Oldest Complete Bible Online
Posted by Kushana Torumekia at 7/22/2008 3:00 PM and is filed under Bible,Textual Criticism,Hebrew,Greek,New Testament,Books That Didn't Make It Into the Bible 
http://www.codexsinaiticus.org/
This means that the oldest complete Bible dates from the 300's C.E. There are individual books of the Bible (and fragments of books that are older) but none dates to the lifetime of Jesus or his immediate followers. It contains both the now-familiar contents of the Bible and the Letter of Barnabas and the Shepherd of Hermas. (You can read nice modern translations in Bart Ehrman's vol. 2 of the Apostolic Fathers, (ISBN 978-0674996083) a little green book from the Loeb Classical Library. Loeb translations usually aim for solid competence rather than literary excellence (their main value is the original language on each left-hand page), but Ehrman's translations are a pleasant exception.) Both translations also appear in his Lost Scriptures (ISBN 978-0195141825), the companion volume to Lost Christianities (ISBN 978-0195182491.)
In other words, both 'additional' books were viewed as part of the Bible by the scribes who copied Codex Sinaiticus: the idea that there should be one uniform collection of holy books (the Bible is a library of short books) took centuries to form in both Christianity and Judaism.
This is not the first time scholars have had access to Sinaiticus. The edition of the Greek New Testament that historians use is The Greek New Testament edited by Barbara Aland, Kurt Aland, Johannes Karavidopoulos, Bruce M. Metzger, C. M. Martini (ISBN 978-1598561715.) The bottom of each page contains running footnotes (see the image here). The image shows that the quoting of Psalm 41:9 in the Gospel of John 13:18 has a small variation: certain manuscripts and Church Fathers have "my" in the quotation, others (including Sinaiticus) have "with me".
If you look under the line at the bottom of the page you'll see:
____________________________________________________________
4 18 {D} greek (abbreviations of Biblical manuscripts and Biblical quotes from Church Fathers)
Cyril // greek P66
and something that looks like a curved X. That's the first letter of the Hebrew alphabet and the abbreviation for Codex Sinaiticus. The text of the New Testament in Greek is a patchwork of different manuscripts: our complete manuscripts are centuries newer than Christianity's first generations, our oldest manuscripts are never the complete ones. As you can imagine, Sinaiticus is one of our best resources for reconstructing the New Testament and anyone who works with the Christian Bible in its original Greek becomes very familiar with that Hebrew letter.*
(The problem of how quotes from the Hebrew Bible look in the New Testament requires two further books: the standard scholarly edition of the Hebrew Bible (Old Testament) in Hebrew, and the standard scholarly edition of the ancient translations of the Hebrew Bible into Greek (the Septuagint, abbreviated as the LXX.)* Early Christians — and many Second Temple Jews — read and discussed the Hebrew Bible in Greek (even the Dead Sea Scrolls show Biblical Hebrew was not a living language). There was no one, standard, official translation of the Hebrew Bible into Greek (and anyone quoting from memory can make a mistake, even an Evangelist or Church Father) so each New Testament quote tells historians which ancient translation a scribe or Church Father had (or at least how they remembered it), and what they thought it meant.)
The important thing to remember if you browse Codex Sinaiticus is that every ancient book was copied by hand (often by more than one person: try copying an entire book — or even a long poem or short story — neatly and uniformly by hand and you'll discover why) and no two ancient books were alike.
-Kushana
* Yes, scholars have funny abbreviations for things. The 'why' is usually an anecdote that's a good way to sidetrack a lecture. Graceful recoveries from anecdotes is a skill — although there are masters who teach solely in anecdotes.
A
“unique treasure” of Biblical history is to be made available online
for the first time .... The
Codex Sinaiticus, considered to be the world’s most important Biblical
manuscript, dates from the fourth century and is thought to be the
earliest, most complete Christian bible. The manuscript is, however, split up and housed in four different
locations - London, Sinai, St Petersburg and Leipzig. This means that
pages from one book of the bible manuscript might be housed in two or
more different repositories. http://www.24hourmuseum.org.uk/nwh_gfx_en/ART59557.html
This means that the oldest complete Bible dates from the 300's C.E. There are individual books of the Bible (and fragments of books that are older) but none dates to the lifetime of Jesus or his immediate followers. It contains both the now-familiar contents of the Bible and the Letter of Barnabas and the Shepherd of Hermas. (You can read nice modern translations in Bart Ehrman's vol. 2 of the Apostolic Fathers, (ISBN 978-0674996083) a little green book from the Loeb Classical Library. Loeb translations usually aim for solid competence rather than literary excellence (their main value is the original language on each left-hand page), but Ehrman's translations are a pleasant exception.) Both translations also appear in his Lost Scriptures (ISBN 978-0195141825), the companion volume to Lost Christianities (ISBN 978-0195182491.)
In other words, both 'additional' books were viewed as part of the Bible by the scribes who copied Codex Sinaiticus: the idea that there should be one uniform collection of holy books (the Bible is a library of short books) took centuries to form in both Christianity and Judaism.
This is not the first time scholars have had access to Sinaiticus. The edition of the Greek New Testament that historians use is The Greek New Testament edited by Barbara Aland, Kurt Aland, Johannes Karavidopoulos, Bruce M. Metzger, C. M. Martini (ISBN 978-1598561715.) The bottom of each page contains running footnotes (see the image here). The image shows that the quoting of Psalm 41:9 in the Gospel of John 13:18 has a small variation: certain manuscripts and Church Fathers have "my" in the quotation, others (including Sinaiticus) have "with me".
If you look under the line at the bottom of the page you'll see:
____________________________________________________________
4 18 {D} greek (abbreviations of Biblical manuscripts and Biblical quotes from Church Fathers)
Cyril // greek P66
and something that looks like a curved X. That's the first letter of the Hebrew alphabet and the abbreviation for Codex Sinaiticus. The text of the New Testament in Greek is a patchwork of different manuscripts: our complete manuscripts are centuries newer than Christianity's first generations, our oldest manuscripts are never the complete ones. As you can imagine, Sinaiticus is one of our best resources for reconstructing the New Testament and anyone who works with the Christian Bible in its original Greek becomes very familiar with that Hebrew letter.*
(The problem of how quotes from the Hebrew Bible look in the New Testament requires two further books: the standard scholarly edition of the Hebrew Bible (Old Testament) in Hebrew, and the standard scholarly edition of the ancient translations of the Hebrew Bible into Greek (the Septuagint, abbreviated as the LXX.)* Early Christians — and many Second Temple Jews — read and discussed the Hebrew Bible in Greek (even the Dead Sea Scrolls show Biblical Hebrew was not a living language). There was no one, standard, official translation of the Hebrew Bible into Greek (and anyone quoting from memory can make a mistake, even an Evangelist or Church Father) so each New Testament quote tells historians which ancient translation a scribe or Church Father had (or at least how they remembered it), and what they thought it meant.)
The important thing to remember if you browse Codex Sinaiticus is that every ancient book was copied by hand (often by more than one person: try copying an entire book — or even a long poem or short story — neatly and uniformly by hand and you'll discover why) and no two ancient books were alike.
-Kushana
* Yes, scholars have funny abbreviations for things. The 'why' is usually an anecdote that's a good way to sidetrack a lecture. Graceful recoveries from anecdotes is a skill — although there are masters who teach solely in anecdotes.
Comments