Talk:Codex Sinaiticus/GA1

GA Review

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Starting GA review.Pyrotec (talk) 14:34, 31 December 2008 (UTC)

Initial review

Quite a good, readable, article; and it appears to be about the right standard for a GA.

• On a quick read through, I'm not quite convinced that all the statements made in the article have adequate in-line citations. I will be checking this in detail on the main review (to follow).
• Titles of what appear to be book references appear to be inconsistently presented in quotes ("") or in italics. This would make more sense if it was articles in journals, but not book references. I can fix this as I go through the review.
• This is not my specialist area. For me, additional wikilinks to technical terms, such as breathings and polytonic accents, would improve the intelligibility of the article.Pyrotec (talk) 16:21, 31 December 2008 (UTC)

Main review

As I mentioned above, this is a good readable article that is well illustrated. However I have a few concerns on WP:Verify that need to be addressed before the article can be given GA status. They are:

• References 15 and 21 refer to BBC radio programmes. They cannot be verified,from the details given.
• The first two paragraphs in "Description" have no references (unless it is intended that ref 4 applies). DonePyrotec (talk) 20:23, 3 January 2009 (UTC)
• The final statement in "Description" about separate storage in different locations has no reference. DonePyrotec (talk) 20:23, 3 January 2009 (UTC)
• The first paragraph in "Text-type and relationship to other manuscripts" cannot be verified from any citations.
• The statements in "Lacunae" are not verified.
• The first and third paragraphs in "Early history of codex" have no references. DonePyrotec (talk) 20:23, 3 January 2009 (UTC)
• The last paragraph in "Later story of codex" has no reference.
• In "Present location", the final sentences about legality of the gift are unreferenced. DonePyrotec (talk) 20:23, 3 January 2009 (UTC)

I'm therefore putting the article on hold.Pyrotec (talk) 12:07, 2 January 2009 (UTC)

Of course, the article has too much references to BBC program. These references were inserted and deleted by different editors (it was almost edit war). Sometimes these references only doubled other more reliable sources, especially link to the official website of monastery (unfortunatelly in Greek - this site will translate into English sooner or later by the monks). But if we will keep one reference... Leszek Jańczuk (talk) 09:10, 3 January 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for the updates to the article; which is much improved in respect of WP:verify. The current "BBC" references, 2, 7, 18 and 24 unfortunately do not provide any verification; in contrast another BBC ref (No. 40) does provide verification.Pyrotec (talk) 20:23, 3 January 2009 (UTC)

I think we should delete this:

The codex has 23,000 corrections visible today, including additions the scribes made "reflecting what they thought important about the Christian message". Professor David Parker remarks that in the Sermon on the Mount "somebody’s added a little word in the margin in Greek which changes it to 'the person who is angry with his brother without good reason deserves judgement.'

Possibly it is correct, I do not doubt. But I did not see that in printed sources. We know well that Tischendorf enumerated 14,800 corrections in 2/3 of the codex. Possibly Parker investigated remaining portion of the codex. We hope he will publish results of his investigations, and we will use it in the future. Leszek Jańczuk (talk) 01:10, 4 January 2009 (UTC)

And this:

The original document is so precious that it has only been seen by four scholars in the last 20 years.

Perhaps it also came from radio program. Leszek Jańczuk (talk) 01:16, 4 January 2009 (UTC)

Section "Lacunae" needs to be reworked. Some of given here "omitted phrases" existed in the manuscript (f.e. John 9:38; 16:15 - in these verses only some words are "omitted" or rather "non-interpolated"). I will do that so quickly as possible. But if we talk about refrences to this section, I want to use: Bruce M. Metzger, "A Textual Commentary on the Greek New Testament". We can also use "Novum Testamentum" of Nestle-Aland, we can give link to the website with digitalized codex, but "Textual Commentary..." is the best solution. Leszek Jańczuk (talk) 03:45, 4 January 2009 (UTC)

Yes, most of this lacunae were added in this edition [1]. They were taken automaticly from this article Bible verses not included in modern translations (rather: "Interpolations of Textus Receptus"). But this article is controversial, and Codex Sinaiticus is not its subject. Leszek Jańczuk (talk) 04:03, 4 January 2009 (UTC)

No, the lacunae were not added in this edit [2], which I was responsible for. I merely expanded the citations into fuller reader-friendly quotations (leaving the original citations intact) -- which have now been lost, I note, making the article harder to read. See [3]. --Michael C. Price ^talk 10:06, 4 January 2009 (UTC)

Yes, you are right. Sorry. They were added earlier in this edition [4]. Leszek Jańczuk (talk) 12:29, 4 January 2009 (UTC)

I have no objections to free-standing uncited statements to be removed, it helps clear up problems of verification. I can see that good progress is being made and I don't wish to interrupt the updating of the article. When when you wish me to continue the GA review, please add a small note to this page.Pyrotec (talk) 10:19, 4 January 2009 (UTC)

Another deletion:

In an interview with the BBC, the Monastery librarian, commenting on Tischendorf story, said: "When he said they were obviously going to be burned, we do object to that part of the story. It’s been pointed out that the manuscript of Codex Sinaiticus is very well preserved and also it’s been pointed out that parchment doesn’t burn." He also advised that baskets were the usual way to store manuscripts.

Now we have more reliable references, and more sources, especially Scrivener's Collation (important source). I have changed order in section "The text of the codex", and information about seven correctors. Tischendorf proposed five, but according to present scholars - seven or at least seven (f.e. Aland). Leszek Jańczuk (talk) 15:21, 4 January 2009 (UTC)

Now we have more references. The sentence with information about 4 000 000 letters of the codex was the last unreferenced. This number was estimated by Tischendorf, and no other scholarch tried to estimate this number again. I did not find this information in "When Were Our Gospels Written?" (1866) and other publications of Tischendorf to which I have actually access. But it was used by Scrivener and Henry Bradshaw as an argument against authorship of Simonides of the codex. I used this ‘‘Christianity’’, p. 1889. (last paragraph of p. 1889). Leszek Jańczuk (talk) 01:09, 6 January 2009 (UTC)

GA

Excellent work.Pyrotec (talk) 17:40, 6 January 2009 (UTC)

GA review – see WP:WIAGA for criteria

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A Good Article

1. Is it reasonably well written?

   A. Prose quality:

   B. MoS compliance:

2. Is it factually accurate and verifiable?

   A. References to sources:

   Well referenced

   B. Citation of reliable sources where necessary:

   Yes

   C. No original research:

3. Is it broad in its coverage?

   A. Major aspects:

   B. Focused:

4. Is it neutral?

   Fair representation without bias:

5. Is it stable?

   No edit wars, etc:

6. Does it contain images to illustrate the topic?

   A. Images are copyright tagged, and non-free images have fair use rationales:

   B. Images are provided where possible and appropriate, with suitable captions:

7. Overall:

   Pass or Fail:

   Not my field, but I learnt a lot from this GAN article review.Pyrotec (talk) 17:40, 6 January 2009 (UTC)