The world’s oldest Bible, the Codex Sinaiticus, was written in Greek more than 1,600 years ago. It’s always been a controversial book, containing pieces not in the “standard” Bible, like the Epistle of Barnabas and definitely not containing the resurrection of Jesus. It was discovered in 1844 in St. Catherine’s Monastery close to Mt. Sinai, and parts of it are still there.
The other remaining fragments are in Russia, Germany, and in Britain – at the British Library.
Now, according to Reuters, the British Library will put all the remains of the bible online for free viewing.
Ulrich Johannes Schneider, director of Leipzig University Library, which owns part of the manuscript, told the news agency:
"I think it’s just fantastic that thanks to technology we can now make the oldest cultural artifacts — ones that were once so precious you couldn’t show them to anyone — accessible to everyone, in really high quality."
The Gospel of Mark and the Book of Psalms will go online tomorrow, and the complete text is expected to be available by July next year.
