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British Library Puts Oldest Surviving Bible Online
Peace Corps Library writes "BBC reports that about 800 pages of the earliest surviving Christian Bible, the 1,600-year-old Codex Sinaiticus manuscript, have been recovered and put on the Internet. 'The Codex Sinaiticus is one of the world's greatest written treasures,' says Dr. Scot McKendrick, head of Western manuscripts at the British Library. '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.' The New Testament of the Codex Sinaiticus appears in Koine Greek, the original vernacular language, and the Old Testament in the version, known as the Septuagint, that was adopted by early Greek-speaking Christians. For 1,500 years, the Codex Sinaiticus lay undisturbed in a Sinai monastery until it was found in 1844 and split between Egypt, Russia, Germany, and Britain. It is thought to have survived because the desert air was ideal for preservation and because the monastery, on a Christian island in a Muslim sea, remained untouched, its walls unconquered. The British Library is marking the online launch of the manuscript with an exhibition which includes a range of historic items and artifacts linked to the document. 'The availability of the virtual manuscript for study by scholars around the world creates opportunities for collaborative research that would not have been possible just a few years ago.'"
Why would Paul write so strongly about the resurrection even in prison?
What makes you think that Paul wrote that gospel? The Bible was assembled by committee and included the the works submitted and voted in. Is it based on faith alone that you assume that the gospels were not embellished before publication?
He's getting rather old, but he's a good mouse.
Mod parent down. That's not correct at all.
1. Codex Sinaiticus mentions the resurrection many times. What is omitted is the description of the Gospel of Mark. The description in the Gospel of Luke, however, is NOT missing from that text. At best Codex S. supports the theory that the ending of Mark was added later---a theory that a fair number of biblical scholars hold, mind you.
2. Codex Sinaiticus was either written in the last few years of Constantine or after his death. This proves nothing about Constantine's effect on the early church. You'd need something at least a hundred years older.
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C'mon. Why is it that people who are otherwise intelligent, rational thinkers suddenly turn that part of their brains off when it is time to attack Christianity?
Jesus' resurrection is also recounted in the gospels of Matthew (28:1-10) and Luke (24:1-35), passages which are present in the Codex.