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Fragment from world’s oldest Bible found hidden in Egyptian monastery

By Jerome Taylor,The Independent, A British-based academic has uncovered a fragment of the world’s oldest Bible hiding underneath the binding of an 18th-century book.Nikolas Sarris spotted a previously unseen section of the Codex Sinaiticus, which dates from about AD350, as he was trawling through photographs of manuscripts in the library of St Catherine’s Monastery in Egypt.

The Codex, handwritten in Greek on animal skin, is the earliest known version of the Bible. Leaves from the priceless tome are divided between four institutions, including St Catherine’s Monastery and the British Library, which has held the largest section of the ancient Bible since the Soviet Union sold its collection to Britain in 1933. Academics from Britain, America, Egypt and Russia collaborated to put the entire Codex online this year but new fragments of the book are occasionally rediscovered. Continue reading.