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[Hopefully this is a sign of the future - that all ancient manuscripts can be accessed online for all to study and see. The website is well made and easy to navigate and hopefully will present a positive step in the right direction for biblical studies. - J.S.]
Oldest Bible Made Whole Again Online
By Stefano Ambrogi
Mon July 6, 2009
LONDON (Reuters)
The surviving parts of the world's oldest Bible will be reunited online on Monday, generating excitement among biblical scholars still striving to unlock its mysteries.
The Codex Sinaiticus was hand written by four scribes in Greek on animal hide, known as vellum, in the mid-fourth century around the time of the Roman emperor Constantine the Great who embraced Christianity.
Not all of it has withstood the ravages of time, but the pages that have include the whole of the New Testament and the earliest surviving copy of the Gospels written at different times after Christ's death by the four Evangelists: Matthew, Mark, Luke and John.
The Bible's remaining 800 pages and fragments -- it was originally some 1400 pages long -- also contain half of a copy of the Old Testament. The other half has been lost.
"The Codex Sinaiticus is one of the world's greatest written treasures," said Scot McKendrick, head of Western manuscripts at the British Library.
"This 1600-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," he said.
The texts include numerous revisions, additions and corrections made during its evolution down through the ages.
"The Codex ...is arguably the oldest large bound book to have survived," said McKendrick, pointing out that each page is 16 inches tall by 14 inches wide.
"Critically, it marks the definite triumph of bound codices over (papyrus) scrolls - a key watershed in how the Christian Bible was regarded as a sacred text," he said.
FOUR-YEAR PROJECT
The ancient parchments, which appear almost translucent, are a collection of sections held by the British Library in London, the Monastery of St. Catherine in Sinai, Egypt, the National Library of Russia and Leipzig University Library in Germany.
Each institution owns different amounts of the manuscript, but the British Library, which digitized the delicate pages of the entire book in London, holds by far the most.
The four-year joint project, which began in 2005 with the aim of "virtually reunifying" and preserving the Bible, as well as undertaking new research into its history, has shed new light on who made it and how it was produced.
Importantly, experts at the British Library say, the project has uncovered evidence that a fourth scribe - along with the three already recognized -- worked on the texts.
The assembly and transcription of the book includes previously unpublished pages of the Codex found in a blocked-off room at St. Catherine's Monastery, at the foot of Mount Moses, Sinai, in 1975, some of which are in a poor condition and have been difficult to study.
But there are still many unanswered questions about how the book came to be, said the British Library's Juan Garces, project manager of Greek manuscripts, who worked on the digitization.
For instance, where was it made? which religious order commissioned it? And how long did it take to produce?
"The limits on access to this manuscript previously have meant that people (academics) have tended to dip, so that they have seized on particular things" to advance theories, McKendrick told Reuters in an interview.
He said the website will enable research to be carried out in a holistic way for the first time, forcing top scholars to view their theories in context.
A good example, he said, was evidence advanced by some academics pointing to the theory that it could have been made in the ancient city of Cesarea in Israel.
"It is our hope this will provide the catalyst for new research and it is already creating great interest," Garces told Reuters.
The Bible, which can be viewed online free from Monday, includes modern Greek translations and some sections translated into English.
The British Library is expecting massive interest from believers around the world as well as the academic community.
"When 25 percent of the images were made available online last July we had 3.5 million hits in the first day (a record), and it crashed the site," a spokesman said.
Oldest Bible Made Whole Again Online
By Stefano Ambrogi
Mon July 6, 2009
LONDON (Reuters)
The surviving parts of the world's oldest Bible will be reunited online on Monday, generating excitement among biblical scholars still striving to unlock its mysteries.
The Codex Sinaiticus was hand written by four scribes in Greek on animal hide, known as vellum, in the mid-fourth century around the time of the Roman emperor Constantine the Great who embraced Christianity.
Not all of it has withstood the ravages of time, but the pages that have include the whole of the New Testament and the earliest surviving copy of the Gospels written at different times after Christ's death by the four Evangelists: Matthew, Mark, Luke and John.
The Bible's remaining 800 pages and fragments -- it was originally some 1400 pages long -- also contain half of a copy of the Old Testament. The other half has been lost.
"The Codex Sinaiticus is one of the world's greatest written treasures," said Scot McKendrick, head of Western manuscripts at the British Library.
"This 1600-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," he said.
The texts include numerous revisions, additions and corrections made during its evolution down through the ages.
"The Codex ...is arguably the oldest large bound book to have survived," said McKendrick, pointing out that each page is 16 inches tall by 14 inches wide.
"Critically, it marks the definite triumph of bound codices over (papyrus) scrolls - a key watershed in how the Christian Bible was regarded as a sacred text," he said.
FOUR-YEAR PROJECT
The ancient parchments, which appear almost translucent, are a collection of sections held by the British Library in London, the Monastery of St. Catherine in Sinai, Egypt, the National Library of Russia and Leipzig University Library in Germany.
Each institution owns different amounts of the manuscript, but the British Library, which digitized the delicate pages of the entire book in London, holds by far the most.
The four-year joint project, which began in 2005 with the aim of "virtually reunifying" and preserving the Bible, as well as undertaking new research into its history, has shed new light on who made it and how it was produced.
Importantly, experts at the British Library say, the project has uncovered evidence that a fourth scribe - along with the three already recognized -- worked on the texts.
The assembly and transcription of the book includes previously unpublished pages of the Codex found in a blocked-off room at St. Catherine's Monastery, at the foot of Mount Moses, Sinai, in 1975, some of which are in a poor condition and have been difficult to study.
But there are still many unanswered questions about how the book came to be, said the British Library's Juan Garces, project manager of Greek manuscripts, who worked on the digitization.
For instance, where was it made? which religious order commissioned it? And how long did it take to produce?
"The limits on access to this manuscript previously have meant that people (academics) have tended to dip, so that they have seized on particular things" to advance theories, McKendrick told Reuters in an interview.
He said the website will enable research to be carried out in a holistic way for the first time, forcing top scholars to view their theories in context.
A good example, he said, was evidence advanced by some academics pointing to the theory that it could have been made in the ancient city of Cesarea in Israel.
"It is our hope this will provide the catalyst for new research and it is already creating great interest," Garces told Reuters.
The Bible, which can be viewed online free from Monday, includes modern Greek translations and some sections translated into English.
The British Library is expecting massive interest from believers around the world as well as the academic community.
"When 25 percent of the images were made available online last July we had 3.5 million hits in the first day (a record), and it crashed the site," a spokesman said.
I don't know if you are familiar with the urban legend or maybe it's true, I don't know, about Codex Sinaiticus. I think I read about it in books that defended the Majority Text and on an Orthodox website. You being Orthodox are probably sympathetic, or an outright defender of it. But the story goes that Tischendorff found the monks burning the pages. I don't believe anyone refutes this, as the story comes from the Count himself. But the monks were burning it because it supposedly had so many errors. I'll have to check Metzger's Text of the New Testament for the details. But can you comment on this story/legend.
ReplyDelete-H
Well, the urban legend is true in part, though not as it is often told by angry university students in the West. The way it usually passes down is that the foolish monks were throwing away perfectly good manuscripts among which was the Codex Sinaiticus and were in a trash barrel ready to be burned, many pages of which were already burned. Then just in time Tischendorf came to the rescue.
ReplyDeleteThe true story itself is not only more honest, but sympathetic. Tischendorf writes: "In visiting the library of the monastery, in the month of May, 1844, I perceived in the middle of the great hall a large and wide basket full of old parchments; and the librarian, who was a man of information, told me that two heaps of papers like these, mouldered by time, had been already committed to the flames." So here we have some clarifications. First, these manuscripts were not thrown in a trash bin, but were kept in the library in a wide basket. Second, these sheets were "mouldered by time", which indicates they were of little use to the monastery since they could not be read from. Since the manuscripts served no practical use, it was inconcievable for the monks to keep them and let them waste away. They were hardly interested in the biblical criticism that was going on in the West at the time and probably not even informed about it. Old manuscripts were commonly discarded in this manner by the monasteries and libraries after they were copied faithfully, that is, if only they were legible. If the monks knew the value of the manuscripts, they would not have burned them.
Tischendorf continues: "What was my surprise to find amid this heap of papers a considerable number of sheets of a copy of the Old Testament in Greek, which seemed to me to be one of the most ancient that I had ever seen. The authorities of the convent allowed me to possess myself of a third of these parchments, or about forty-three sheets, all the more readily as they were destined for the fire. But I could not get them to yield up possession of the remainder. The too lively satisfaction which I had displayed had aroused their suspicions as to the value of this manuscript. I transcribed a page of the text of Isaiah and Jeremiah, and enjoined on the monks to take religious care of all such remains which might fall in their way." In no way does Tischendorf berate the monks for doing what they did either in person or on paper. He was a trained specialist in his field and he could probably expect no less from monks who had no practical use for this treasure. However when the value of the manuscripts are uncovered, they quickly make sure to not get rid of all of them and are even too generous in allowing 43 sheets to leave the monastery forever. Considering also that Tischendorf was ready to deceive the monks to get a hold of the entire treasure.
We then find out what happened when the monks learned of the value of these manuscripts while Tischendorf was publishing the 43 pages in Saxony: "But these home labours upon the manuscripts which I had already safely garnered did not allow me to forget the distant treasure which I had discovered. I made use of an influential friend, who then resided at the Court of the Viceroy of Egypt, to carry on negotiations for procuring the rest of the manuscripts; but his attempts were, unfortunately, not successful. 'The monks of the convent,' he wrote to me to say, 'have, since your departure, learned the value of these sheets of parchment, and will not part with them at any price.'
After describing how he travelled back to Sinai in 1853 to find more of this manuscript, Tischendorf comes out empty handed except for a few lines of Genesis that he found rolled up.
In 1858 the Tsar of Russia funded his next research expedition to Sinai in order to find this treasure which the Orthodox now considered a treasure. He arrived at Sinai in 1859 and when he was greeted by the abbot he "expressed a wish that I might succeed in discovering fresh supports for the truth." ....
After searching a few days he reported: "On the afternoon of this day I was taking a walk with the steward of the convent in the neighbourhood, and as we returned, towards sunset, he begged me to take some refreshment with him in his cell. Scarcely had he entered the room, when, resuming our former subject of conversation, he said: 'And I, too, have read a Septuagint'--i.e. a copy of the Greek translation made by the Seventy. And so saying, he took down from the corner of the room a bulky kind of volume, wrapped up in a red cloth, and laid it before me. I unrolled the cover, and discovered, to my great surprise, not only those very fragments which, fifteen years before, I had taken out of the basket, but also other parts of the Old Testament, the New Testament complete, and, in addition, the Epistle of Barnabas and a part of the Pastor of Hermas. Full of joy, which this time I had the self-command to conceal from the steward and the rest of the community, I asked, as if in a careless way, for permission to take the manuscript into my sleeping chamber to look over it more at leisure. There by myself I could give way to the transport of joy which I fat. I knew that I held in my hand the most precious Biblical treasure in existence--a document whose age and importance exceeded that of all the manuscripts which I had ever examined during twenty years' study of the subject."
ReplyDeleteSo we see here that the monks, though learned, had little use for an impractical Bible. This monk was using the Codex as a Bible for his devotions and probably never considered how much the manuscript was worth. And in fact, it was because of these monks that the Bible was preserved so long as it was practical. Tischendorf had much to gain in both fame and money, but the monks didn't. I believe it was by divine Providence that Tischendorf was in exactly the right place at exactly the right time.
To read more about Tischendorf's discovery of the Codex Sinaiticus, you can read it at this link. It is an interesting read that sounds like a romance:
http://rosetta.reltech.org/TC/extras/tischendorf-sinaiticus.html
I was thinking how I only gave Tischendorf's testimony on this subject. It would only be fair to say what the monks of the Monastery at Saint Katherine's believe to be true as well. Acording to many monks, Tischendorf lied about the monks throwing away the manuscript and burning. They say he said this to cover up the fact that he stole those intial copies of the Codex. Von Tischendorf had a deed of gift dated September 11, 1868 signed by the Archbishop of the monastery, but nothing prior to that. This may indicate that the monks tale is more probable, as it is commonly agreed that Tischendorf was out for profit and notoriety above everything else, and even confesses at his attempts to deceive the monks though he was unable to.
ReplyDelete