Fragment of ‘Oldest Bible’ (Codex Sinaiticus) Discovered

A 30 year-old Greek researcher, pursuing a PhD in Britain, found a fragment of the Codex Sinaiticus in St. Catherine’s Monastery. The  monastery is located by Mt. Horeb – the traditional Mt. Sinai – in Egypt. The Codex Sinaiticus is a Greek manuscript containing virtually the complete New Testament and around half of the Old Testament. It is the oldest extant copy of the ‘complete’ Bible that we have.

Nikolas Sarris spotted a previously unseen section of the Codex Sinaiticus, which dates from about AD350, as he was trawling through photographs of manuscripts in the library… [He] chanced upon the fragment as he inspected photographs of a series of book bindings that had been compiled by two monks at the monastery during the 18th century.

…Mr Sarris said his find was particularly significant because there were at least 18 other book bindings in the monastery’s library that were compiled by the same two monks that had re-used the Codex. “We don’t know whether we will find more of the Codex in those books but it would definitely be worth looking,” he said.

You can read a concise Telegraph article on this discovery. The article cited above is here.

As mentioned previously on this blog, the Codex is divided among four different countries. All of those pages have recently been put into digital format for online viewing at CodexSinaiticus.org.

HT: PaleoJudaica

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About LukeChandler

Luke holds an M.A. in Ancient and Classical History and has been an adjunct professor at Florida College in Temple Terrace, Florida. Luke and his wife Melanie have five children. He serves as a minister with the North Terrace Church of Christ and has participated in multiple archaeological excavations in Israel. Luke leads informative, meaningful tours to Europe and the Bible Lands.
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