Codex Sinaiticus

Go 1600 years into the past as the earliest surviving bound Christian Bible is made available online.

CODEX SINAITICUS MANUSCRIPT ONLINE

The virtual reunification of Codex Sinaiticus is the culmination of a four-year collaboration between the British Library, Leipzig University Library, the Monastery of St Catherine, Sinai - after which the manuscript is named - and the National Library of Russia in St Petersburg.

Visitors to the website can see around 800 pages of the 4th century document, which was written in Greek on parchment leaves by different scribes, before being revised and corrected in the following centuries. The virtual reunification of half of the manuscript offers people around the world, through high resolution digital images, insight into the development of early Christianity. 

A WORLD OF RESEARCH

Codex Sinaiticus was found in a Sinai monastery in 1844, where it is thought to have lain undisturbed for centuries, preserved by the desert air. Its fragmentary physical existence is spread across the four institutions mentioned above. But digital access to the text now means that scholars of Christianity will be able to collaborate more freely on research into the transmission of the text across the generations.   

BRITISH LIBRARY EXHIBITION
   
The British Library is staging an exhibition to mark the online launch of the manuscript. From Parchment to Pixel: The Virtual reunification of Codex Sinaiticus, runs until Monday 7 September in the Folio Society Gallery in the St Pancras building. Artefacts and historic items will tell the story of the Codex and its digital reconstruction.