World's oldest Christian Bible is digitized. The work known as the Codex Sinaiticus. It has been housed in four separate locations across the world for more than 150 years.The Codex Sinaiticus is the oldest version of the Christian Bible in book form, and, according to many scholars, one of the world's greatest written treasures. The actual leaves and fragments from the book are in the British Library in England, as well as in various archives in Germany and Russia, and the St. Catherine's Monastery of Sinai, where the text was originally discovered. Starting today, however, anybody with access to an Internet connection and a modern browser can now see a virtual facsimile of the book online. so scholars and other readers can get a closer look at what the British Library calls a "unique treasure."
Scot McKendrick, head of Western manuscripts at the British Library, said the book "offers a window into the development of early Christianity and firsthand evidence of how the text of the Bible was transmitted from generation to generation."
The 4th-century book, written in Greek on parchment leaves, has been housed in four separate locations across the world for more than 150 years. It has been digitally reunited in a project involving organizations from Britain, Germany, Russia, and Egypt, each of which possessed parts of the 1,600-year-old manuscript.
They worked together to publish new research into the history of the Codex and transcribed 650,000 words over a four-year period.
Juan Garces, the Codex Sinaiticus project manager, said it was a "definitely a historical moment."
The Codex was both a key Christian text and "a landmark in the history of the book, as it is arguably the oldest large bound book to have survived," McKendrick said.
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