Codex Ephraemi Rescriptus, at the Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris

Codex Ephraemi Rescriptus is an early 5th century Greek manuscript of the Bible, the last in the group of the four great uncial manuscripts of the Greek Bible (see Codex Sinaiticus, Codex Alexandrinus and Codex Vaticanus). It receives its name, as a codex in which the treatises of Ephraem the Syrian, in Greek translations, were written over ("rescriptus") a former text that had been washed off its vellum pages, thus forming a palimpsest. The later text was produced in the 12th century. The effacement of the original text was incomplete, fortunately, for beneath the text of Ephraem are the remains of what was once a complete Bible, containing both the Old Testament and the New. It forms one of the codices for textual criticism on which the Higher criticism is based. The new buildings of the library. ... The Bible (From Greek βιβλιος biblios, meaning book, which in turn is derived from βυβλος—byblos meaning papyrus, from the ancient Phoenician city of Byblos which exported papyrus) is a word applied to sacred scriptures. ... The Book of Kells, c. ... Codex Sinaiticus (London, Brit. ... Folio 65v from the Codex Alexandrinus contains the end of the Gospel of Luke with the decorative tailpiece found at the end of each book. ... A section of the Codex Vaticanus, containing 1 Esdras 2:1-8 The Codex Vaticanus (Vatican City, Bibl. ... A codex (Latin for book; plural codices) is a handwritten book from late Antiquity or the Middle Ages. ... Ephrem the Syrian was a prolific Syriac language hymn writer and theologian of the 4th century. ... Vellum (Latin for the animals wool hair) has two meanings: A sort of parchment, a material for the pages of a book or codex, usually made from calf skin. ... A palimpsest is a manuscript page, scroll, or book that has been written on, scraped off, and used again. ... The Bible (From Greek βιβλιος biblios, meaning book, which in turn is derived from βυβλος—byblos meaning papyrus, from the ancient Phoenician city of Byblos which exported papyrus) is a word applied to sacred scriptures. ... The Old Testament or the Hebrew Scriptures constitutes the first major part of the Christian Bible, usually divided into the categories law, history, poetry (or wisdom books) and prophecy. ... The New Testament, sometimes called the Greek Scriptures, is the name given to the part of the Christian Bible that was written after the birth of Jesus. ... Textual criticism is a branch of philology that examines the extant manuscript copies of an ancient or medieval literary work to produce a text that is as close as possible to the original. ... Higher criticism is a branch of literary analysis that attempts to investigate the origins of a text, especially the text of the Bible. ...

After the fall of Constantinople in 1453, the Codex was brought to Florence by an emigré scholar. Catherine de' Medici brought it to France as part of her dowry, and from the Bourbon royal library it came to rest in the Bibliothèque Nationale de France, Paris. The 1453 Siege of Constantinople (painted 1499) The Fall of Constantinople was the conquest of that Greek city by the Ottoman Empire under the command of Sultan Mehmed II, on Tuesday, May 29, 1453. ... Catherine de Medici ( April 13, 1519 – January 5, 1589), born in Italy as Caterina Maria Romola di Lorenzo de Medici, and later queen of France under the French name Catherine de Médicis, was the wife of King Henry II of France, of the Valois branch of the kings of France... The new buildings of the library. ...

The first complete collation of the New Testament was made by Wetstein (1716). Constantin von Tischendorf made his reputation an international one when he published the Greek New Testament text in 1843 and the Old Testament in 1845. The torn condition of many folios, the ghostly traces of the text overlaid by the later one made the decipherment an extremely difficult task. Even with modern aids like ultra-violet photography, not all the text is securely legible. Lobegott Friedrich Constantin (von) Tischendorf (Langenfeld, Saxony January 18, 1815- Leipzig December 7, 1874) was a noted German Biblical scholar who recovered the Codex Sinaiticus, a Greek manuscript of the New Testament, in 1859. ...

The codex (illustration, above right) measures 12 1/4 in/31.4-32.5 cm by 9 in/25.6-26.4 cm, with a single column to a page. Originally the whole Bible seems to have been contained in it.

External links

• Catholic Encyclopedia: (http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/04084a.htm)Codex Ephraemi Rescriptus
• Codex Ephraemi Syri Rescriptus (http://www.bible-researcher.com/codex-c.html)

Reference

• Hatch, William Henry, The Principal Uncial Manuscripts Of The New Testament, The University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1939.