LONDON, England (CNN) -- The world's oldest known Christian Bible goes online Monday -- but the 1,600-year-old text doesn't match the one you'll find in churches today.
Discovered in a monastery in the Sinai desert in Egypt more than 160 years ago, the handwritten Codex Sinaiticus includes two books that are not part of the official New Testament and at least seven books that are not in the Old Testament.
The New Testament books are in a different order, and include numerous handwritten corrections -- some made as much as 800 years after the texts were written, according to scholars who worked on the project of putting the Bible online. The changes range from the alteration of a single letter to the insertion of whole sentences.
And some familiar -- very important -- passages are missing, including verses dealing with the resurrection of Jesus, they said.
Juan Garces, the British Library project curator, said it should be no surprise that the ancient text is not quite the same as the modern one, since the Bible has developed and changed over the years.
"The Bible as an inspirational text has a history," he told CNN.
"There are certainly theological questions linked to this," he said. "Everybody should be encouraged to investigate for themselves."
That is part of the reason for putting the Bible online, said Garces, who is both a Biblical scholar and a computer scientist.
"Scholars will want to look very closely at it, and some of the Web site functionality is specifically for them -- the ability to search the text, the ability to highlight a word, the degree of detail is particularly interesting for scholars interested in the text," he said.
But, he added, "It's for everyone, really a wide audience, because of curiosity, because they appreciate the value of it."
By the middle of the fourth century, when the Codex Sinaiticus was written, there was wide but not complete agreement on which books should be considered authoritative for Christian communities, according to the Web site where the Codex is posted.
The Bible comes from the Monastery of St. Catherine in the Sinai desert, where a scholar named Constantine Tischendorf recognized its significance in 1844 -- and promptly took part of it, Garces explained.
"Constantine Tischendorf was in search for ancient manuscripts, so he appreciated the age and value of it," Garces said.
He took a handful of pages to Germany to publish them, then returned in 1853 and in 1859 for more. On that last trip, he took 694 pages, which ended up in St. Petersburg, Russia.
The Soviet government decided to sell them in 1933 -- to raise money to buy tractors and other agricultural equipment.
The British government bought the pages for £100,000, raising half the money from the public. Garces called that event one of the first fundraising campaigns in British history.
Film footage from the time shows crowds of people turning out to see the manuscript, which was considered a national treasure, he said.
Though the Bible has been reassembled online, in the real world it remains scattered.
Most of it is in London. Eighty-six pages are held at the University Library in Leipzig, Germany, parts of 12 pages are held at the National Library of Russia in St. Petersburg, and 24 pages and 40 fragments remain at St. Catherine's Monastery, recovered by the monks from the northern wall of the structure in June 1975.
The manuscript contains the Christian Bible in Greek, including the oldest complete copy of the New Testament. (A copy held at the Vatican dates from about the same period.) Older copies of individual portions of the Christian Bible exist, but not as part of a complete text.
The Codex also includes much of the Old Testament that was adopted by early Greek-speaking Christians.
That portion includes books not found in the Hebrew Bible and regarded in the Protestant tradition as apocryphal, such as 2 Esdras, Tobit, Judith, 1 & 4 Maccabees, Wisdom and Sirach.
The New Testament portion includes the Epistle of Barnabas and The Shepherd of Hermas.
As it survives today, Codex Sinaiticus comprises just over 400 large leaves of parchment -- prepared animal skin -- each of which measures 15 inches by 13.6 inches (380 mm by 345 mm).
The British government bought most of the pages of the ancient manuscript in 1933.
I wouldn't get our hopes up TOO high. It was written 400 years after Jesus pbuh. That's still long especially considering the trinity's inception around the second century.
In general terms I am aware that certain books and passages were removed/added to the Bible as and when it was put together.
If you are asking my personal opinion, I do not think it has changed the message of God's word to us.
I believe and trust that God protects his message to his people, and that he indeed guided those who carried the responsibility of deciding on which books to compile together to form what we now know to be the Bible.
Apart from that I cannot really give you my own opinion, Layla, until I have done exactly what the statement I quoted said - investigated it for myself.
It would indeed be interesting to read this old Bible. It would also be interesting to find out (if possible) if this was indeed the valid Bible version of its time, and when and why other changes were made.
No doubt it would take many years to study Bible history thoroughly ... how much time do you have?
I hope the above reply will do for now.
Peace glo
Here I stand.
I can do no other.
May God help me.
Amen.
Come, let us worship and bow down •
and kneel before the Lord our Maker
[Psalm 95]
interesting, so it's finally online.
I wonder what does it imply for Christians in particular?
Well, I for one am fascinated by the opportunity to get a look at it myself.
It doesn't change anything with regard to our understanding of the Bible. Christians who have been serious about working to produce the best text from which to translate scriptures for people have long known about and used the Codex Sinaiticus, Vaticanus, Alexandrius and others in the process of producing the best possible text from which to make translations.
For those skilled in this process, this will make the work easier. For those like myself with enough knowledge to understand, but not an expert in the process, we will be curious onlookers. And I suppose for a few who had no knowledge of this before, once they find it online they will think they have found soemthing new and consider themselves experts because they have access and will thus produce more books along the lines of the DaVinci Code. But all of this was known before by those who took the time to read their footnotes in the Bibles that said things like: "The earliest and most reliable manuscripts and other ancient witnesses...".
If anyone is really interested in the textual background on the New Testament I recommend getting a copy of the United Bible Societies' Greek text of the New Testament, the introduction of which contains a listing of all of the codexes, unicals, miniscules, and papyri of which we have existing copies for all or part of the New Testament (even just small fragments) dating from about 200 AD (papyri 46, which contains the Epistles of Paul) through the 4th century codexes mentioned above (which contain the entire NT) to Byzantine period and even older copies. The text includes a critical apparatus that helps scholars (even novice scholars) to weight the comparative value of one textual family vs. another when variant readings of a text exists (presumably because of a copying error or sometimes as a result of a scribal gloss) and, using the science of textual criticism, to work one's way back to what is the most likely original text. And if you really find this sort of stuff interesting, a good accompaniament to the Greek text above is Bruce Metzger's A Textual Commentary of the Greek New Testament, also published by United Bible Societies, which goes into greater detail as to why the committee that compiled the UBS edition of the Greek text gave weight on one occassion to Sinaiticus or p46 or some other manuscript as they wrestled with determining what was the most likely original version of the text before any of the variants existed.
Last edited by Grace Seeker; 07-21-2009 at 02:24 PM.
It would indeed be interesting to read this old Bible. It would also be interesting to find out (if possible) if this was indeed the valid Bible version of its time, and when and why other changes were made.
It was and it wasn't.
I really don't think that the word "valid" is particularly the best word to be using in this discussion.
Of course it was valid. It was used by Christians in the worship of God and the teaching of the faith to one another.
Of course it was invalid. It was most likely not exactly what was originally written.
Codex Sinaiticus, like all of the other codexes, was after all compiled from copies of loosely circulating papyri made from prior copies of the original Gospels and letters and other written materials that were understood by the early church as being particularly helpful for guiding those who sought to live a Christian life. They probably didn't think of themselves as creating a Bible in the same way we conceived of it today. To them it was just a library of important documents bound together in one places for safer keeping and easier access than when they were a collection of loose scrolls and parchments. It would be a later generations that would see this library (biblios was their word for such a book) and understand it to be uniquely the Bible that we think of today.
In one region those copies produce a codex (i.e. a bound set of parchments resembling a modern day book in many ways) that we call Sinaiticus, in another region they produced a codex known to us today by the name Vaticanus or Alexandrius or Ephraemi Rescriptus or Bezae Cantabrigiensis or some other identifier. But by those who actually used them they were just known as their scriptures. Were all of these identical to each other? No, they were not. Did that make one valid and another invalid? Those who used them never seemed to think so. They were all valid for the purpose of enabling people to worship and teaching the faith. And that, to those who used them, was what was important. Though there were differences, some recognized at the time and others more easily noticed when compared side by side today, it appears that all accepted and and seen as equally valid for aiding the church in the purpose for which they maintained them -- the transmission of the faith from one generation to the next. And it is for exactly that purpose that we continue to use them today just as generations of Christians before us did.
Last edited by Grace Seeker; 07-21-2009 at 03:05 AM.
I really don't think that the word "valid" is particularly the best word to be using in this discussion.
Of course it was valid. It was used by Christians in the worship of God and the teaching of the faith to one another.
Of course it was invalid. It was most likely not exactly what was originally written.
Codex Sinaiticus, like all of the other codexes, was after all compiled from copies of loosely circulating papyri made from prior copies of the original Gospels and letters and other written materials that were understood by the early church as being particularly helpful for guiding those who sought to live a Christian life. They probably didn't think of themselves as creating a Bible in the same way we conceived of it today. To them it was just a library of important documents bound together in one places for safer keeping and easier access than when they were a collection of loose scrolls and parchments. It would be a later generations that would see this library (biblios was their word for such a book) and understand it to be uniquely the Bible that we think of today.
In one region those copies produce a codex (i.e. a bound set of parchments resembling a modern day book in many ways) that we call Sinaiticus, in another region they produced a codex known to us today by the name Vaticanus or Alexandrius or Ephraemi Rescriptus or Bezae Cantabrigiensis or some other identifier. But by those who actually used them they were just known as their scriptures. Were all of these identical to each other? No, they were not. Did that make one valid and another invalid? Those who used them never seemed to think so. They were all valid for the purpose of enabling people to worship and teaching the faith. And that, to those who used them, was what was important. Though there were differences, some recognized at the time and others more easily noticed when compared side by side today, it appears that all accepted and and seen as equally valid for aiding the church in the purpose for which they maintained them -- the transmission of the faith from one generation to the next. And it is for exactly that purpose that we continue to use them today just as generations of Christians before us did.
Thank you for your comments, Grace Seeker.
What you say about validity reminds me of these words in 2Timothy:
All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness
I would love to learn more about Bible history and church history.
I fear that given other life commitments I may never have the time to study for myself, and may always have to rely on the knowledge of others ...
Peace glo
Here I stand.
I can do no other.
May God help me.
Amen.
Come, let us worship and bow down •
and kneel before the Lord our Maker
[Psalm 95]
25:36 And the true servants of the Most Merciful are those who walk the earth with humility and when the ignorant address them, they respond with words of peace.
A quick cursory glance seems that the translation that is provided by your website is satisfactory. The initial website provided by the OP also has a translation available.
The issue to many might seem to be about present translations, but the excitement in the field is not going to be generated by previous translation, after all each knowledgable person can do his/her own if they have access to the text. The excitement is in having a scanned copy of the actual pages of Sinaiticus from which one can do one's own work of translating and that now larger groups can all have equal access to the manuscript making it possible to do group projects that over time will surely improve future translations.
LONDON, England (CNN) -- The world's oldest known Christian Bible goes online Monday -- but the 1,600-year-old text doesn't match the one you'll find in churches today.
Discovered in a monastery in the Sinai desert in Egypt more than 160 years ago, the handwritten Codex Sinaiticus includes two books that are not part of the official New Testament and at least seven books that are not in the Old Testament.
The New Testament books are in a different order, and include numerous handwritten corrections -- some made as much as 800 years after the texts were written, according to scholars who worked on the project of putting the Bible online. The changes range from the alteration of a single letter to the insertion of whole sentences.
And some familiar -- very important -- passages are missing, including verses dealing with the resurrection of Jesus, they said.
Juan Garces, the British Library project curator, said it should be no surprise that the ancient text is not quite the same as the modern one, since the Bible has developed and changed over the years.
"The Bible as an inspirational text has a history," he told CNN.
"There are certainly theological questions linked to this," he said. "Everybody should be encouraged to investigate for themselves."
That is part of the reason for putting the Bible online, said Garces, who is both a Biblical scholar and a computer scientist.
"Scholars will want to look very closely at it, and some of the Web site functionality is specifically for them -- the ability to search the text, the ability to highlight a word, the degree of detail is particularly interesting for scholars interested in the text," he said.
But, he added, "It's for everyone, really a wide audience, because of curiosity, because they appreciate the value of it."
By the middle of the fourth century, when the Codex Sinaiticus was written, there was wide but not complete agreement on which books should be considered authoritative for Christian communities, according to the Web site where the Codex is posted.
The Bible comes from the Monastery of St. Catherine in the Sinai desert, where a scholar named Constantine Tischendorf recognized its significance in 1844 -- and promptly took part of it, Garces explained.
"Constantine Tischendorf was in search for ancient manuscripts, so he appreciated the age and value of it," Garces said.
He took a handful of pages to Germany to publish them, then returned in 1853 and in 1859 for more. On that last trip, he took 694 pages, which ended up in St. Petersburg, Russia.
The Soviet government decided to sell them in 1933 -- to raise money to buy tractors and other agricultural equipment.
The British government bought the pages for £100,000, raising half the money from the public. Garces called that event one of the first fundraising campaigns in British history.
Film footage from the time shows crowds of people turning out to see the manuscript, which was considered a national treasure, he said.
Though the Bible has been reassembled online, in the real world it remains scattered.
Most of it is in London. Eighty-six pages are held at the University Library in Leipzig, Germany, parts of 12 pages are held at the National Library of Russia in St. Petersburg, and 24 pages and 40 fragments remain at St. Catherine's Monastery, recovered by the monks from the northern wall of the structure in June 1975.
The manuscript contains the Christian Bible in Greek, including the oldest complete copy of the New Testament. (A copy held at the Vatican dates from about the same period.) Older copies of individual portions of the Christian Bible exist, but not as part of a complete text.
The Codex also includes much of the Old Testament that was adopted by early Greek-speaking Christians.
That portion includes books not found in the Hebrew Bible and regarded in the Protestant tradition as apocryphal, such as 2 Esdras, Tobit, Judith, 1 & 4 Maccabees, Wisdom and Sirach.
The New Testament portion includes the Epistle of Barnabas and The Shepherd of Hermas.
As it survives today, Codex Sinaiticus comprises just over 400 large leaves of parchment -- prepared animal skin -- each of which measures 15 inches by 13.6 inches (380 mm by 345 mm).
Hey there! Looks like you're enjoying the discussion, but you're not signed up for an account.
When you create an account, we remember exactly what you've read, so you always come right back where you left off. You also get notifications, here and via email, whenever new posts are made. And you can like posts and share your thoughts. Sign Up
I guess this says it all:format_quote Originally Posted by Layla454
Hide
Looks like you're enjoying the discussion, but you're not signed up for an account.
Posting Permissions
Bookmarks