Wednesday, February 03, 2010

A Bit of Bible and Religion News

I saw a notice about this not too long ago, but just recently came across the homepage for the digitized Codex Sinaiticus. Here's a blurb from the website about what this is:

Codex Sinaiticus, a manuscript of the Christian Bible written in the middle of the fourth century, contains the earliest complete copy of the Christian New Testament. The hand-written text is in Greek. The New Testament appears in the original vernacular language (koine) and the Old Testament in the version, known as the Septuagint, that was adopted by early Greek-speaking Christians. . . . The significance of Codex Sinaiticus for the reconstruction of the Christian Bible's original text, the history of the Bible and the history of Western book-making is immense.

For the world to be able to see this manuscript is a truly great development.
_______________

The 2011 Trust has been established in order to celebrate the 400th anniversary of the King James Bible, first published in May 1611. I've mentioned this before, but think it bears repeating: next year would be a good time for Christian preachers and teachers to do some teaching on subjects like "How We Got the Bible" and "History of the English Bible" (especially the King James Version). People should know these things. The stories deserve to be told.
_______________

Sixty-five years after his martyrdom, the legacy of theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer continues to grow. A large number of books and articles are published every year. I think I'll get a copy of the new biography by Ferdinand Schlingensiepen coming out at the end of this month.

3 comments:

Adam Faughn said...

Good reminder about teaching "how we got the Bible."

I'm teaching that on Sunday mornings right now, and our class LOVES it. It is a very needed subject that is too often ignored.

Wade Tannehill said...

Thanks for the link to Sinaiticus. I just went over there and looked up the passage I'm exegeting for this week's Sunday sermon. The transcription to the side is a lot easier than the fourth century version.

The site is now saved to my favorites.

Frank Bellizzi said...

Good to hear about your class, Adam. People really do enjoy learning about the history behind and around the Bible.

Wade, isn't the Sinaiticus site cool? I like the zoom feature, the transcription and the translation. They really did it right.