The
"Uncrating" of Codex Vaticanus:
the Facsimile
4th Century codex manuscript
of the Greek Bible
Wednesday March 31, 2004
4:00 p.m.
Bethel College Library
Sponsored by:
Friends of the Bethel College Library
Department of Biblical and Theological Studies
Office of Development
Guests
were able to view this unusual manuscript, leaf through its pages, appreciate it as a work of graphic art, and see what an early Church Bible looked like.
More on the Codex Vaticanus
Codex Vaticanus is a magnificent 4th-century codex
manuscript of the Greek Bible. Today it is arguably the most influential
surviving Greek Biblical manuscript. Contemporary translations of the New
Testament, such as the NIV, NASB, NRSV, and ESV, are translated from a Greek
text that more closely represents Codex Vaticanus than any other manuscript.
For those branches of Christianity (such as the Greek Orthodox Church) which
still make use of the Old Testament in Greek, Vaticanus is one of the three major
witnesses to the Septuagint (the oldest Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible).
Of the more than seven thousand Greek manuscripts (or fragments thereof) that
are known today, fewer than ten (all now defective) originally contained the
entire Greek Bible. Of these, only four date from before the 10th century, and
of these four, Codex Vaticanus is one of the two earliest-the other (written
about the same time) being the famous Codex Sinaiticus, now in the British
Library. It unquestionably holds a uniquely important place in the history of
the transmission of the Greek Bible from ancient times to today.
In 1999, the Istituto Poligrafico e Zecca della Stato in Rome (the Italian State
Printing House and Mint) published a limited edition, full-color, exact scale
facsimile of Codex Vaticanus-the first time ever that anything like this has
been done for an ancient manuscript. This is not a matter of merely printing
color photographs of the codex: the facsimile reproduces the very form of the
pages of the original manuscript, right down to the distinctive individual
shape of each page, including every hole in the vellum. The result is a piece
of graphic art of high quality and distinction, worthy of admiration apart from
the contents of the manuscript reproduced. When this kind of artistic
achievement is combined with a manuscript of the historical and contemporary
significance of Codex Vaticanus, the result is a rare combination of theology,
history, and art.
The Bethel College Library has been given an unusual
opportunity to acquire a copy of this facsimile reproduction of Codex
Vaticanus. Efforts are under way to raise the needed funds to obtain this copy
for the Library, in hopes that it can become part of a permanent display- one
that will remind us every time we enter the Library of the centrality of
Scripture in Christian life and education.
In the meantime, as funds are being raised, the facsimile
has already arrived from Rome, and the interim custodian of the Codex has
agreed to a celebratory “uncrating” of the facsimile from its shipping
container-no small matter, as the package, including its wooden crate, weighs
in at 14.4 kilograms (ca. 32 pounds)!
