Tuesday, Jul. 14, 2009

The Bible Consists of Restored Scattered Fragments

Nearly 800 of the book's original 1,460 pages survived the centuries intact, including a complete New Testament and about half the Old Testament and Apocrypha (the additional Greek books considered canonical by Roman Catholics and Eastern Orthodox). After German scholar Constantin von Tischendorf discovered pages from Sinaiticus at St. Catherine's monastery in Egypt in 1844, many of the handwritten leaves of parchment made their way to institutions in Britain, Germany and Russia, making examination of the manuscript difficult. A collaborative effort, started in 2005, has virtually reunited Sinaiticus' separated parts.