Scot McKendrick, David Parker, Amy Myshrall, and Cillian O’Hogan , eds. Codex Sinaiticus: New Perspectives on the Ancient Biblical Manuscript. British Library, 2015.

From the British Library

Codex Sinaiticus is one of the most important books in the world. Handwritten well over 1600 years ago, the manuscript contains the Christian Bible in Greek, including the oldest complete copy of the New Testament. Its heavily corrected text is of outstanding importance for the history of the Bible and the manuscript – the oldest substantial book to survive antiquity – is of supreme importance for the history of the book.

This collection of scholarly essays constitutes an important reappraisal of the history of the manuscript. Newly discovered archival material sheds light on the complex sequence of events which led to the Codex being dispersed across four libraries. The evidence relating to the production of the manuscript is assessed by several contributors, who pay careful attention to the thousands of corrections which were made to the text by several hands. The significance of Codex Sinaiticus for our understanding of the New Testament text is analysed in detail, with a number of articles showing how the manuscript helps us to understand the formation of the Christian canon in antiquity.

Read more about the publication and the Codex Sinaiticus Project on the Medieval manuscripts blog.