Ancient Bible Pages Go Online

The 1,600-year-old Codex Sinaiticus is put online after institutions in the UK, Germany, Egypt and Russia work together.

The Codex Sinaiticus was discovered in an old monastery in the Sinai desert in 1844, where it had lain for around 1,500 years. The sheer fact of its existence was surprise enough. But that was attributed to the dry desert air and the fact that the monastery itself had never been the site of any armed conflict.

The Codex consisted of about 1,460 pages, each around 16” by 14”, written on parchment leaves in Greek. After the discovery it was split between Egypt, the UK, Germany, and Russia.

Now it’s come together again, as institutions in those countries have made over half the Codex available online at www.codexsinaiticus.org. Dr Scot McKendrick, head of Western manuscripts at the British Library, told the BBC:

"This 1,600-year-old manuscript offers a window into the development of early Christianity and first-hand evidence of how the text of the Bible was transmitted from generation to generation.