Codex Sinaiticus
"In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God…" — Codex Sinaiticus preserves the oldest near-complete text of the Gospel of John.
Discovered by Constantin von Tischendorf at St. Catherine’s Monastery on Mount Sinai in the nineteenth century, Codex Sinaiticus is one of the two oldest Greek Bibles to survive — written on parchment in the mid-fourth century, it contains most of the Septuagint Old Testament and the oldest complete Greek New Testament.
CONTENTS & SIGNIFICANCE
- The Greek New Testamentc. 330–360 CE
The oldest complete New Testament text, including the Epistle of Barnabas and the Shepherd of Hermas — both later outside the canon.
- The Septuagint Old Testamentc. 330–360 CE
A substantial witness to the Greek Old Testament used by the Eastern Orthodox Church.
- Discovery at Sinai1844–1859
Tischendorf rescued the leaves from the monastery in 1844 and 1859.
- Held today by
The British Library, Leipzig University Library, the National Library of Russia, and St. Catherine’s Monastery.
Source citation: https://www.codexsinaiticus.org/en/