH SHEER CARELESSNESS by the scribe (easy to do for a careless scribe, as there are no spaces between the words on a line). Because of this abominable quality, on every page of this MS there are corrections and revisions, often by as many as 10 different people. These corrections have been dated to the 6th and the 7th centuries. SINAITICUS also contains "The Shepherd of Hermes" and "Epistle of Barnabas", obvious forgeries pretending to be inspired scripture.

[Comments by John  D. Keyser...

"The Codex Sinaiticus certainly came to light under strange circumstances. The Bible Dictionary published by Cassell, Petter and Galpin explains some of these:

"In 1844 Dr. Tischendorf found in the Convent of St. Catherine, at Mount Sinai, a portion of the LXX [Septuagint] version of the Old Testament, which APPEARED to be of extreme antiquity...everything about the MS. denotes extreme antiquity. This might be concluded on paleographical grounds alone; but it was confirmed by the examination of the character of the text, in which readings were noticed which had been cited by Eusebius, BUT WHICH ARE NOT KNOWN TO EXIST IN ANY OTHER MS...

"In 1846 the Russian Archimandrite Porphyrius visited Mount Sinai, where he saw and examined the New Testament portion of the SAME MS. His published account did not appear till 1856. But about the time of the visit of Porphyrius, or a little later, Major Macdonald described a very ancient MS. (kept wrapped up in a cloth) on early uncial letters [script with rounded letters, seldom used after the 10th century], written with several columns in a page, and containing the NEW TESTAMENT, which he distinctly stated to belong to the fourth century.

"Major Macdonald's description of this MS. was communicated to Professor Tischendorf, who MOST DISTINCTLY DENIED that any part of the New Testament was contained in the MS. which he had seen...Tischendorf, also, was SO POSITIVE that no such ancient MS. of the New Testament was in the monastery, that it was thought that Major Macdonald had made a mistake, and that further inquiry was superfluous.

Luke 11:2 in the Codex Sinaiticus

"Tischendorf paid a SECOND visit to Mt. Sinai:

"In 1853 Tischendorf paid a SECOND VISIT to Mount Sinai, but he was NOT ABLE TO SEE the portion of the MS. with which he was already acquainted, NOR YET TO LEARN WHAT HAD BECOME OF IT; hence he conjectured that it had been carried to some part of Europe...He visited Mount Sinai for the THIRD TIME in the beginning of 1859, arriving there on the last of January...'while taking a walk with the steward of the monastery, I conversed on the subject of the LXX. version, of which I had brought some copies of my edition as well as of my New Testament, as presents for the brethren.

"On returning from our walk, we entered the steward's dormitory. He said that he, too, had there a copy of the LXX., and he placed before my eyes the cloth in which it was wrapped. I opened the cloth, and saw what far surpassed all my hopes; for there were contained very ample remains of the Codex which I had a good while before declared to be the most ancient of all Greek Codices on vellum that are extant; and amongst these relics, I saw not only what I had met with in 1844 and other books of the Old Testament, BUT ALSO THE WHOLE NEW TESTAMENT WITHOUT THE SMALLEST DEFECT; and to this were added the whole of the epistle of Barnabas and the former part of the Shepherd (i.e. Hermas) (Article "Sinaiticus, Codex (N)," page 454).

"Something seems very STRANGE about the sequence of events here -- on Tischendorf's first trip to the monastery he views the Old Testament manuscript; then, ten or so years later, Major Macdonald gets to see the same manuscript ALONG WITH THE NEW TESTAMENT, which Tischendorf vehemently claims was NOT WITH THE OLD TESTAMENT MANUSCRIPT when he saw it ten years earlier! On Tischendorf's SECOND TRIP to Mount Sinai in 1853, NEITHER THE OLD NOR THE NEW TESTAMENT PORTIONS OF THE MANUSCRIPT WERE THERE at the monastery. Then, on his THIRD TRIP -- voila -- there they are, and not only that, the New Testament portion is "WITHOUT THE SMALLEST DEFECT"! Something just doesn't add up!

"It gets STRANGER yet -- in fact, almost BIZARRE:

"If the circumstances of the discovery and acquisition of this MS. have about them something romantic [strange would be a better word], the same may be said respecting the discussions which sprang from the CLAIM OF CONSTANTINE SIMONIDES THAT HE HIMSELF WAS THE WRITER. Simonides has long been known as an EXTREMELY CLEVER CALIGRAPHIST, and as having professed to be in possession of ancient MSS., palimpsests [manuscripts whose original text was scrapped off and written over with another text, OFTEN NOT BIBLICAL], and others, some of them containing the alleged works of writers whose names even had NEVER BEEN HEARD OF BEFORE...critical scholars were informed that Simonides CLAIMED TO BE THE WRITER HIMSELF OF THE WHOLE OF THE CODEX SINAITICUS.

"For some time, he and his friends circulated rumours on the subject, alleging that no confidence could be placed in Professor Tischendorf, who, they affirmed, HAD MISTAKEN A MS. OF THE NINETEENTH CENTURY FOR ONE OF THE FOURTH; and at length, in the summer of 1862, Simonides professed that...the Codex Sinaiticus had been a work of his youth. It was written by him, he said, at Mount Atlas, in the years 1839 and 1840; and as soon as he saw, in 1860, the first facsimile published by Tischendorf in his 'Notitia,' he at once recognized it AS HIS OWN WORK...

"Simonides now gives his account of the story:

"The account given by Simonides is that, about the end of 1839, when living in Mount Atlas with his uncle, Benedict, head of the monastery of Panteleemon, it was the desire of his venerable relative to send some present to the Emperor of Russia. For this purpose, he wished to have prepared a vellum uncial MS. of the Old and New Testaments. Dionysius, the official calligrapher of the monastery, being afraid to undertake the task, SIMONIDES, AT HIS UNCLE'S REQUEST, BEGAN THE WORK, using a large book, containing much blank vellum, which they found.

"The text from which he copied was the MOSCOW EDITION OF THE OLD AND NEW TESTAMENTS, altered on the authority of three ancient MSS. and the printed edition of CODEX ALEXANDRINUS.

"After finishing the Old and New Testaments, BARNABAS, and a portion of HERMAS, his stock of vellum was exhausted, and his uncle died. On this, he got the book bound, and disposed of it to Constantius, Archbishop of Sinai. To that place he says that, in 1844, the archbishop told him he sent the MS. There he says he saw it in 1852, although mutilated. Such was the STRANGE STORY of Simonides.

"A strange story indeed! Even if the claims of Simonides are not true, the background of the Codex Sinaiticus is more than a little odd. I may be a suspicious fellow, but if a document came into my hands with a background like this, I would be somewhat DUBIOUS about its authenticity!

"I'm not the only one dubious of such documents:

"The manuscript preferences cited in many CONTEMPORARY TRANSLATIONS of the New Testament are due to recent reliance on a RELATIVELY FEW manuscripts discovered in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Dependence on these manuscripts, especially two, the SINAITIC AND VATICAN MANUSCRIPTS, is due to the greater age of these documents. However, in spite of the age of the material, some scholars have shown reasons to DOUBT THE FAITHFULNESS OF THESE MANUSCRIPTS TO THE ORIGINAL TEXT, since they often DISAGREE WITH ONE ANOTHER and show OTHER SIGNS OF UNRELIABILITY (The Holy Bible: The New King James Version, Thomas Nelson Publishers, N.Y. 1983. Preface p. V).

"Nancy L. Kuehl, in her work A Book of Evidence: The Trials and Execution of Jesus, has this to say about the Codex Sinaiticus:

"Any careful Bible student cannot fail to notice thousands of mistranslations, many of them 'willful falsifications.' Over 14,500 alterations had been made to the Codex Sinaiticus by the time of Eusebius. This particular manuscript is thought to have been none other than one of the fifty Bibles prepared on vellum and ordered by Constantine himself. It is clear that the early [Catholic] church fathers held in contempt the Aramaic-Hebrew Gospels, probably because these texts did NOT deify Jesus (Eugene, OR: Resource Publications, 2013, p. xxv)."

End of John D. Keyser's comments.]

NO WONDER THE MONKS FINALLY THREW IT OUT AS WORTHLESS!

VATICANUS, on the other hand, was very conveniently discovered in the Vatican Library in 1481 A.D., just before the Protestant Reformation really got going. It is in excellent physical condition, being written on fine vellum. But the textual quality of this manuscript is also shockingly poor! In the gospels alone Vaticanus leaves out 748 whole sentences! Is that how God's Word was to be preserved? In addition it also leaves out (in the gospels) 452 clauses and an additional 237 words! Besides this, Vaticanus also leaves out Genesis 1:1 to 46:28; Psalms 106 to 138; Paul's Pastoral Epistles; Hebrews 9:14 to 13:25 and the whole Book of Revelation. But it DOES contain the Apocrypha.

[Comments by John D. Keyser...

Ending of 2 Thessalonians and Beginning of Hebrews in the Codex Vaticanus

"The Bible Dictionary, Vol. II, published by Cassell, Petter and Galpin of London, has this to say about the Codex Vaticanus (B):

"It appears to have belonged to the Vatican Library (where it is numbered 1,209) from a time not long subsequent to its formation by Pope Nicholas V [1328-30 A.D.]. It now consists of 146 leaves of thin vellum, written in three columns on a page, except in the poetical books of the Old Testament, where there are only two. THE ANCIENT WRITING IS DEFECTIVE in the first forty-six chapters of Genesis, in part of the Psalms, also in the NEW TESTAMENT from Heb. IX. 14 to the end of that book, the four pastoral epistles, and the Apocalypse.

"These DEFECTS (with the exception of the pastoral epistles) have been supplied by a much more RECENT HAND...ANOTHER HAND HAS RETOUCHED the ancient FADED letters, and the same (or some other posterior to the ORIGINAL scribe) has ADDED the accents and breathings. Large initial letters have been placed at the beginning of the several books, INSTEAD of those of the original scribe, which were of the same size as the others in the line (Article "Vaticanus, Codex (B)," p. 542).

"We can see here that quite a bit of TAMPERING (by various hands) has taken place in this codex, thus throwing doubt on the ACCURACY of the work.

"The Bible Dictionary continues:

"In the ancient arrangement St. Paul's epistles are numbered continuously; and this brings to light the record of a CURIOUS AND IMPORTANT FACT -- namely, that in the MS. [Vaticanus] to which these sections were first appended, the Epistle to the Hebrews must have been placed BETWEEN Galatians and Ephesians...In 1669 Bartolocci made a collation of this MS. It is IMPERFECT, and the existing transcript (in the Bibliotheque at Paris) is NOT VERY EXACT.

"About the year 1720 a collation of this MS. was made for Bentley by an Italian called Mico: the CORRECTIONS OF THE LATER HANDS were afterwards noted for the same critic by Rulotta. In 1799 Ford edited Mico's collation in his appendix to the Codex Alexandrinus; but this edition appearing to be OF DOUBTFUL ACCURACY, it was re-compared with the collation, partly for Tregelles (by the Rev. J. B. Lightfoot and the Rev. John E. B. Mayor), and partly by himself, for his critical Greek Testament...

"In 1836 it was announced that Cardinal Mai[us] was likely to publish an edition of the text of this MS., which, it was stated, he had commenced some years before, under the sanction of Pope Leo XII...A little more was known respecting this edition, when, in 1848-9, the Papal Government of Rome was superseded by the Republicans; for then Cardinal Mai[us] offered the whole edition to Mr. Asher, the publisher of Berlin, who, however, DECLINED IT, on the ground that the terms proposed by Mai[us] were too high; also, after inspecting the Cardinal's own copy, he thought that the NUMBER OF CORRECTIONS which were noted was so great, AS TO MAKE HIM DISTRUSTFUL OF THE WHOLE WORK...

"We must refer to the preface by Vercellone for an account of the STRANGE MANNER in which the work was got out by Mai[us], and of the INACCURACY which was the inevitable result, and also as to the MEANS TAKEN FOR CORRECTING the printed copy, after the work had been placed in his hands by Cardinal Altieri, one of Mai[us]' executors...In 1859 a smaller edition of the New Testament portion only was issued, also under the editorial care of Vercellone; though it appears from the preface that it had been, at least, COMMENCED BEFORE MAI[US]' DEATH."

End of John D. Keyser's Comments.]

When these two "oldest" manuscripts (Sinaiticus and Vaticanus) are compared with each other, here is what emerges: in the four gospels alone, Sinaiticus and Vaticanus disagree with each other OVER 3000 TIMES! They also disagree with each other in very many places in the text of the Old Testament, but for that there is no exact statistic available. And yet both of them represent for the Old Testament the LXX text from Origen's Hexapla.

These two MSS, in their Old Testament text, are the oldest representations of the LXX. There simply is no older version of the text of the LXX available anywhere. Yet these two manuscripts are both of abominable textual quality. And then there are people who would have us believe that Sinaiticus and Vaticanus represent the translation of the Hebrew Scriptures that the Judahites, the writers of the books of the New Testament, and the early Christian Church used in preference to the inspired original Hebrew Scriptures.

There is no way that God would have guided the people, whom He was going to inspire to write the books of the New Testament, to rely on corrupt translations of the original Hebrew text such as the Codex Sinaiticus and the Codex Vaticanus!

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