“Rubbish” in a Monastery

Next on my itinerary was England. Here is to be found one of the greatest collections of Bible manuscripts. Climbing the steps in front of the grandiose entrance to the British Museum, London, certainly heightened my anticipation. This is the home of the famous Codex Sinaiticus. (The remarkable story of how some leaves of this manuscript were found in a rubbish basket in a monastery in Sinai in 1844 was told in the Awake! issue of October 8, 1979.) Along with the Vaticanus, this manuscript is the principal basis for the Greek text from which the New World Translation of the Holy Scriptures was translated. I found it on display alongside the Codex Alexandrinus.

The Sinaiticus has a page area that is more than twice that of this magazine. It has four columns to a page, on fine vellum. The international symbol for Sinaiticus is the first letter of the Hebrew alphabet, ’aʹleph, “א.” It has also been dated to the fourth century C.E., but it is considered to be slightly later than Vaticanus.

The discovery of manuscripts such as the Sinaiticus is important because prior to such finds, translations had to be made from much later copies that contained many errors from being copied and even spurious passages. For example, it was the Sinaiticus and the Vaticanus that indicated that the account at John 7:53–8:11 about the adulterous woman was a later addition, since neither manuscript contains it.

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The Codex Sinaiticus provided part of the basis for the Greek text from which the New World Translation was made

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Courtesy of the British Museum, London