Every once in awhile I will see a meme pop up that deals with religion. For a long time, I’d think about them and then my wife would get to hear about all that was wrong with the meme, but recently I started saving the actual meme. I wasn’t sure what I was going to do with them, but refuting them was a part of it.
This first one is about the Sinai Bible, or more commonly referred to, at least among scholars, the Codex Sinaiticus (CS). When I first saw this meme, I didn’t know what it was talking about because I’ve always heard it referred to as CS. So I learned something new there.
This meme is wrong on basically everything though, both historically speaking as well as with the idea they are trying to present. So we will just break this down almost line by line.
Oldest Bible
What is the oldest version of the Bible and does it matter? What the oldest version is is a two part answer. The compilation of the Bible began millennia ago. The Hebrew scriptures, the Tanakh, or the Old Testament, was possibly fixed by the second century BC. Some scholars will date it as late as the second century AD though. Either way, these books were being compiled together in collections centuries before Jesus was born. For instance, by the second century BC, we have the Septuagint, which was a Greek version of the Old Testament (which may have started in the third century BC). The Septuagint really is the basis for the Christian Old Testament we have.
With the New Testament, we see in the second century AD Marcion of Sinope compiling a canon for New Testament Texts. He wasn’t the first one to compile some New Testament texts, but he did help spur the movement to form a canon. By the third century, the canon for the New Testament was largely developed. During the next couple hundred years, we’d have different church figures being commissioned with the task of compiling what would amount to the Bible.
So the CS isn’t the oldest Bible. There were earlier copies of the Bible, but they largely haven’t survived. So is the CS the oldest surviving Bible we have? Kind of. We have earlier manuscripts of various books of the Bible. The Dead Sea Scrolls for instance are much older (150BC-70AD). But they really only deal with the Old Testament and other Jewish works. We also have portions of manuscripts that are older, including fragments of the Septuagint that go back to the second century BC. For the New Testament we have a fragment of the Gospel of John that may date to the first part of the second century. It’s the size of a business card though.
Where the CS stands apart though is that it isn’t just a fragment. It’s a full manuscript of the Bible, or at least almost full. There are some fragmentary parts. But it may not be the oldest extant copy. That title may go to the Codex Vaticanus which probably holds the honor by a few decades. Both manuscripts come really out of the same time period though (the fourth century). And they are both quite important in critically studying the Biblical Texts.
Does being old matter though? Not exactly. For instance, both manuscripts are in Greek. That’s fine with the New Testament, but not so good with the Old Testament, which was written in Hebrew. Both contain interpolations, different variations, and are missing portions. While they are exceptionally useful, scholars don’t rely solely on them. Oldest does not mean best.
British Museum
Let’s move to the second point. The claim in the meme is that the CS is held in the British Museum. I’m not sure why they added this as it seems irrelevant. And it isn’t fully true. A large portion of it is in the British Library (not museum, even though the museum has borrowed it). But portions are also housed at the Saint Catherine’s Monastery, the Leipzig University Library and the Russian National Library. Really, it would have been a point that didn’t need to be in the meme.
What’s the Point
Finally, and the big point that the meme is trying to make. Off hand, I don’t know how many differences there are between the CS and the KJV. It could be well over 14,800. There are hundreds of thousands of differences between our ancient manuscripts and today’s Bibles. Even between translations there are differences.
Two things here. First, I don’t know
why they are comparing it to the KJV. I like the KJV as it really
captures part of the poetry of the Old Testament. But as an accurate
translation, I’ll pass. It was using texts that were of lesser
quality, especially for the Old Testament, and probably more
importantly, the English it used is so different from today’s
understanding. In addition though, the KJV was using texts that came
from a different scribal tradition (the Textus Receptus). Really
though, the KJV is just out dated. It’s been updated with the New
King James Version, and the Revised Standard Version and New Revised
Standard Version that are in the same tradition, and far superior.
To be fair, the CS and NSRV do have a lot of differences.
Which brings me to the second point. It doesn’t really matter. The CS
isn’t the end all manuscript. It’s one manuscript in a large series
of manuscripts. It is a great resource, but it isn’t a golden
standard. Scholars don’t rely solely on it, and at times disregard
portions of it for being inaccurate. Especially when it comes to the
Old Testament.
But even more so, most of the differences are
insignificant. The vast majority don’t have any real impact as they
are grammatical or spelling differences. Sometimes it simply is
switching word order. And really, we’re talking about two very
different languages here, Greek and English. It’s apples to oranges.
There are some larger differences. For instance, the CS lacks
the ending of Mark. But most Bibles make a footnote of that. It
doesn’t change anything of importance.
The point the meme was
trying to make just doesn’t work. It’s something that scholars deal
with all the time and can be quite interesting.