The Codex Sinaiticus as it survives is incomplete – originally it would have been about 1,460 pages long – but it includes half of the Old Testament, all the New Testament, and two early Christian texts not found in modern Bibles. As time went by, some were judged to be authoritative and included in the canon others were deemed to be apocryphal or errant. In earlier centuries there were all manner of documents in scroll form of gospels, epistles and other Christian writings. To Christian scholars, it offers key insights into which ancient religious texts were brought together in the unit we now know as the Bible. "The Codex Sinaiticus is one of the world's greatest written treasures," says Scot McKendrick, head of Western manuscripts at the British Library. It is thought to be the oldest, large, bound book to have survived. The parchment was arranged in little multi-page booklets called quires, which were then numbered in sequence. To secular scholars it represents the turning point in literary history when the scroll gave way to the book. The biggest portion of the codex ended up in St Petersburg, where it was bought by the British Museum in the 1930s out of fear that the Communist regime might destroy it. Von Tischendorf had a deed of gift dated 11 September 1868 signed by one of its archbishops. There is a dispute too about whether he stole it or was given it. Von Tischendorf claimed to have found pages of it in a wastepaper basket but the monks deny this. The Codex was discovered at the monastery in 1844 by the German biblical scholar and archaeologist Constantin von Tischendorf (1815-74), who brought sections of it back to Europe on three separate trips. It was preserved for centuries by the dry desert air at the 4th century Monastery of St Catherine at the foot of Mount Sinai in Egypt, the oldest continuously inhabited Christian monastery, which has the greatest library of early manuscripts outside the Vatican City. The work of four scribes, it was written on vellum parchment made from the skins of donkeys or antelopes. No one is sure but it was handwritten in Greek uncial letters at about the time of the Roman emperor Constantine the Great more than 1,600 years ago.
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