The Oldest Bible

It is good to see Codex Sinaiticus still making the news and on Monday, Radio 4 (which most right thinking Brits, and many others too, love with passion) broadcast a half hour documentary:

The Oldest Bible

Roger Bolton tells the story of the Codex Sinaiticus bible, found in 1844 in a monastery in the Sinai Desert and then split between Egypt, Russia, Switzerland and the British Library. It is soon to be digitised for world-wide viewing, and poses a significant challenge to the Bible as we know it.

You can listen again from the link above, or by going straight to the iPlayer. It will be available for the next few days. Once I've listened, I will comment here. Meanwhile, an article related to the programme has drawn heavy criticism and helpful correction from Dirk Jongkind on Evangelical Textual Criticism. I would be interested to hear Dirk's and others' comments on the programme too when they have listened.

Codex Sinaiticus Project Countdown Begins

Several news sources are reporting the exciting news that the Codex Sinaiticus Project is to go online on Thursday this week. Deutsche Welle announces German University to Put World's Oldest Bible Online, but it looks like they are a bit confused -- the project is actually a British Library Online Project, though in collaboration with three other institutions including Leipzig, correctly today in the 24 Hour Museum:

Codex Sinaiticus Bible Reunited in British Library Online Project

A “unique treasure” of Biblical history is to be made available online for the first time through a collaborative project between The British Library and three other major international institutions.

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 . . .

There is a holding page on the official site in German and English. The 24 hour museum article gives a little more detail:

While the project intends to have all parts of the Codex Sinaiticus online by July 2009, this year’s initial launch will give access to 106 pages held by the British Library. These include the complete Book of Psalms and the Gospel of Mark.

A further 28 fragment pages from the British Library collection will also be added. These pages enable the online completion of a further six Biblical texts when joined with the parts of the manuscript housed at Leipzig University. These texts include 1 Chronicles, Jeremiah and Lamentations.

As well as translations of some parts of the manuscript from the Greek into English and German, the website will also allow users to explore cross-referencing between both the transcription and the image of the manuscript itself. For instance, pointing at a word on the transcription will highlight the equivalent word in the image.

I will add a link and a notice when the time comes on Thurdsay. For more on the project see:

ITSEE: The Codex Sinaiticus Project
British Library Press Release (2005)

And for recent blog notices, see now Progress in the Digitization of the Codex Sinaiticus on Elginism and Codex Sinaiticus to go Online this week on j. c. baker and The Codex Sinaiticus Project on Paleojudaica.

Vetus Latina Updated

Hugh Houghton has been in touch to let me know that the Vetus Latina website has been updated, with more links to online manuscripts, and some older links have been removed:

Vetus Latina - Resources for the Old Latin Bible

I'll add a link to my TC pages in due course.

Codices Electronici Sangallenses (CESG) – Virtual Library

ITSEE News reports "this superb digitisation project" which "has expanded its collection to include 144 complete manuscripts, and over 57,000 high quality digital images":

Codices Electronici Sangallenses (CESG) – Virtual Library