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A Britain-based academic has uncovered a fragment of the world’s oldest Bible hiding underneath the binding of an 18th-century book, which dates from about AD350, as he was trawling through photographs of manuscripts in the library of St Catherine’s Monastery in Egypt. The Codex, handwritten in Greek on animal skin, is the earliest known version of The Bible. Leaves from the priceless tome are divided between four institutions, including St Catherine’s Monastery and the British Library, which has held the largest section of the ancient The Bible since the Soviet Union sold its collection to Britain in 1933. Academics from Britain, America, Egypt and Russia collaborated to put the entire Codex online this year but new fragments of the book are occasionally rediscovered. Mr Sarris, 30, chanced upon the fragment as he inspected photographs of a series of book bindings that had been compiled by two monks at the monastery during the 18th century. Over the centuries, antique parchment was often re-used by St Catherine’s monks in book bindings because of its strength and the relative difficulty of finding fresh parchment in such a remote corner of the world. Sarris, a Greek student conservator who is studying for his PhD in Britain, had been involved in the British Library’s project to digitise the Codex and quickly recognised the distinct Greek lettering when he saw it poking through a section of the book binding. The fragment is believed to be the beginning of Joshua, Chapter 1, and Verse 10, in which Joshua admonishes the children of Israel as they enter the Promised Land. Speaking to The Art newspaper, Father Justin said the monastery would use scanners to look more closely at how much of the fragment existed under the newer book binding. "Modern technology should allow us to examine the binding in a non-invasive manner," he said. Mr Sarris said his find was particularly significant because there were at least 18 other book bindings in the monastery’s library that were compiled by the same two monks that had re-used the Codex. "We don’t know whether we will find more of the Codex in those books but it would definitely be worth looking," he said. The library in St Catherine’s does not have the laboratory conditions needed to carefully peel away the binding without damaging the parchment underneath but the library is undergoing renovations that might lead to the construction of a lab with the correct equipment to do so. — By arrangement with The Independent
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