FASCINATING CODEX ...

... is not a new GWOT communications code; it's all a true believer can say when they read this.

A manuscript containing the oldest known Biblical New Testament in the world is set to enter the digital age and become accessible online.

What they're talking about is the Codex Sinaiticus ...

... believed originally to have been one of 50 copies of the scriptures commissioned by Roman Emperor Constantine after he converted to Christianity.

One of Christendom's most valuable possessions, discovered and stolen from Saint Catherine's monastery located in Sinai, Egypt, at the foot of the mountain where Moses is said to have received the Ten Commandments, by visiting German scholar Constantin von Tischendorf.

The original document is so precious that it has only been seen by four scholars in the last 20 years.

The Codex Sinaiticus contains the whole of the Christian Bible; specifically, it has the oldest complete copy of the New Testament, as well as the Greek Old Testament, known as the Septuagint, which includes books now regarded as apocrypha.

The digitization of the manuscript is a joint project of the UK, Europe, Egypt and Russia ... each of whom have some of the document in their possession. The monastery still claims the stolen manuscript ... all of it (rightly so; only they do not have the ability to protect it as it is now being protected).

The British Library will also develop a free website to present the manuscript. The website will both "present the manuscript - just the facts as it were, the images and the transcription - but also interpret it for different audiences, from scholars right through to people who are just interested in this manuscript or in Christianity".

The people of God owe a debt of gratitude to all the biblical scholars who have labored through the centuries to preserve our biblical record. One of the cornerstones of our doctrines of biblical inerrancy and authority rests on the testimony whole of the biblical evidence.