Codex Sinaiticus

Contains the oldest complete copy of the New Testament and is one of the most important witnesses to the text of both the Old and New Testaments, fundamentally shaping modern biblical scholarship and text criticism.

Codex Sinaiticus, designated by the Hebrew letter aleph (א) or the number 01 in the Gregory-Aland numbering system, is one of the most important manuscripts in the history of the Bible. Written in Greek uncial (majuscule) script on parchment around 330–360 CE, it originally contained the complete Christian Bible — the Old Testament in the Septuagint version and the complete New Testament — plus two early Christian texts not included in later canons: the Epistle of Barnabas and the Shepherd of Hermas. It is the oldest manuscript to contain the complete text of the New Testament.

The manuscript's discovery is inseparable from the controversial figure of Constantin von Tischendorf, a German biblical scholar who devoted his career to finding ancient biblical manuscripts. In 1844, during his first visit to St. Catherine's Monastery at the foot of Mount Sinai, Tischendorf noticed a basket of parchment leaves that the monks were apparently using for kindling. He recognized them as pages of an ancient Greek Bible and persuaded the monks to let him take 43 leaves, which he published as the Codex Fridericianus (now at Leipzig University Library).

Tischendorf returned to the monastery in 1853 but found nothing further. On his third visit in 1859, sponsored by Tsar Alexander II of Russia, a monk showed him a manuscript wrapped in cloth that proved to be the remainder of the codex. Under circumstances that remain disputed — Tischendorf claimed it was a gift; the monks later claimed it was merely a loan — the manuscript was taken to St. Petersburg. In 1933, the Soviet government sold it to the British Museum (now British Library) for £100,000, the largest sum ever paid for a manuscript at that time, raised through public subscription and government funds.

The complete codex originally consisted of approximately 730 leaves of high-quality parchment made from calfskin (or possibly a combination of calfskin and sheepskin), each measuring roughly 38 by 34 centimeters — an extraordinarily large format. Approximately 390 leaves survive: 347 at the British Library, 43 at Leipzig, portions of 3 leaves and 12 complete leaves at St. Catherine's Monastery (discovered during building repairs in 1975), and fragments at the Russian National Library. The text is written in four columns per page (a layout usually reserved for the most prestigious manuscripts) by at least three scribes, designated A, B, and D by later scholars. Numerous correctors made changes to the text over centuries, designated by a series of sigla (ca, cb, cc, etc.).

For New Testament text criticism, Codex Sinaiticus is invaluable. Together with Codex Vaticanus (B), it forms the foundation of the Alexandrian text-type, generally considered by scholars to be closest to the original New Testament text. The two manuscripts agree against the later Byzantine text-type (which underlies the King James Version) in hundreds of significant readings.

Several famous passages are absent from Sinaiticus. The Gospel of Mark ends at 16:8, omitting the "longer ending" (Mark 16:9–20) that describes Jesus' post-resurrection appearances and the Great Commission. This omission, shared with Vaticanus, has led most modern scholars to conclude that the longer ending was a later addition. Similarly, the story of the woman caught in adultery (John 7:53–8:11, the Pericope Adulterae) is absent from Sinaiticus, as is the Comma Johanneum (1 John 5:7b–8a, the Trinitarian formula), leading scholars to regard both passages as later insertions into the text.

The inclusion of the Epistle of Barnabas and the Shepherd of Hermas after Revelation is significant for the history of the biblical canon. In the mid-4th century, when Sinaiticus was produced, the boundaries of the New Testament were still being finalized. Athanasius's Festal Letter of 367 CE, listing the canonical books, comes from almost exactly the same period. Sinaiticus shows that some communities still considered these texts scriptural even as the canon was solidifying.

The Codex Sinaiticus Project, launched in 2005, has digitized the entire manuscript at extremely high resolution, with all surviving leaves from all four holding institutions presented together for the first time in a unified digital facsimile freely available online. The project also includes full transcriptions, English translations, and detailed codicological analysis.

• One of the two oldest near-complete Greek Bibles, dated to c. 330–360 CE
• Contains the oldest complete New Testament, plus most of the Septuagint Old Testament
• Includes the Epistle of Barnabas and Shepherd of Hermas, texts later excluded from the canon
• Mark's Gospel ends at 16:8 — the longer ending (16:9–20) is absent
• The Pericope Adulterae (John 7:53–8:11) and Comma Johanneum (1 John 5:7) are absent
• Written by at least three scribes in four-column format on calfskin parchment
• Discovered by Tischendorf at St. Catherine's Monastery, Sinai, in 1844 and 1859
• Purchased by the British Museum from the Soviet Union in 1933 for £100,000

Codex Sinaiticus provides some of the earliest manuscript evidence for the text of the New Testament and has directly influenced how modern Bibles read. The absence of Mark 16:9–20 in Sinaiticus (and Vaticanus) has led most modern Bible translations to include a note indicating that "the earliest manuscripts do not include Mark 16:9–20," profoundly affecting understanding of the resurrection narrative and the ending of the earliest Gospel. The absence of the Pericope Adulterae (John 7:53–8:11 — "He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone") raises questions about whether this beloved passage was part of John's original Gospel or a later insertion. Most scholars now believe it is an authentic early Christian tradition that was not part of the original text of John. The absence of the Comma Johanneum (1 John 5:7b–8a — "the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost: and these three are one") removes the most explicit Trinitarian proof text in the New Testament, confirming that this passage was a later Latin addition. Sinaiticus thus demonstrates that the most ancient witnesses to the New Testament text sometimes differ in significant ways from the texts familiar to readers of the King James Version.