Codex Sinaiticus

The Codex Sinaiticus (/sɪˈnaɪtɪkəs/; Shelfmark: London, British Library, Add MS 43725), also called the Sinai Bible, is a fourth-century Christian manuscript of a Greek Bible, containing the majority of the Greek Old Testament, including the deuterocanonical books, and the Greek New Testament, with both the Epistle of Barnabas and the Shepherd of Hermas included. It is designated by the siglum א‎ [Aleph] or 01 in the Gregory-Aland numbering of New Testament manuscripts, and δ 2 in the von Soden numbering of New Testament manuscripts. It is written in uncial letters on parchment. It is one of the four great uncial codices (these being manuscripts which originally contained the whole of both the Old and New Testaments). Along with Codex Alexandrinus and Codex Vaticanus, it is one of the earliest and most complete manuscripts of the Bible, and contains the oldest complete copy of the New Testament. It is a historical treasure, and using the study of comparative writing styles (palaeography), it has been dated to the mid-fourth century.

Biblical scholarship considers Codex Sinaiticus to be one of the most important Greek texts of the New Testament, along with Codex Vaticanus. Until German Biblical scholar (and manuscript hunter) Constantin von Tischendorf's discovery of Codex Sinaiticus in 1844, the Greek text of Codex Vaticanus was unrivalled. Since its discovery, study of Codex Sinaiticus has proven to be useful to scholars for critical studies of the biblical text.