World’s Oldest Bible Reunited Online

The surviving pages and fragments of the world’s oldest Bible, known as Codex Sinaiticus are being reunited online as part of an ambitious four year digitization project that aims to breathe new life into a manuscript that dates back 1600 years.

Handwritten in Greek on animal hide in the fourth century, the Codex contains the earliest complete copy of the New Testament. It is thought to be world’s oldest surviving bound book. 

[Scot McKendrick, Head of Western Manuscripts]:
„So this is the grand-daddy of them all.“

Scot McKendrick is the head of Western Manuscripts at the British Library, which has been home to the lion’s share of the 800 remaining pages of the Codex since 1933.  Other sections, which are normally housed in institutions in Leipzig Germany, St. Petersburg Russia and Sinai, Egypt now join the Library’s portion of the manuscript online.

[Scot McKendrick, Head of Western Manuscripts]:
„Through the online web presentation of this ancient treasure what we’re hoping is to allow people wherever they are to connect with it, to actually experience this wonderful thing.  There are a handful of people in the world who are still alive who’ve ever seen all the different parts of this manuscript.  What a change the website will make in making that possible for everyone. As long as they have a web browser they can do this.“

Translations are offered for many sections, for those who are not Greek Biblical scholars.

Project Manager Juan Garces says he views the Codex almost as an archaeological site, and says this project has already yielded numerous new discoveries — from revealing the impression of an animal’s bones on the parchment — to helping piece together different fragments of the same page.

[Juan Garces, Project Manager of Greek Manuscripts]:
„We’re peeling back the layers and allowing scholars and anyone else who is interested in this to understand what is going on there.“

[Scot McKendrick, Head of Western Manuscripts]:
„Right at the beginning of the manuscript, before the book of Genesis there was something which we don’t know. That the sort of intriguing find which we hadn’t suspected before this moment.“

To mark the launch of the virtually reunified Codex, the British Library is staging an exhibition called From Parchment to Pixel which will run through until September 7th.

(NTDTV)