A picture of the Book of Esther, in the manuscript.
Posted on 08/04/2005 10:22:42 PM PDT by BlackVeil
A manuscript containing the oldest known Biblical New Testament in the world is set to enter the digital age and become accessible online.
A team of experts from the UK, Europe, Egypt and Russia is currently digitising the parchment known as the Codex Sinaiticus, believed originally to have been one of 50 copies of the scriptures commissioned by Roman Emperor Constantine after he converted to Christianity.
The Bible, which is currently in the British Library in London, dates from the 4th Century.
"It is a very distinctive manuscript. No other manuscript looks like this," Scot McKendrick, the head of the Medieval and Earlier Manuscripts Department in the British Library, told BBC World Service's Reporting Religion programme.
"On each very large page, about 14-16 inches (34-37cm) it has a Greek text written in four columns.
"That's the really distinct feature of it - layers of text - it's one of the fascinating aspects of it and it shows us how the Biblical text developed over a certain period, how it was interpreted in those crucial early years of Christianity."
Stolen
The digitising project is particularly significant because of the rarity and importance of the manuscript.
The original document is so precious that it has only been seen by four scholars in the last 20 years.
The Codex Sinaiticus contains the whole of the Christian Bible; specifically, it has the oldest complete copy of the New Testament, as well as the Greek Old Testament, known as the Septuagint, which includes books now regarded as apocrypha.
It is named after the place it was written, the monastery of Saint Catherine in Sinai, Egypt, set beneath the mountain where Moses is said to have received the Ten Commandments.
It remained there until the middle of the 19th Century when a visiting German scholar, Constantin von Tischendorf, took parts of it away to Germany and Russia. To this day, the monastery officially regards it as stolen.
In total the codex is now in four portions, the largest of which - 347 of the 400 pages - is that at the British Library. The rest are split between Leipzig University Library, the National Library of Russia in St Petersburg, and the monastery.
Free website
All four institutions are co-operating to digitise the entire text, as well as using hyperspectral imaging to photograph it, in order to find any hidden or erased text.
"To do it also in infra-red or ultra-violet photography, as in forensics, you'll find out any hidden aspects of it as well," explained the British Library's digitisation expert Lawrence Pordez.
The British Library bought the codex from Russia for £100,000 in 1933 He added that a further advantage of using photographs of the manuscript to make a facsimile of it was that there were "no chemicals involved".
"It's also faster to produce," he added.
For his part, Dr McKendrick said he estimated it would be about four years before the codex is fully available online.
This is to give time "to essentially photograph the manuscript, to conserve it, to transcribe anew the whole of the text, and to present that in a new form electronically".
The British Library will also develop a free website to present the manuscript.
The website will both "present the manuscript - just the facts as it were, the images and the transcription - but also interpret it for different audiences, from scholars right through to people who are just interested in this manuscript or in Christianity".
Real Old Stuff Ping.
I often think about Scribes hunched over copying manuscripts all day when I make Xerox copies. I can't wait to see this when it is available.
A picture of the Book of Esther, in the manuscript.
The above is almost certainly erroneous. Constantine made Christianity the official religion of the Empire, but remained a 'pagan' himself, until very shortly before his death, when he conveniently 'converted'.
I suspect he was a hypocritical manipulator of the masses, but perhaps he simply didn't want to be dictated to by Church authorities during his worldly reign.
During his time, there was a lot of dissent, and alternative scriptures were being banned and buried, etc.
Yeshua...we love you (if only because you loved us first).
And imagine how long it took to transcribe pictures of their behinds at the office Christmas party pre-Xerox.
Looking up for errant lightning.
Please FREEPMAIL me if you want on, off, or alter the "Gods, Graves, Glyphs" PING list --
Archaeology/Anthropology/Ancient Cultures/Artifacts/Antiquities, etc.
The GGG Digest -- Gods, Graves, Glyphs (alpha order)
Constantine was confronted with a situation where Christianity was in better shape than what was left of the Empire, and figured he and the Empire would be better off working with 'em rather than ag'in 'em. Also, the Roman Pantheon started to lose credibility when the Roman Senate started to vote on deification for the recently deceased emperors and whatnot. By the time of Constantine, it was a laughingstock.
Just wondering:
Dan. 12:4 (KJV)
But thou, O Daniel, shut up the words, and seal the book, even to the time of the end: many shall run to and fro, and knowledge shall be increased.
I thought this might interest you.
Wow bump.
It does. I am interested in parts that have been left out - it mentions a part that is now apocrypha (doesn't that mean stories that aren't now considered bona fide?). I also want to read the Catholic Bible; until recently I didn't know it was a different one than the King James.
I am pretty ignorant about the Bible, just know some of it.
Except, of course, to more than 1 billion Roman and Eastern Orthodox Catholics.
Encarta Dictionary
A·poc·ry·pha
1. Biblical writings of disputed authenticity.
books of the Bible that are included in the Vulgate and Septuagint versions of the Christian Bible, but not in the Protestant Bible or the Hebrew canon
2. Early Christian writings.
a group of Christian writings dating from the early centuries ad that are not included in the Bible
The reason is that the Jews were not yet in agreement on exactly which books constituted their Bible when the early Christians assembled the Christian Bible.
The Jewish scholars who later assembled their Bible rejected some books accepted by the Christians. The books are: Tobit, Judith, 1 Maccabees, 2 Maccabees, Wisdom of Solomon, Sirach (Ecclesiasticus), and Baruch; as well as parts of Esther and Daniel.
Many centuries later, some of the Protestant reformers also rejected these books, calling them Apocrypha, although the books were included in the original King James Bible as well as in Lutheran Bibles published in Germany.
Yes. I have read Eileen Pagal The Gnostic Gospels. Constantine surely wanted first and foremost to control and contain this upstart religious movement, because he knew he couldn't supress it. BTW, I have read that Christianity was still a minority religion as the time the Emperor elevated it to official status, and as you point out, one with many contending factions. The Empire faced enough external threats at the time without being torn apart internally by religious feuds. Still, the official sanction of Christianity and the 50 Bibles came before, not after Constantine's conversion.
Secularists like to have a good time blaming religion for all the evils of history, but I believe it is the mixing of religion with politics (ie, the hijacking of religion by political forces) that is to blame for the worst things that have happened 'in the name of religion'. Just look at the Islamic theocracies of today!
Stuff like this makes me love the stupid limeys.
A Greek manuscript of the Old and New Testaments, of the greatest antiquity and value; found on Mount Sinai, in St. Catherine's Monastery, by Constantine Tischendorf.
Codex Sinaiticus
Catholic Ping
Please freepmail me if you want on/off this list
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.