Codex Sinaiticus Now Online

Yesterday the Codex Sinaiticus site went live. Besides having one of the coolest titles ever, it's also contains the earliest copy of the NT. The manuscript clocks in at around 1600 years old.

From their About page:
Codex Sinaiticus, a manuscript of the Christian Bible written in the middle of the fourth century, contains the earliest complete copy of the Christian New Testament. The hand-written text is in Greek. The New Testament appears in the original vernacular language (koine) and the Old Testament in the version, known as the Septuagint, that was adopted by early Greek-speaking Christians. In the Codex, the text of both the Septuagint and the New Testament has been heavily annotated by a series of early correctors.

The significance of Codex Sinaiticus for the reconstruction of the Christian Bible's original text, the history of the Bible and the history of Western book-making is immense.

Here's a screenshot of the beginning of Mark: codexs.jpg

Read more about the plans for the project.

I have worked on digitization projects before and what they're accomplishing is nothing short of revolutionary. It'll be exciting to see how scholarship develops around this text.

Any thoughts?

[HT: Jesus Creed]

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Comments (3)

I sort of hope that there is room for dispassionate discussion.
I've heard some un-positive stuff about the CS, largely from pro-Textus Receptus people.
There seems to be need amongst people who invest significant amounts of their lives into anything, sacred writings not excluded, to ensure that their opinions receive top billing.
Perhaps the intertubes can provide a way forward to get all of the material out their and let people draw their own conclusions.
pretty cool.
I think it's cool... but, I can't help but wonder... what's the point? 99.5% of the people aren't able to read it... so you're really just looking at an image with weird markings on it.

I get the novalty of looking at something that was 1600 years old, and I agree; I think it's pretty cool. But there's really nothing serious for the common Christian to do with this... at least until they get the translations working (which, as of my last click, it wasn't).

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