This Day in History: The Codex Sinaiticus was discovered in Egypt on this day in 1859, though it was probably discovered earlier. This Codex is important as the oldest major manuscript of the New Testament, with sections of the Old Testament as well. This was a major find in the area of Textual Criticism, and with the Codex Alexandrinus and Codex Vaticanus these set the ground for newer translations of the Bible with a move away from the Greek text of the King James Bible. Constantin von Tischendorf found them in a monastery in Egypt with an interesting story. He wrote that during his first visit to the Saint Catherine's Monastery, he saw some leaves of parchment in a waste-basket. They were "rubbish which was to be destroyed by burning it in the ovens of the monastery", although this is firmly denied by the Monastery. After examination he realized that they were part of the Septuagint (Greek Old Testament), written in an early Greek uncial script. He retrieved from the basket 129 leaves in Greek which he identified as coming from a manuscript of the Septuagint. He asked if he might keep them, but at this point the attitude of the monks changed. They realized how valuable these old leaves were, and Tischendorf was permitted to take only one-third of the whole, i.e. 43 leaves.
As he stated, this codex was written in uncial script. This means it was written in all capital letters, with no spacing. So, John 1:1 would read, "INBEGINNINGWASTHEWORDANDTHEWORDWASWITHTHEGODANDGODWASTHEWORD
Something recently posted on twitter: "Not to be 'that guy' but aren't both Testaments old now?"
"They also cancelled Vivaldi after just four seasons..."
No comments:
Post a Comment