Oldest copy of New Testament to be unified online

THE oldest surviving copy of the New Testament, a 4th-century version that had its Gospels and epistles spread across the world, is being made whole again — online.

The British Library says the full text of the Codex Sinaiticus will be available to web users by next July, digitally reconnecting parts that are held in Britain, Russia, Germany and a monastery in Egypt’s Sinai Desert.

A preview of the codex, which also has some parts of the Old Testament, will hit the web tomorrow: the Book of Psalms and the Gospel of Mark.

“Only a few people have ever had the opportunity to see more than a couple of pages of the codex,” said Scot McKendrick, the British Library’s head of Western manuscripts. The website would give everyone access to a “unique treasure”, he said.

Discovered at the Monastery of Saint Catherine at Mount Sinai by German Bible scholar Constantine Tischendorf in the mid-19th century, much of the codex eventually wound up in Russia — just how, exactly, the British Library won’t say, citing lingering sensitivity over the circumstances surrounding its removal from the monastery.

Bible scholars are thrilled at the news the codex is being put back together, albeit “virtually”.

In the past, anyone wishing to examine the document first-hand would have had to approach the British Library “on bended knee”, said Christopher Tuckett, a professor of New Testament Studies at Oxford University.