The printed facsimile of Codex Sinaiticus, the fourth-century biblical manuscript containing the oldest surviving complete New Testament, has just been published by British Library Publishing. It is the last major output of the international Codex Sinaiticus Project which began in November 2002 and involved close collaboration between us here at the British Library and the other three institutions which hold parts of the manuscript: Leipzig University Library, St Catherine's Monastery, Mount Sinai, and the National Library of Russia. The printed facsimile reunites the surviving parts of the Codex, as does the project's website www.codexsinaiticus.org, completed in July 2009. New digital photography of the whole manuscript during the project provided the images for both the website, with its new electronic transcription of the text, and for the facsimile.

 

The facsimile is an enormous and extremely heavy book. It has 832 very large pages measuring 340 x 420 mm and retails for £495. I can't swear that it's available in all good bookshops, but it's definitely available in the British Library shop.

Our collaborator on the Codex Sinaiticus Project, Professor David Parker of the University of Birmingham, who led the creation of the new electronic transcription for the project's website, recently published his brilliant book, Codex Sinaiticus: The Story of the World's Oldest Bible. It's also available through the BL's online (and onsite) shop, for only £20!