Codex Sinaiticus Conference

British Library Conference Centre, 6-7 July 2009

Codex Sinaiticus is one of the world's outstanding manuscripts. Together with Codex Vaticanus, it is one of the earliest extant Bibles, containing the oldest complete New Testament. This treasured codex is indispensable for understanding the earliest text of the Greek Bible, the transmission of its text, the establishment of the Christian canon, and the history of the book. Over 400 leaves survive and are held across four institutions: the British Library, Leipzig University Library, St Catherine's Monastery and the National Library of Russia in St Petersburg.

In order better to understand Codex Sinaiticus and make it freely available to a worldwide audience as a virtually re-united resource, the four holding institutions have entered into a partnership to undertake the Codex Sinaiticus Project, supported by numerous collaborating institutions and individuals and many generous funders. One of the project's outputs – the Codex Sinaiticus website (http://www.codexsinaiticus.org) – is scheduled to feature images and aligned transcriptions of all extant leaves by July 2009.

To celebrate the Project's achievements, on 6-7 July 2009, the British Library is hosting an academic conference on topics relating to Codex Sinaiticus. A number of leading experts have been approached to give presentations on the history, text, conservation, paleography and codicology, among other topics, of Codex Sinaiticus. Selected conference papers will be edited and published as a collection of articles.

Confimed speakers:

Christfried Böttrich
Christopher Clarkson
Eldon J. Epp
Harry Y. Gamble
Dirk Jongkind
René Larsen
David Parker
Albert Pietersma
Emanuel Tov
David Trobisch
Klaus Wachtel

Call for papers

The Codex Sinaiticus Project invites proposals for presentations on current and less widely known research relating to Codex Sinaiticus, especially, but not exclusively, by doctoral and post-doctoral researchers. Please send a one-page abstract and a concise CV by 15 January 2009 to Juan Garcés (juan.garces@bl.uk). Authors will be notified by early February 2009.

Registration

Information on registration will follow soon.