Pages from historic Bible go online
Updated on 06 July 2009
About 800 pages of the earliest surviving Christian Bible have been recovered and made available on the internet.
More than half of the 1,600-year-old Codex Sinaiticus manuscript has been pieced together in a joint effort between institutions in the UK, Germany, Egypt and Russia.
Now high-resolution digital images of the recovered pages of the 4th century book - written in Greek on parchment leaves - have been made available at www.codexsinaiticus.org.
To mark the online launch, the British Library is staging an exhibition which runs from Sunday until September 7.
It will include a range of historic items and artefacts linked to the document.
Dr Scot McKendrick, head of Western manuscripts at the British Library, in north west London, said the wide availability of the document presented many research opportunities.
"The Codex Sinaiticus is one of the world's greatest written treasures", said Dr McKendrick.
"This 1,600-year-old manuscript offers a window into the development of early Christianity and first-hand evidence of how the text of the Bible was transmitted from generation to generation."
He added: "The availability of the virtual manuscript for study by scholars around the world creates opportunities for collaborative research that would not have been possible just a few years ago."
The project has been supported by The Arts and Humanities Research Council, The Stavros Niarchos Foundation, The Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft and The Leventis Foundation.
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