BBC News has an article on the digitizing of Codex Sinaiticus (the image to the right is the beginning of Matthew in the codex). This isn’t ground-breaking news (see below), though I have been watching for any stories on Sinaiticus since I am writing a dictionary entry on the codex for The New Interpreter’s Dictionary of the Bible.The BBC article has a number of errors. For instance, the tag line indicates that Sinaiticus is “the oldest known Biblical New Testament in the world” which it isn’t. Further down in the article they are correct when they say “it has the oldest complete copy of the New Testament.” Here’s another error: “It is named after the place it was written, the monastery of Saint Catherine in Sinai, Egypt.” More properly it should say that it was named after the place it was discovered. It may have been copied there, but it more likely was produced in Rome, Caesarea, or Alexandria.

I am surprised that BBC picked up the story when it did. Reuters published a similar story by Tim Perry early in July (it is still available here).