It was a dream come true. I was seeing with my own eyes some of the oldest Bibles ever discovered. I had read about some of these Bibles ever since I picked up my first Greek language grammar text decades ago. I never imagined I would see them in person, but here I was standing in the John Ritblat Gallery of the British Library in London, which contains some of the world’s most renowned biblical discoveries.
I was overcome. My eyes teared as I looked at the oldest known manuscript of the complete New Testament. It is called Codex Sinaiticus. It dates back to the middle of the 300s but was not discovered until 1859. It takes its name from being found in the Monastery of St. Catherine near the foot of Mount Sinai.
Next to it was the Codex Alexandrinus. It was written about a hundred years later than the Sinaiticus Bible, about the mid-400s. Its name comes from the city of Alexandria in Egypt, which was a thriving Christian center at one time.
The Alexandrinus Bible is the oldest complete Bible containing both the Old and New Testaments.
Next to the Alexandrinus Bible was a fragment of an early copy of the Revelation. Its date was the 200s. It contained the opening verses of the first chapter. Interestingly, the copy of what we know as verse 5 reads that Jesus “freed” us from our sins through His blood rather than the King James wording, which reads that Jesus “washed” us from our sins in His own blood.
There was so much more: copies of New Testament writings from Ethiopia, Syria, Iran and other Middle Eastern areas all dating from the first millennium. One copy of the Psalms had side by side, all the Psalms in Greek, Hebrew, Latin and Arabic. It also dates from the end of the first millennium.
It is impossible for one to look on the careful and artistic way early Christians worked to preserve the Bible and not realize how important the Bible has been to Christians through the centuries.
The 1526 Worms New Testament illustrates that point. It was the first English language translation of the Bible from the original Hebrew and Greek. William Tyndale, who produced that Bible, was chased from England for his efforts and completed the work on the Continent. At first copies of this version of the Bible were banned and burned. Later, Tyndale himself was martyred because he dared provide the Bible in a language of the people. On display in the Ritblat Gallery was an original copy of Tyndale’s Bible.
Tyndale’s love for the Word of God may have cost him his life, but his work survived. The King James version of the Bible drew heavily on Tyndale’s work. An original copy of the King James Version was also displayed.
Technology has made the Bible more available today than it was for the early church. No longer does a cloistered monk spend decades carefully coping every word of Scripture by hand to make a single copy of the Bible. Most American homes have multiple copies of God’s Word. The Bible has long been the best-selling book ever published.
But availability of Scripture has not lessened the importance of the Bible for Baptists. It is still our sole authority for faith and practice. As stated in the Baptist Faith and Message (BF&M), the Bible “reveals the principles by which God judges us, and therefore is, and will remain to the end of the world, the true center of Christian union, and the supreme standard by which all human conduct, creeds and religious opinions should be tried.”
The Bible has “God for its author, salvation for its end, and truth, without mixture of error, for its matter.” The 2000 version of the BF&M adds, “Therefore, all Scripture is totally true and trustworthy.” Amen.
As a people who treasure the Bible and its role in our faith, we are committed to believing and obeying all that Scripture sets forth. We are committed to understanding the Scripture in a harmonious way. We are committed to being guided by Scripture and letting Scripture direct our thoughts, opinions and actions. We are committed to responding to the teachings of Scripture as proceeding from God for the instruction of His people.
As Baptists we may disagree about what Scripture teaches. We may argue about how to bring harmony out of various parts of God’s Holy Word. We may reach different conclusions about the social implications of biblical teachings. But we are committed to following the understandings of the Bible that we have, because it is God who speaks to us out of the Bible.
Baptists believe the Bible. Baptists love the Bible. Baptists follow the Bible. The Bible is central to who we are. That is part of the reason tears flowed from my eyes as I stood before these oldest known copies of the Bible. God has made love for the Bible a part of the Christian experience through the centuries. It was in the early centuries. It is today.
You and I are indebted to those early Christians who labored almost 2,000 years ago to make sure that those who came after them would be able to read the Bible and have it guide them to God who is made known through its pages.
I hope you have opportunity to visit the Ritblat Gallery in the British Library and see this treasure of Scriptures. It will be a spiritual experience for you as it was for me.
Share with others: