Ancient Bible texts move from vellum to the web
06/07/2009
Scholars from Egypt, Russia, Germany and the United Kingdom have joined forces to publish an online version of one of the most important books in the world.
During an international conference in London on July 6 and 7, groups holding different sections of the Codex Sinaiticus, a very early copy of the Bible, came together to present on a special website as complete a version as possible of the original text, written in Greek onto vellum, in this case from the hides of either donkeys or antelopes, by early Christian monks. The original version contained about 1,460 pages, each measuring 40cm by 35cm.
The Codex Sinaiticus is believed to be the oldest book to have survived from antiquity. It contains the oldest known complete version of the New Testament, as well as an almost complete version of the Old Testament.
It came to the attention of scholars in the nineteenth century at the Greek Monastery of Mount Sinai (also known as St Catherine’s Monastery), with further material discovered in the twentieth century. The largest number of pages have been held for some time at the British Library in London, venue of the July conference.
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