Excerpts of World's oldest Christian Bible digitized by Nardine Saad
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LONDON (AP) — The surviving pages of the world's oldest Christian Bible have been reunited — digitally. The early work known as the Codex Sinaiticus has been housed in four separate locations across the world for more than 150 years. But starting Monday, it became available for perusal on the Web at http://www.codexsinaiticus.org so scholars and other readers can get a closer look at what the British Library calls a "unique treasure."
"(The book) offers a window into the development of early Christianity and firsthand evidence of how the text of the Bible was transmitted from generation to generation,"
As it survives today, Codex Sinaiticus comprises just over 400 large leaves of prepared animal skin. It is the oldest book that contains a complete New Testament and is only missing parts of the Old Testament and the Apocrypha.
The 4th-century book, written in Greek, has been digitally reunited in a project involving groups from Britain, Germany, Russia and Egypt, which each possessed parts of the 1,600-year-old manuscript.
They worked together to publish new research into the history of the Codex and transcribed 650,000 words over a four-year period.
The Codex was both a key Christian text and "a landmark in the history of the book, as it is arguably the oldest large-bound book to have survived," McKendrick said.
Garces said the only other Bible that rivals Codex Sinaiticus in age is the Codex Vaticanus, which was written around the same time but lacks parts of the New Testament.
Garces said Codex Sinaiticus was handwritten by four scribes. Experts had previously believed there were only three, but researchers at the British Library looked at the script with high quality digital imaging that revealed the hand of a fourth penman.
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LONDON (AP) — The surviving pages of the world's oldest Christian Bible have been reunited — digitally. The early work known as the Codex Sinaiticus has been housed in four separate locations across the world for more than 150 years. But starting Monday, it became available for perusal on the Web at http://www.codexsinaiticus.org so scholars and other readers can get a closer look at what the British Library calls a "unique treasure."
"(The book) offers a window into the development of early Christianity and firsthand evidence of how the text of the Bible was transmitted from generation to generation,"
As it survives today, Codex Sinaiticus comprises just over 400 large leaves of prepared animal skin. It is the oldest book that contains a complete New Testament and is only missing parts of the Old Testament and the Apocrypha.
The 4th-century book, written in Greek, has been digitally reunited in a project involving groups from Britain, Germany, Russia and Egypt, which each possessed parts of the 1,600-year-old manuscript.
They worked together to publish new research into the history of the Codex and transcribed 650,000 words over a four-year period.
The Codex was both a key Christian text and "a landmark in the history of the book, as it is arguably the oldest large-bound book to have survived," McKendrick said.
Garces said the only other Bible that rivals Codex Sinaiticus in age is the Codex Vaticanus, which was written around the same time but lacks parts of the New Testament.
Garces said Codex Sinaiticus was handwritten by four scribes. Experts had previously believed there were only three, but researchers at the British Library looked at the script with high quality digital imaging that revealed the hand of a fourth penman.
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