Hong Kong Liberal Religious Forum

www.codex-sinaiticus.net


What is Codex Sinaiticus?

Codex Sinaiticus, a manuscript of the Christian Bible written in the middle of the fourth century, contains the earliest complete copy of the Christian New Testament. The hand-written text is in Greek. The New Testament appears in the original vernacular language (koine) and the Old Testament in the version, known as the Septuagint, that was adopted by early Greek-speaking Christians. In the Codex, the text of both the Septuagint and the New Testament has been heavily annotated by a series of early correctors.

The significance of Codex Sinaiticus for the reconstruction of the Christian Bible's original text, the history of the Bible and the history of Western book-making is immense.


Digitisation

One of the core undertakings of the project was to capture each page of Codex Sinaiticus as a high-quality digital image. Each image offers a substitute for the real manuscript leaf. Careful imaging of Codex Sinaiticus therefore provides a life-like view of the pages and allows, for the first time, worldwide access to the manuscript.