World's Oldest Bible Debuts Online

Who says the Internet can't be pure? For the first time in 150 years, the 1,600 year-old Codex Sinaiticus bible is being displayed in its entirety—and available for free on the web. The four-year project to scan the 800-page bible—which was led by the British Library, in collaboration with institutions in Germany, Russia, and Egypt, each of whom had a different part of the manuscript—allows viewers to read the Greek text and examine the detail on the different pages. Of this next step in the bible's long history (it is thought it is the only surviving example of 50 bibles ordered by the Roman emperor Constantine the Great), Dr. Scot McKendrick, head of western manuscripts at the British Library, noted, "The availability of the virtual manuscript for study around the world creates opportunities for collaborative research that would not have been possible just a few years ago."