On this day 149 years ago, Constantin von Tischendorf “discovered” the Codex Sinaiticus – one of the most important extant New Testament manuscripts – in the Monastery of Saint Catherine at the foot of Mt Sinai in Egypt. Von Tischendorf sent the manuscript to Tsar Alexander in St Petersburg. It was then preserved in the Russian National Library until 1933 when it was sold to the British Library.
Although the Codex Sinaiticus contains a number of transcription errors, it is one of the two earliest surviving manuscripts which contains the full canon of the New Testament, the other being Codex Vaticanus. The estimated date of writing is between 330 and 350 A.D. The Codex Sinaiticus originally contained the whole of the Septuagint Old Testament, the complete New Testament, the Epistle of Barnabas, the Shepherd of Hermas, and possibly some other writings as well.
In spite of the transcription errors which it contains, Codex Sinaiticus has provided important evidence of the early creation date of the New Testament. In the 19th century many were arguing that the New Testament was written much later. Von Tishcendorf, in his book When Were Our Gospels Written?, said: “Providence has given to our age, in which attacks on Christianity are so common, the Sinaitic Bible, to be to us a full and clear light as to what is the real text of God’s Word written, and to assist us in defending the truth by establishing its authentic form.”