Codex Sinaiticus
A complete New Testament survives from the fourth century, and every correction later scribes made to it can be seen.
Named outside the BibleManuscriptmid-4th century AD
The oldest surviving complete New Testament, written on parchment in the mid-fourth century, with much of the Old Testament in Greek. Its pages carry thousands of corrections by later hands — the working life of a book that was read, checked and used for centuries.
The whole New Testament, complete, on 400-odd surviving leaves of parchment.
- Found
- St Catherine's Monastery, Sinai, 1844 — Constantin von Tischendorf (further leaves 1859 and 1975)
- Now held at
- British Library, London; Leipzig University Library; St Catherine's Monastery; National Library of Russia
- Language
- Greek
- How it reached us
- Never buried — copied by hand, generation after generation, until printing.
What it shows
It differs from later printed Bibles in real ways — most famously it ends Mark at 16:8 — and those differences are visible rather than hidden.
How historians use it
One of the two most important New Testament manuscripts; fully digitised and publicly readable.
In Scripture
Sources
These summaries are written in English for now. Translations follow.