Writings: ChristianityCodex Sinaiticus1 of 10

Writings: Christianity

Codex Sinaiticus

Codex Sinaiticus is a Greek Bible on parchment, copied in the fourth century CE (325 to 374 CE in the British Library catalog). It holds the only complete Greek New Testament from before the ninth century, plus part of the Old Testament. Most of its surviving leaves are in London, with others in Leipzig, St Petersburg, and Sinai.

Last reviewed:

Three dates, kept apart

  1. The text's date: the tradition's view

    per the Orthodox Church in America: most likely the end of the 40s CE for 1 and 2 Thessalonians, near the close of the first century CE for John. Dei Verbum, the Chicago Statement, and the Westminster Confession give no year

  2. The text's date: critical scholars' view

    from about 50 CE (1 Thessalonians, the oldest New Testament writing, in Dale Martin's account); Mark about 70 CE, with Matthew and Luke after it

  3. This copy made

    2nd to 3rd quarter of the 4th century CE (325 to 374 CE)

  4. This copy found

    brought to Constantin von Tischendorf's attention at Saint Catherine's Monastery, Mount Sinai, in 1844; more leaves found there in 1975

All four rows share one timeline. A row with no marker says why in words. How ancient texts are dated.

What it is

Codex Sinaiticus is a Bible in Greek, written on parchment and bound as a codex, a book of pages rather than a roll.1 It holds part of the Old Testament and the 27 books of the New Testament as most churches now count them.2 It adds two other early Christian writings, the Epistle of Barnabas and the Shepherd of Hermas, which some churches read into the fourth and fifth centuries.134 It is believed to have held at least 730 leaves; 347 are in London.31

This entry treats it as a witness to the canon, the books a church accepts as scripture. Its Old Testament is in Greek, the language of the Septuagint, a translation of the Jewish scriptures that the early church read as its Old Testament. The Hebrew texts are under Judaism.56

How the copy was dated

The date rests mainly on handwriting, a method called paleography, which compares letter shapes with other writing of known or estimated date.7 The codex also carries numbers from the canon tables devised by Eusebius of Caesarea, so it cannot be earlier than the fourth century.31

Scholars differ on the date. The British Library catalogs it to 325 to 374 CE, and Saint Catherine's Monastery to the second quarter of the fourth century.18 Milne and Skeat, in a 1938 study, judged a few marginal notes with running-hand letter forms to be certainly fourth-century, and probably from its first half.17 Nongbri argues in a 2022 article that, if, as Milne and Skeat believed, scribe D wrote those notes, parallels for their few letters run into the fifth century, so the codex could date from about 300 to about 425 CE, and he suggests that range suits radiocarbon dating.7 See how ancient texts are dated.

The text: its date and authorship

The strip above marks the New Testament books.

The tradition's account

Catholic teaching holds that apostles and apostolic men wrote the New Testament books, and that the four Gospels are of apostolic origin. It gives no year.9 The Orthodox Church in America's catechism names the four evangelists. It dates Matthew, Mark, and Luke to the beginning of the second half of the first century, and John near its close. It dates Paul's letters from most likely the end of the 40s CE to the early 60s CE.101112

The Orthodox catechism also holds that God is the books' one original author, so a book's authenticity does not depend on its human writer.13 The evangelical Chicago Statement rejects study that leads to rejecting a book's stated authorship. The Reformed Westminster Confession lists Paul's Epistles among the books of scripture. Neither gives a year.1415

The historians' view

Dale Martin of Yale, in his Open Yale Courses lectures on the New Testament, holds that the oldest New Testament writings are Paul's letters, and that 1 Thessalonians was probably written around 50 CE.2 He holds that the Gospels were written 20 or 30 years after Paul's letters, with Mark, the earliest, probably around 70 CE, and Matthew and Luke later, using Mark.2 He holds that modern scholars regard all four Gospels as anonymous, because the texts do not name their authors.2

The Catholic bishops' New American Bible holds, in study introductions, that modern research often proposes an unknown author for Mark, perhaps writing shortly after 70 CE. It holds that John was probably written in the 90s CE.1617

How it was found

In 1844 the monks of Saint Catherine's Monastery on Mount Sinai showed the German scholar Constantin von Tischendorf 129 leaves of the Old Testament. He obtained 43, now in Leipzig.181 In his narrative, translated in 1866, he wrote that he found Old Testament sheets in a basket of old parchments and was told two such heaps had been burned. He was allowed to take a third of the sheets, which he put at about forty-five.191

How the rest left Sinai is told two ways. The monastery says Tischendorf asked to take the codex to Russia for a printed edition and promised to return it on request. It has always protested as slander his statement that the monks were about to burn it.8 A letter of 1859 from the Russian ambassador, cited in the four institutions' summary, refers to Tischendorf's assertion that the community wished to donate the codex to the Tsar. It adds that ownership stayed with the monastery until a donation was made.18

The four institutions that hold parts of the codex publish a shared summary. It records a loan receipt in 1859 and a handover to the Russian Tsar in 1862. It also records an act of donation in 1869, the year a long-disputed succession to the archbishopric of Sinai was settled. The institutions say there is evidence that Russian diplomats linked their intervention in that succession to the donation. They add that the evidence conflicts on whether a gift was intended from the start.18 The Soviet government sold the codex to the British Museum in 1933, and monks at Sinai found more leaves and fragments in 1975.118

What it shows, and what it does not

The evidence shows that a complete Greek New Testament was copied in the fourth century CE or soon after. It was bound with part of the Old Testament and two other early Christian writings.17 Its list of books differs from the 27-book list in Athanasius's letter of 367 CE. The Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church counts 35 New Testament books, the 27 plus eight more.1220

It does not show who chose the books or why, or when any of them was written. On the British Library's dates, it was made about 275 to 325 years after 1 Thessalonians (computed from 50 CE and 325 to 374 CE).2 Its own date is a handwriting judgment, and scholars disagree on how wide the range is.7

See also

Sources

  1. Codex Sinaiticus: Bible in two volumes (Add MS 43725). British Library, Archives and Manuscripts Catalogue, record 032-002169711. Accessed 2026-11-05.
  2. Dale B. Martin. Introduction to New Testament History and Literature (RLST 152), Lecture 2: From Stories to Canon. Open Yale Courses, Yale University, transcript. Accessed 2026-10-28.
  3. In the Beginning: Bibles Before the Year 1000, Codex Sinaiticus. Smithsonian Institution (exhibition pages). Accessed 2026-11-05.
  4. Lee Martin McDonald. The New Testament Canon. Bible Odyssey (Society of Biblical Literature), 2022. Accessed 2026-10-28.
  5. Jannes Smith. What Is the Septuagint?. Bible Odyssey (Society of Biblical Literature). Accessed 2026-10-28.
  6. Christine Hayes. Introduction to the Old Testament (Hebrew Bible) (RLST 145), Lecture 1: The Parts of the Whole. Open Yale Courses, Yale University, transcript. Accessed 2026-10-28.
  7. Brent Nongbri. A New Article on the Date of Codex Sinaiticus. The Early History of the Codex (blog by Brent Nongbri), 2022. Accessed 2026-11-05.
  8. Holy Monastery of the God-trodden Mount Sinai (Saint Catherine's Monastery). Codex Sinaiticus. Saint Catherine's Monastery, Sinai (library pages). Accessed 2026-11-05.
  9. Second Vatican Council. Dei Verbum, Dogmatic Constitution on Divine Revelation. Holy See, 1965, sections 9, 10, 11, 18, 19, and 22. Accessed 2026-10-28.
  10. Thomas Hopko. The Orthodox Faith, Volume I: Doctrine and Scripture, Sources of Christian Doctrine: Bible. Orthodox Church in America. Accessed 2026-10-28.
  11. Thomas Hopko. The Orthodox Faith, Volume I: Doctrine and Scripture, New Testament: Gospels. Orthodox Church in America, opening sections and the sections on Luke and John. Accessed 2026-11-05.
  12. Thomas Hopko. The Orthodox Faith, Volume I, Doctrine and Scripture: New Testament, Letters of Saint Paul. Orthodox Church in America, 1981, opening paragraph. Accessed 2026-10-28.
  13. Thomas Hopko. The Orthodox Faith, Volume I: Doctrine and Scripture, The Bible: Authorship. Orthodox Church in America. Accessed 2026-10-28.
  14. International Council on Biblical Inerrancy. The Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy. Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals, summary statement, Articles XII and XVIII. Accessed 2026-10-28.
  15. Westminster Assembly. The Westminster Confession of Faith. The Orthodox Presbyterian Church, chapter 1. Accessed 2026-10-28.
  16. United States Conference of Catholic Bishops. New American Bible, Revised Edition: Introduction to the Gospel according to Mark. United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, introduction. Accessed 2026-11-05.
  17. United States Conference of Catholic Bishops. New American Bible, Revised Edition: Introduction to the Gospel according to John. United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, introduction. Accessed 2026-11-05.
  18. History of Codex Sinaiticus. Codex Sinaiticus Project (British Library, Leipzig University Library, National Library of Russia, and the Holy Monastery of Saint Catherine, Mount Sinai). Accessed 2026-11-05.
  19. Constantine Tischendorf. When Were Our Gospels Written? An Argument, with a Narrative of the Discovery of the Sinaitic Manuscript. American Tract Society, New York (translated and published by the Religious Tract Society, London, under an arrangement with the author), 1866, page 28 (the narrative of the visit of May 1844). Accessed 2026-11-05.
  20. Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church. The Bible (canonical books). The Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church (ethiopianorthodox.org). Accessed 2026-10-28.