Manuscripts of the desert
The scrolls found beside the Dead Sea — biblical, deuterocanonical, and sectarian — the oldest witnesses to the text of Scripture and the world that produced it.
Discovered in eleven caves near Qumran by the Dead Sea between 1947 and 1956, the Dead Sea Scrolls are roughly nine hundred manuscripts dating from the third century BCE to the first century CE — by far the oldest surviving Hebrew and Aramaic biblical texts.
"…he was wounded for our transgressions…" — the Great Isaiah Scroll (1QIsaᵃ) is the oldest substantially complete copy of Isaiah, predating the next-oldest Hebrew manuscript by a thousand years.
- The Great Isaiah Scroll (1QIsaᵃ)c. 125 BCE — A complete scroll of Isaiah and the best-preserved biblical manuscript from Qumran.View the scroll
- The Habakkuk Commentary (1QpHab)c. 1st c. BCE — A pesher interpreting the prophet Habakkuk in light of the community’s own times.View the scroll
- The Psalms Scroll (11QPsᵃ)c. 1st c. CE — A Psalter arrangement including Psalm 151 and additional Davidic compositions.In the DSS archive
- The Genesis Apocryphon (1QGenAp)c. 1st c. BCE — An Aramaic retelling of Genesis that expands the lives of the patriarchs.In the DSS archive
The scrolls date from the late Second Temple period (c. 3rd c. BCE–1st c. CE) and are drawn from the Leon Levy Dead Sea Scrolls Digital Library and related scholarly catalogues.
The great codices
The great parchment Bibles of the early Church — Greek uncial manuscripts that transmitted the Septuagint and the New Testament across the centuries.
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.
"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.
- 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.
The codices date from the fourth and fifth centuries CE and are preserved in the British Library, the Vatican Library, Leipzig, St. Petersburg, and St. Catherine’s Monastery, Sinai.
The first Christians
The writings of the apostolic age — the Apostolic Fathers, the Didache, Ignatius of Antioch, and Polycarp of Smyrna — the earliest Christian voices after the New Testament.
The Apostolic Fathers are the first generation of Christian writers after the apostles — men of the late first and second centuries who knew the apostles or their immediate disciples. Their writings bridge the New Testament and the later Church, preserving the faith, worship, and organization of the earliest Christian communities.
“And they continued stedfastly in the apostles’ doctrine and fellowship…” (Acts 2:42) — the Apostolic Fathers stand in the fellowship of the apostles’ teaching, the generation that came just after them.
- Clement of Romec. 96 CE — First Letter to the Corinthians (c. 95–96 CE), calling a divided church back to peace and echoing the apostle Paul.Read 1 Clement
- Ignatius of Antiochc. 107–115 CE — Seven letters written on the road to martyrdom in Rome (c. 107–115 CE).Read the letters
- Polycarp of Smyrnac. 110–140 CE — Bishop, letter-writer, and martyr, said to have been a hearer of the apostle John.Read the letter
- The Didachec. 50–120 CE — A short manual of Christian practice, the “Teaching of the Twelve Apostles.”Read the Didache
- Papias of Hierapolisc. 110–130 CE — Fragments preserved in later writers, concerned with the oral tradition about the Lord.Read the fragments
These writings date from the late first and second centuries CE. They are early Christian literature, not part of the biblical canon, and are presented here as historical witness to the apostolic age.