Bullinger, Sinaiticus, and Textual Criticism
Question: I have been reading Behind the Parchment and I'm absolutely enjoying it. During your research, did you come across any commentary from Bullinger on the claim Simondes wrote Sinaticus?
In working on the material that became Behind the Parchment, I did not encounter any extended discussion by E. W. Bullinger on the specific claim that Constantine Simonides wrote Codex Sinaiticus as a modern production.
Bullinger strongly favored the critical texts in his notes. In the Companion Bible, when he refers to “the texts” in the plural, he ordinarily means the critical Greek text tradition represented by manuscripts such as Sinaiticus and Vaticanus, rather than the Textus Receptus on which the King James Version is based. He clearly knew and used that critical tradition.
Given the timing, it is very difficult to imagine that Bullinger was ignorant of the Simonides–Tischendorf controversy. Sinaiticus and the related debates were front-page news in Britain in the mid to late nineteenth century. Bullinger lived and worked in that world and was president of the Trinitarian Bible Society. He was steeped in biblical scholarship and textual questions.
However, as far as my own research went:
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- I did not find a place where Bullinger squarely addresses the historical claim “Simonides produced Sinaiticus.”
- He appears, in practice, to accept Sinaiticus as a weighty manuscript witness and to incorporate the critical text readings it supports.
One possible explanation is chronological: Bullinger was early enough in the era of modern textual criticism that he did not yet see how far the critical method would be taken, and he may not have fully reckoned with its long-term doctrinal and ecclesiastical consequences. That would place him among those who, in good faith, embraced the newer manuscripts before the implications were evident.
Another possibility is that he was aware of the Simonides claim but either judged it unconvincing or did not consider it important enough to discuss in depth for his readership. As a practical annotator of Scripture, he may have simply worked from the published critical texts of his day without reopening their historical controversies.
You also mentioned Bullinger's A Critical Lexicon and Concordance. There, too, he refers to Sinaiticus in order to give students a comparison with the Textus Receptus. That confirms his awareness and use of the manuscript, but again, not a discussion of its authorship claim.
Because Bullinger was a prolific writer, the most likely place to find any explicit comment would be in his periodical Things to Come. Those volumes are available in digitized form, and with modern search tools it is increasingly possible to scan them for references to Simonides, Tischendorf, or Sinaiticus. That is a follow-up research task worth pursuing.
So, based on the work behind Behind the Parchment and what is readily accessible:
- Bullinger used Sinaiticus-influenced readings and seems to have accepted the critical text apparatus of his day.
- I have not yet found where he directly engages the specific claim that Simonides produced Sinaiticus as a modern work.
Further archival and digital searching may yet uncover more, especially within Things to Come and related materials.
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