Biblical Archaeology Review, November/December 2007
Features
The Codex Sinaiticus contains the oldest complete copy of the New Testament—from the mid-fourth century. Originally, it contained the Old Testament too, but most of that is now missing. The Codex Sinaiticus is one of the big three—not Ford, GM and Chrysler, but Sinaiticus, Vaticanus and Alexandrinus—fourth- or fifth-century codices of the Septuagint […]
Codex Sinaiticus, written around the middle of the fourth century A.D., is arguably the earliest extant Christian Bible. It contains the earliest complete copy of the New Testament. Only one other nearly complete manuscript of the Christian Bible—the Codex Vaticanus—is of a similarly early date. The only Christian manuscripts of scripture that are definitely of an earlier date contain relatively small portions of the text.
HERSHEL SHANKS: Tell me a little about your background. FR. JUSTIN: My parents were Baptist missionaries. I was born in Texas, but when I was two, we moved to Chile. I lived there until I was nine. That’s why my accent is not a Texas accent.
An investigation into the modern history of the Codex Sinaiticus is just one element in a much larger Codex Sinaiticus Project, the budget of which is nearly two million dollars. Of course the codex will be conserved with the latest conservation methods to preserve it for future generations. High-quality digitized photographs will be accessible on the Internet. A replica or facsimile edition will be published.
Of the approximately one hundred ancient synagogues from, say, 150 B.C.E. to 850 C.E. found in the ancient Land of Israel, an astounding 25 percent are located in the central Golan. How do we explain this? As it happens, one of the earliest synagogues is also in the Golan: the famous synagogue in Gamla, […]
In the rugged hills of the south-central Golan, a monumental ancient synagogue is rising again—literally.
Preparation for the Umm el-Kanatir reconstruction project involved several steps. First, small electronic chips were embedded in the toppled blocks to give each individual stone a unique identification number. Next, using a laser attached to the crane’s winch, a three-dimensional aerial scan was taken, which recorded the position and electronic ID numbers of the […]
If you’d like to see what may be a piece of the Second Temple (Herod’s Temple), pay a visit to St. Paul’s Cathedral in London. I’ll tell you later where in the church it can be found.
In the July/August issue of BAR, Norma Franklin describes in detail how she managed to identify two royal Israelite tombs cut into the rock beneath the monumental palace built by King Omri in Samaria in the ninth century B.C.E.a The palace and the alleged tombs were excavated nearly a hundred years ago by the […]
Frenchwoman Colette Modiano has traveled through the Holy Land several times since her first visit in 1967. Her book, Turkish Coffee and the Fertile Crescent (London: Michael Joseph, Ltd, 1974;), describes the places she visited, the people she encountered, people’s impressions of her, and her impression of the burgeoning relations among countries in the […]