Church History · 1844 and 1859
Tischendorf Finds Codex Sinaiticus
In 1844 and 1859, German scholar Constantin von Tischendorf found one of the oldest Bibles in the world at Saint Catherine's Monastery near Mount Sinai. Codex Sinaiticus, copied in the 300s, holds the oldest complete New Testament. Most of it is now in the British Library, and all of it is online.
Read it in the Bible: Isaiah 40:8 1 Peter 1:24-25 Mark 16:9-20 John 7:53-8:11
Codex Sinaiticus is one of the two oldest nearly complete Bibles in the world, copied by hand in Greek in the 300s. A German scholar named Constantin von Tischendorf found parts of it at Saint Catherine's Monastery at the foot of Mount Sinai in 1844 and saw the rest in 1859. It contains the oldest complete copy of the New Testament we have. Today most of it is in the British Library in London, with other parts in Leipzig, Saint Petersburg and the monastery itself. Anyone can see every page for free at codexsinaiticus.org.
What Is Codex Sinaiticus?
A codex is a book with pages, as opposed to a scroll. Sinaiticus was written on parchment made from animal skins, in four columns per page, by several scribes around the middle of the fourth century. That is roughly the time of Emperor Constantine and the Council of Nicaea. It originally held the whole Greek Old Testament, the Septuagint, plus the New Testament, and two early Christian writings at the end: the Epistle of Barnabas and part of the Shepherd of Hermas.
About 400 large leaves survive. Corrections by later hands are all over it, which makes it a goldmine for scholars who study how the text was copied. You can read more on the Codex Sinaiticus and Vaticanus page on this site.
Who Was Tischendorf?
Constantin von Tischendorf, who lived from 1815 to 1874, was a young scholar at the University of Leipzig in Germany. He made it his life's work to find the oldest manuscripts of the Greek New Testament. He believed older copies would help the church get closer to the original words. So he traveled to libraries and monasteries all over Europe and the Middle East.
What Happened at Saint Catherine's Monastery in 1844?
In May 1844 Tischendorf visited Saint Catherine's, a Greek Orthodox monastery that has stood at Sinai since the 500s. According to the codexsinaiticus.org history, the monks showed him 129 leaves of the Old Testament, and he was allowed to take 43 of them. He brought those to Leipzig, where they still are today.
Tischendorf later wrote that he first saw the leaves in a basket of old parchments that were about to be burned. That story made him famous, but it is debated. The monastery strongly rejects it, saying its monks valued their books and never planned to burn them. Some scholars think Tischendorf told the story to make his rescue look more heroic. Others think he may simply have misunderstood what the basket was for. We don't know for sure.
How Did Tischendorf Find the Rest in 1859?
Tischendorf returned in 1853 but found little. In 1859 he came back with the support of the Russian Tsar Alexander II, who was a patron of the Orthodox Church. Near the end of his visit, a monk brought out a manuscript wrapped in red cloth. It was the rest of the codex, including the entire New Testament. Tischendorf later said he was so excited that he stayed up all night copying the Epistle of Barnabas.
The codex was taken to Cairo and then to Saint Petersburg. Tischendorf signed a receipt promising its return, and in 1869 the monastery signed papers giving it to the Tsar. Whether that gift was truly freely given is still debated, and the monastery still feels the loss deeply.
How Did Codex Sinaiticus End Up in London?
After the Russian Revolution, the Soviet government needed money and did not much care for Bibles. In 1933 it sold the codex to the British Museum for 100,000 pounds, a huge sum during the Great Depression. Ordinary people in Britain gave money to help pay for it. When it arrived in London on December 26, 1933, crowds lined up to see it. It is now in the British Library.
The story was not over. In 1975 monks at Saint Catherine's found a sealed room beneath Saint George's Chapel with more leaves and fragments of the codex. In 2005 the four places that own parts of it agreed to work together, and the full codex was photographed and put online.
Why Does Codex Sinaiticus Matter?
Before Sinaiticus, most English Bibles were translated from Greek copies made hundreds of years later. Sinaiticus, with Codex Vaticanus, gave scholars copies from the 300s. The Revised Version of 1881 and almost every modern translation since have used it. It shows, for example, that some passages like the longer ending of Mark and the story of the woman caught in adultery in John 8 were likely not in the earliest copies. Modern Bibles, including The Owner's Manual, note these places in brackets or footnotes.
It also shows how well the New Testament was preserved. A Bible from around AD 350 reads, page after page, like the New Testament you hold today.
Why It Matters for You Today
Codex Sinaiticus is a physical reminder that God's Word has been copied, guarded and passed down for more than 1,600 years. Empires rose and fell around it, and it survived a desert, a revolution and a war.
The grass withers and the flowers fall, but the word of our God stands forever. Isaiah 40:8
Next time you open your Bible, remember that monks in the desert, a young German scholar and thousands of scribes all played a part in getting it to you.
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Questions People Ask
Where was Codex Sinaiticus found?
It was found at Saint Catherine's Monastery, a Greek Orthodox monastery at the foot of Mount Sinai in Egypt. Tischendorf took 43 leaves in 1844 and saw the rest of the codex in 1859.
Is the story about the codex being in a trash basket true?
Tischendorf said he found leaves in a basket of parchments waiting to be burned. The monastery rejects that story and says its monks valued the manuscript. Historians are divided, and we can't know for sure.
How old is Codex Sinaiticus?
It was copied in the fourth century, around AD 330 to 360. It is one of the two oldest nearly complete Bibles, along with Codex Vaticanus. It holds the oldest complete New Testament known.
Where is Codex Sinaiticus now?
Most of it, 347 leaves, is in the British Library in London. Other parts are at Leipzig University Library, the National Library of Russia and Saint Catherine's Monastery. The whole codex can be viewed online at codexsinaiticus.org.
Related
- About AD 325 to 360Codex Vaticanus and Codex Sinaiticus Are Copied
- 1881 to 1885The Revised Version: The First Big Update to the King James
- 1947The Dead Sea Scrolls Are Discovered
- 1516Erasmus Prints the Greek New Testament