July 23, 2008--Summer Reading
You don’t have to be religious to love this Bible—the Codex Sinaiticus.
It is the oldest complete version of the New Testament and several books of the Old. Tomorrow, the NY Times reports (linked), a digital copy of it will be available for close viewing on the miraculous Internet.
But if you can’t wait until then, rush, as I did, to the Website (www.codex-sinaiticus.net) for a preview. There you will find an astonishing full-folio page of the end of the Book of Jeremiah and the beginning of Lamentations. By using the little magnifying glass icon you can zoom in on it to contemplate virtually every one of the Greek letters that make up this more than 1,600 year-old Bible.
The Codex Sinaiticus is a translation from Hebrew and Greek manuscripts into an all-Greek bible. It is believed that it may be one of 50 original bibles that the Emperor Constantine commissioned after converting the Eastern Roman Empire to Christianity. It was discovered at the Monastery of St. Catherine in Sinai, Egypt, which was built on what is traditionally believed to be the site of Moses' burning bush.
Although most of the Old Testament portion of the Codex has been destroyed, the New Testament text has survived and is in general agreement with the text used to establish the King James Version of the Bible.
The story of its discovery in 1844 by the intrepid German Biblical scholar Constantin von Tishendorf reads like a novel. Here, from Wikipedia, is part of the saga:
In 1844, during his first visit to Monastery of Saint Catherine, Tischendorf saw some leaves of parchment in a wastebasket. They were "rubbish which was to be destroyed by burning it in the ovens of the monastery". After examination he realized that they were part of the Septuagint, written in an early Greek script. He retrieved from the basket 129 leaves in Greek which he identified as coming from a manuscript of the Septuagint. [The oldest Greek version of the Hebrew Bible translated between the 3rd and 1st centuries BC in Alexandria, Egypt.]
He asked if he might keep them, but at this point the attitude of the monks changed, they realized how valuable these old leaves were, and Tischendorf was permitted to take only one-third of the whole, 43 leaves. These leaves contained portions of 1 Chronicles, Jeremiah, Nehemiah, and Esther. After his return to Germany they were deposited in the University Library at Leipzig, where they still remain.
The full codex is now split into four unequal portions: 347 leaves in the British Library in London, 12 leaves and 14 fragments in St. Catherine's Monastery of Sinai, 43 leaves in the Leipzig University Library, and fragments of 3 leaves in the Russian National Library in Saint Petersburg
Though the Leipzig section contains “only” 43 leaves, savoring them should keep you busy for at least the rest of the day.
It is the oldest complete version of the New Testament and several books of the Old. Tomorrow, the NY Times reports (linked), a digital copy of it will be available for close viewing on the miraculous Internet.
But if you can’t wait until then, rush, as I did, to the Website (www.codex-sinaiticus.net) for a preview. There you will find an astonishing full-folio page of the end of the Book of Jeremiah and the beginning of Lamentations. By using the little magnifying glass icon you can zoom in on it to contemplate virtually every one of the Greek letters that make up this more than 1,600 year-old Bible.
The Codex Sinaiticus is a translation from Hebrew and Greek manuscripts into an all-Greek bible. It is believed that it may be one of 50 original bibles that the Emperor Constantine commissioned after converting the Eastern Roman Empire to Christianity. It was discovered at the Monastery of St. Catherine in Sinai, Egypt, which was built on what is traditionally believed to be the site of Moses' burning bush.
Although most of the Old Testament portion of the Codex has been destroyed, the New Testament text has survived and is in general agreement with the text used to establish the King James Version of the Bible.
The story of its discovery in 1844 by the intrepid German Biblical scholar Constantin von Tishendorf reads like a novel. Here, from Wikipedia, is part of the saga:
In 1844, during his first visit to Monastery of Saint Catherine, Tischendorf saw some leaves of parchment in a wastebasket. They were "rubbish which was to be destroyed by burning it in the ovens of the monastery". After examination he realized that they were part of the Septuagint, written in an early Greek script. He retrieved from the basket 129 leaves in Greek which he identified as coming from a manuscript of the Septuagint. [The oldest Greek version of the Hebrew Bible translated between the 3rd and 1st centuries BC in Alexandria, Egypt.]
He asked if he might keep them, but at this point the attitude of the monks changed, they realized how valuable these old leaves were, and Tischendorf was permitted to take only one-third of the whole, 43 leaves. These leaves contained portions of 1 Chronicles, Jeremiah, Nehemiah, and Esther. After his return to Germany they were deposited in the University Library at Leipzig, where they still remain.
The full codex is now split into four unequal portions: 347 leaves in the British Library in London, 12 leaves and 14 fragments in St. Catherine's Monastery of Sinai, 43 leaves in the Leipzig University Library, and fragments of 3 leaves in the Russian National Library in Saint Petersburg
Though the Leipzig section contains “only” 43 leaves, savoring them should keep you busy for at least the rest of the day.
posted by Steven Zwerling at
7:08 AM
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