The Codex Vaticanus, the Codex Sinaiticus verses the Modern Bible?

Tony-Antonakis examines the Codex Sinaiticus

Our knowledge of the original text of the Bible comes from ancient

hand-written manuscripts. The Old Testament was written in Hebrew,

and the New Testament was written in Koine Greek and Aramaic. No one

has the original articles, but thousands of ancient copies have been

discovered. Since these copies are hand-written, there are variations in

spelling, word order, and sentence structure among them. Even

though those variations do cause some confusion about the biblical

text, most of the manuscript readings are in agreement. Out of about

500 pages in the Greek New Testament, the manuscript variations

represent only about half of a page.

The majority of ancient manuscripts contain only small portions of the

biblical text, like a book or a portion of a book. Among these

manuscripts there are papyrus fragments, which are the remains of

the most ancient scrolls, and typically represent only a few pages of

text. These papyrus fragments have all been discovered during

modern archaeological digs.

Another group of manuscripts is the Uncials, which use all capital

letters and are written on parchment or vellum, which is a smoother

writing surface than papyrus, and allows for curved letters. The

Uncial manuscripts were written between the 3rd and 8th centuries

and were often bound as pages in a book, or codex, rather than a

scroll. A few of these ancient codices have survived intact, giving us a

solid view of the Bible used by the ancient church.

Two of the oldest complete (or nearly complete) manuscripts are the

Codex Sinaiticus and Codex Vaticanus. They are both written on

parchment, and have a large number of corrections written over the

original text.

Codex Sinaiticus, also known as “Aleph” (the Hebrew letter א), was

found by Count Tischendorf in 1859 at the Monastery of St Catherine on

Mount Sinai. Portions of the manuscript were found in the monastery

dump, and a larger portion was presented to Tischendorf by one of the

monks. It is a large codex, with 400 pages (or leaves) comprising about

half of the Old Testament in the Septuagint version and the full New

Testament.

It has been dated to the second half of the 4th century and has been

highly valued by Bible scholars in their efforts to reconstruct the

original biblical text. Sinaiticus has heavily influenced the translation

work of modern Bible versions. Though it is considered to represent

an original form of the text, it is also recognized as the most heavily

corrected early New Testament manuscript.

Codex Vaticanus, also known as “B,” was found in the Vatican library. It

is comprised of 759 leaves and has almost all of the Old and New

Testaments. It is not known when it arrived at the Vatican, but it was

included in a catalog listing in 1475, and it is dated to the middle of the

4th century. There are varying theories on how these ancient texts

should be viewed, on one hand, some believe that the most ancient

reading should be followed, as it is closest in time to the original. On

the other hand, some believe that the majority should rule.

Since there are thousands of ancient manuscripts, they believe we

should give precedence to the reading that is represented by the most

documents. One issue that is sometimes raised against the majority

viewpoint is that many of those documents were written very late

(9th-15th century). The answer to this is that many of the early papyrus

fragments support the majority reading. Additionally, the question

has been raised, “If Vaticanus and Sinaiticus represent the original

reading of the text, why are there so few manuscripts that follow their

lead?”

If they were valued by the early church, you would expect to find

many copies made from them, covering a wide period of history.

What we actually find is a few early manuscripts which agree with

them, but then a disappearance of that text type as we progress

through history.

There is much to be learned from examining these and other ancient

texts, and they should continue to be highly valued. While there may

be differences in opinion as to how they are to be used, one thing is

certain—even with their textual variations, they show us that God has

preserved His Word through the ages. We may debate the particular

wording in a few passages, but the fact remains that over 90 percent of

the New Testament text is unanimously supported by all the ancient

manuscripts. In those passages where the proper reading is disputed,

there is no major doctrinal change, and we can rest assured that we

have the accurate, revealed words of God passed down to us.