Connect With the Past Through Rare Books

Sometime during the reign of Constantine roughly 1,600 years ago, four scribes penned a version of the bible in Greek on vellum parchment made from donkey and antelope skins.

This bible came to rest in a Christian monastery at the base of Egypt’s Mount Sinai, and was preserved for over a thousand years by dry desert air. In the mid 19th century it was discovered by Constantin von Tischendorf, an archaeologist and biblical scholar from Germany, and taken to Europe.

Today, this bible—the Codex Sinaiticus, the oldest bible in the world—can be viewed in its surviving form from any computer with an Internet connection, thanks to the efforts of institutions from the countries where pieces of the book now reside: England, Russia, Germany and Egypt.

Dr. Scot McKendrick, head of Western manuscripts at the British Library, called the Codex Sinaiticus “one of the world’s greatest written treasures.” That it’s freely available for all to experience is nothing short of amazing. You can find it here.

As an undergraduate I spent many hours in my school’s rare books library, sometimes doing class-related research, other times satisfying my own curiosity. I remember the whole experience having a ceremonial quality: the presentation of the delicate, often decaying object; handling the pages with extreme care, in some cases through white cotton gloves; and observing a general reverence for the books among all those present.

The books were both pieces of art and historical artifacts, and I felt honored to hold such a private audience with them. (If it pains you to think about what was lost when the Great Library of Alexandria was destroyed in the 3rd century AD, then you know what I’m talking about.)

Although you won’t be able to turn the musty pages yourself, you can browse through a phenomenal rare books collection right from your computer, thanks to the Library of Congress’s Rare Book & Special Collections Division. The collection is wide-ranging and diverse, and the digital files are so high resolution you’ll feel like the books are right in front of you.

James Sullivan
Editor