Yesterday the Codex Sinaiticus site went live. Besides having one of the coolest titles ever, it’s also contains the earliest copy of the NT. The manuscript clocks in at around 1600 years old.

From their About page:

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.

Here’s a screenshot of the beginning of Mark:

Read more about the plans for the project.

I have worked on digitization projects before and what they’re accomplishing is nothing short of revolutionary. It’ll be exciting to see how scholarship develops around this text.

Any thoughts?

[HT: Jesus Creed]