Parts of world’s oldest Bible reunited online

THE surviving parts of the world’s oldest Bible were reunited online yesterday, generating excitement among scholars striving to unlock its mysteries.

The Codex Sinaiticus was handwritten by four scribes in Greek on animal hide, known as vellum, in the mid-fourth century around the time of the Roman emperor Constantine the Great who embraced Christianity.

Not all of it has withstood the ravages of time, but the pages that have include the whole of the New Testament and the earliest surviving copy of the Gospels written at different times after Christ’s death by the four Evangelists: Matthew, Mark, Luke and John.