World's Oldest Bible Going Online

File this under "history." The British Museum has scanned and is placing online images of world's oldest Bible. The Codex Sinaiticus is a manuscript of the Greek Bible, written between 330–350 A.D. It was discovered in the 19th century.

Very few people have seen this Bible due to its fragile condition. The British Museum keeps it under lock and key and and in the dark in a sealed container. It was removed from its storage case, carefully scanned and then replaced. The purpose of the scanning is to allow millions of people to view the important work without requiring any handling that would quickly ruin the remaining Bible.

Handwritten well over 1600 years ago, the manuscript contains the Christian Bible in Greek, including the oldest complete copy of the New Testament. The Bible obviously is not the King James version (started in 1604 and first published in 1611). This Bible is important to Christian scholars for many reasons. For one, it makes no mention of the resurrection.

The online site will contain images of the original Bible, along with modern-day translations in several languages as well as interpretations and supplemental information written by several of today's leading Biblical scholars.

Part of the Codex Sinaiticus will go online on Thursday (July 24), including the Book of Psalms and the Gospel According to Mark. The plan is to have all of the Bible available online within a year.

The online images will be available on July 24 at http://www.codexsinaiticus.org.

Comments

[Susi Pentico]

This is very intriguing. It makes one wonder what the Vatican may have and the Greek Orthodox Church and Russian Orthodox also.

Susi

[Julia]

Interesting that they are putting it online and I will be checking it out. But a thought - a book that is well loved and well read would fall apart eventually and much sooner than this one has. The fact that this one survived as long as it did could show that it was recognized as a bad copy with mistakes in it and so was very seldom used. When it was found in the 19th century it was in the trash pile.

There are many old copies of Scriptures still in existence and it would be very interesting if the owners would put them all online. The history and study of these manuscripts is very interesting.

[Patsy]

Good information about the history of the Codex at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Codex_Sinaiticus. It was first viewed by westerners about 1761.

Has been extensively vetted by British Museum and theologians. Handwritten corrections were made at some point by the monks from a older codex, which gives it great value to Biblical scholars.

[Caroline Gurney]

Many scholars believe Codex Vaticanus is older than Sinaiticus. There are also manuscripts of individual New Testament books which are significantly older than either Codex. Moreover, there are many references to, and quotations from, the text of the New Testament in other early writings - over 11,000 of them before 220 AD.

Codex Sinaiticus contains many mentions of the resurrection. It does not contain the final twelve (post-resurrection) verses of Mark's Gospel which are , however, referenced or included in the writings of various church fathers two hundred years before Codex Sinaiticus. The authenticity of these twelve verses has been questioned since at least the 3rd century and their omission does not affect Christian history or doctrine in any significant way, unless you happen to be an Appalachian snake-handler.