From the British Library: "Codex Sinaiticus, written in Greek in the fourth century, is the oldest surviving complete New Testament and one of the two oldest manuscripts of the whole Bible. The manuscript includes numerous corrections, both in the hands of the original scribes and in those of later correctors. Superscriptions, subscriptions and running titles throughout."
The British Library holds the largest portion (347 leaves) of the codex, which originally had 730 leaves.
Since 2002, a major international project has been creating an electronic version of the manuscript. The facsimile reunites the text, now divided between the British Library, the National Library of Russia, Saint Catherine's Monastery (Mount Sinai) and Leipzig University Library.
From the Codex Sinaiticus Project: "Codex Sinaiticus is one of the most important witnesses to the Greek text of the Septuagint (the Old Testament in the version that was adopted by early Greek-speaking Christians) and the Christian New Testament. No other early manuscript of the Christian Bible has been so extensively corrected...
"During its history – particularly its modern history – parts of 'Codex Sinaiticus' were also known by other names. The 43 leaves which are now at Leipzig University Library were published in 1846 as 'Codex Frederico-Augustanus' in honour of Frederick Augustus II, King of Saxony, who was the patron of the German Biblical scholar and editor of Codex Sinaiticus, Constantine Tischendorf. The 347 leaves now in The British Library were previously known as 'Codex Sinaiticus Petropolitanus', as they were kept in St Petersburg between 1863 and 1933..
"The idiosyncratic sequence of books is also remarkable: within the New Testament the Letter to the Hebrews is placed after Paul's Second Letter to the Thessalonians, and the Acts of the Apostles between the Pastoral and Catholic Epistles. The content and arrangement of the books in Codex Sinaiticus shed light on the history of the construction of the Christian Bible.
View the British Library's 347 leaves
BL catalogue entry: ADD MS43725
