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Scattered across continents, the 1,600-year-old Codex Sinaiticus bible has been fully reunited in a digital version online today. Users can navigate through the text via chapter and verse, see a digital scan of each page, and read English, German, Greek and Russian versions.

“If you would have liked to see it before, you would have had to travel to four countries in two continents,” British Library project curator, Juan Garces, said in an Associated Press report. “If you want to see the manuscript right now all you have to do is go online and experience it for yourself.” He noted that the overwhelming digital demand has already crashed the Web site.

The oldest known bible may hold some surprises for those familiar with today’s versions. About half of the Old Testament and Apocrypha are absent, and the New Testament books are in a different order (putting, for example, “Acts of the Apostles” between “the Pastoral” and “Catholic Epistles”). It also includes two additional early Christian writings, allegedly by Hermas (a second-century Roman) and the apostle Barnabas—as well as a smattering of corrections inserted throughout the centuries after its creation.

“There are certainly theological questions linked to this,” Garces told CNN. “Everybody should be encouraged to investigate for themselves.”

The ancient tome was discovered by a German scholar in the 19th century at the Monastery of Saint Catherine in Egypt’s Sinai desert. The 400-plus-page volume was transcribed in Greek on animal-skin parchment.

The collaboration, made possible by the institutes that house the document’s pieces—the British Library, the National Library of Russia, Leipzig University Library and Saint Catherine’s Monastery—is being celebrated with a conference at the British Library today and tomorrow. 

Image of text from a version of the Codex Sinaiticus’s Esther 1:20-21 courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

6 Comments

1. 1. diana7000 07:17 PM 7/6/09

   this article may cause some misunderstandings--much earlier manuscripts have been found but not organized perhaps as the Christian Bible?---can anyone clarify this for readers?

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2. 2. EvolvingApe 08:27 PM 7/6/09

   I am glad to see it available.
   
   But as far as mythological writings go, yes, there are much, much earlier ones.

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3. 3. Blue Fire 11:45 PM 7/6/09

   There are certainly theological questions linked to this, Garces told CNN.
   
   Such as...? I would have like to have seen an example, instead of the next line simply telling everyone to investigate on their own.

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4. 4. Forlornehope 05:57 AM 7/7/09

   A more significant point is to ask how the document came to be scattered. According to the monks of St Katharine's monastery, it was taken to be copied by Tischendorf in the nineteenth century on the understanding that it would then be returned. Instead it was presented to the Tsar, much to Tischendorf's advantage. There seems to be little doubt that those parts of the document that are not presently at the monastery are stolen property, without even the fig leaf of legality covering the Elgin marbles at the British Museum.

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5. 5. Oji in reply to diana7000 07:24 AM 7/7/09

   There are many older individual manuscripts, such as the gnostic gospels or "Dead Sea scrolls" which date to the 2nd century AD. And then there are even older texts such as the Epic of Gilgamesh (with the earliest recorded version of the flood) which dates to at least 2,000 BC. But this is the oldest bible (follow the link in the article for more information about it) in the sense of a collection of texts.
   
   Fascinating stuff...

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6. 6. gregtaraila 06:53 PM 7/10/09

   Great stuff

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