Where are Biblical Manuscripts Found?

Archaeological sites

Surprisingly, archaeologists don't often find manuscripts, but there are some notable exceptions.

A famous manuscript find was the Codex Sinaiticus (א, Gregory-Aland 01) found by Constantin von Tischendorf, at Saint Catherine's Monastery, at the foot of Mount Sinai in Egypt, between 1844-1859. This book was written about A.D. 325-350. It originally contained the entire Bible, along with the Apocrypha and...

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Why were the Early Christians More Likely to Write on a Codex Rather than a Scroll?

In the second millennium B.C., when the Israelites were slaves in Egypt and for the first few hundred years after the Exodus, documents were typically written on papyrus. Papyrus sheets were made from the papyrus plant, which was common among the Nile river. Sheets of papyrus were fragile, and creases in papyrus could tear easily. Typically, documents were made into scrolls rather than books, which would help prevent sharp bends in the sheets.

In...

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What Media has the Bible been Written On?

After writing 13 articles on the canon, I've started researching a new topic: New Testament manuscripts. I haven't exhausted the subject of the Biblical Canon (I've focused on the New Testament canon and haven't written about the Old Testament canon), but I've exhausted my current interest in studying it.  

The books of the canon make the Bible, but how did the Bible get from the early church to us? How do we know the Bible has been...

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Who were the Masoretes?

Genesis 1:1 in English Standard Version, Dead Sea Scrolls, Leningrad Code and Modern Hebrew.

The Masoretes were
Jewish scribes and scholars who made it their life's work to accurately copy
the Hebrew Bible. They worked approximately from the A.D. 600's to A.D. 950,
primarily in the areas of Jerusalem, Tiberius and Babylonia. The name Masoretes
comes from the Hebrew word masorah,
which means "tradition" or "to hand down".

During the first century A.D. Rome ruled over Israel. In A.D. 66, the first...

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