What’s wrong with the Sinai Bible meme

Every once in a while, I see a meme pop up about religion. For a long time, I’d think about them, and then my wife would hear about all that was wrong with the meme, but recently I started saving the meme itself. 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, 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, both historically and in the idea it’s 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 compiled into collections centuries before Jesus was born. For instance, by the second century BC, we roughly have the Septuagint, a Greek version of the Old Testament (which may have begun in the third century BC). The Septuagint really is the basis for the Christian Old Testament we have. Now, all of this is a bit more complicated, as revisions and reevaluations of the Old Testament would continue for quite some time, but we see it being roughed out here.

In the New Testament, we see Marcion of Sinope, in the second century AD, compiling a canon of 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 New Testament canon was largely developed. Over the next couple of hundred years, we’d have various church figures commissioned to compile 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 older portions of manuscripts, including fragments of the Septuagint dating to the second century BC. For the New Testament, we have a fragment of the Gospel of John that may date to the early second century. It’s the size of a business card, though.

What sets the CS apart 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 really come from the same time period, though (the fourth century). And they are both quite important in critically studying the Biblical Texts.

Does being old matter? 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 meme claims that the CS is held by 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 a 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, the big point that the meme is trying to make. Offhand, 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 because it really captures the poetry of the Old Testament. But as an accurate translation, I’ll pass. It used texts of lesser quality, especially in the Old Testament, and, probably more importantly, the English it used is so different from today’s understanding. In addition, the KJV used texts from a different scribal tradition (the Textus Receptus). Really, the KJV is just outdated. It’s been updated with the New King James Version, the Revised Standard Version, and the New Revised Standard Version, which are in the same tradition and far superior.

To be fair, the CS and NSRV do have many 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 as 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 scholars deal with all the time, and it can be quite interesting.