THIS MIGHT SURPRISE YOU

Codex Sinaiticus, one of the two oldest nearly complete Greek Bibles, is named for the place it came to light. Where?

The answer

Constantin von Tischendorf encountered its leaves at Saint Catherine's Monastery at Mount Sinai in 1844 and secured most of the manuscript over later visits — under arrangements the monastery has contested ever since. Its leaves now sit mainly in London, Leipzig, Saint Petersburg, and Sinai itself.

Why it’s interesting

The monastery, founded in the sixth century, holds one of the oldest continuously operating libraries on earth — and in 1975 a blocked-off room there yielded still more leaves of the same codex. The find story is still being written.

Scholarly consensus

You can know the Bible.

Not just the stories, but the history, authorship, and scholarship behind it.