Codex Sinaiticus

There was an article in Tuesday's (07 Jul 2009) Straits Times about the official launch of a web site featuring the world's oldest copy of the Christian Bible:

http://www.straitstimes.com/Breaking%2BNews/Tech%2Band%2BScience/Story/STIStory_400035.html

The web site itself is at:

http://www.codexsinaiticus.org/

The web site allows users to browse through digitised images of every page of this bible, which is completely handwritten in Greek, as well as displaying its English translation simultaneously. The was very interesting for me because of something I learnt while reading about the history of the bible, which I could now view with my own eyes.

*****

Although I am not a Christian, I read many of the bible's stories when I was young, and one of the most memorable stories about Jesus is the tale about how the Pharisees, the sworn enemies of Jesus, brought a woman "caught in the very act of adultery" before Jesus. The Pharisees told Jesus that according to the Law of Moses, an adulterer should be stoned to death, but they want to know what Jesus had to say about the matter. Should they stone her or show her mercy? Of course, the Pharisees were laying a trap for Jesus. If Jesus says to let the woman go, he will be accused of violating God's Law. But if he tells them to stone her, he will be accused of dismissing his own teachings of love, mercy, and forgiveness.

Jesus reply was: "He that is without sin among you, let him cast the first stone."

Of course, none of the Pharisees were free of sin. So one by one, they left, finally leaving just Jesus and the woman. Jesus, looking up and noticing that all the men were gone, asked the woman: "Woman, where are your accusers? Is there no one who condemns you?" The woman replied, "No one, my Lord." To which Jesus responds, "And neither do I condemn you. Go, and sin no more."

(New Testament: The Gospel According to John - Chapter 8 - Verse 1 to 11)

This was a captivating story, which cleverly illustrates the compassion and the brilliance of Jesus. I loved this story when I first read it as a child, as it appealed to me in how Jesus ingeniously outsmarted his enemies.

But a few years ago, I learnt that this beautiful story was actually a forgery.

****

Before the printing press was invented by Gutenberg in the 15th century, any book that you want to make a copy of has to be copied "by hand". Thus, when someone wants to make a copy of the bible, he can only do so by copying it manually. In fact, all copies of the bibles produced before the 15th century were handwritten ones painstakingly written out in longhand by scribes.

And interestingly, among all the earliest copies of the Gospel of John, there is not a single mention about the story of Jesus and the adulteress. In fact, this endearing story of Jesus and the adulteress is not mentioned at all in the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke, either. Indeed, the story does not appear in any other place in the New Testament at all.

According to historians, the story of Jesus and the adulteress did not even appear in any manuscript of John before the 9th century. And then suddenly, from the 9th century onwards, copies of the bible started to appear with this story INSERTED into chapter 8 of the Gospel of John. And it was one of this "tainted" bibles that was translated into English in the 16th century as the "King James Version". And the fabricated story has been carried forward into all subsequent editions of the bible from then onwards.

****

Now that the Codex Sinaiticus is available online, I immediately went to the site to look at the section bearing John 7:53 to 8:11. And indeed, as has been described by historians, the entire passage does not appear in the Codex Sinaiticus.

Of course, the Jesus and the adulteress story is not the only fabrication that has been inserted by forgers into the New Testament. In the earliest copies of the Gospel According to Mark, the book ends very abruptly in chapter 16 verse 8. The Mark gospel actually ends when the 3 women (Mary Magdalene, Mary mother of James, and Salome *) are told to inform the disciples that Jesus will be meeting the disciples in Galilee. However, the women flee the tomb and said nothing to anyone, "for they were afraid."

And as with the story of Jesus and the adulteress, scribes copying the Mark gospel felt that this ending was too abrupt for a gospel. So, somewhere down the line, one scribe decided to add 12 verses to chapter 16 (verse 9 to verse 20) so that the gospel concludes with a "happy ending". And the "happy ending" Mark gospel is the one that got translated into English in the "King James Version", and which is propagated to all subsequent editions.

As before, the true ending of Mark (Mark 16:8) can now be seen from the Codex Sinaiticus web site.

* Note: The 3 women in the Mark Gospel directly contradicts the Matthew Gospel, which states that only 2 women, Mary Magdalene and "the other Mary", went to Jesus' tomb (Matthew 28:1).