If you go online, you can Google "World's oldest Bible"
What will pop up ?
"Codex Sinaiticus."
I was taught this in Bible college.
So from then, for decades (this was the early 1980s)
I searched for the "world's oldest Bible" --
Codex Sinaiticus.
Most books actually only showed me one single page of Sinaiticus --
John 21.
But in 2009, Codex Sinaiticus came online.
And thanks to Jack McElroy, I have been able to search
and study his huge copy of Sinaiticus for a year and a half.
In addition, all the high-quality photographs
are available on www.codexsinaiticus.org.
I have learned way more by examining it for myself
than all the lectures, legends and lies I have heard about it
from professors, preachers and book authors.
I thought I'd ask you a fun question.
Never mind that Codex Sinaiticus is the most accepted,
but never actually scientifically tested book in history.
Let's ask a simple question.
Why don't we see a Bible based solely upon the Sinaiticus?
Wouldn't that be interesting?
Let me tell you why you haven't,
and probably never will, see one.
Hi, I'm David Daniels from Chick Publications.
Codex Sinaiticus, in the form we find it today,
is missing 12 entire books and most of 6 more.
That's over one fourth of the 66 Bible books,
over a third of the 39 Old Testament books.
In addition, it has the Apocrypha,
but only six books of the Apocrypha: Tobit, Judith,
1 and 4 Maccabees, Wisdom of Solomon
and Wisdom of Jesus ben Sirach (or Ecclesiasticus).
But this is just the Old Testament and Apocrypha.
The reality is, we just don't have enough
to make a Sinaiticus Old Testament.
So much for that idea.
But what about the New Testament?
"Aha!" says the New Testament scholar.
"The Sinaiticus has an absolutely complete
New Testament!"
Great!
So why don't we have a Sinaiticus New Testament?
There are a few reasons.
And each one is embarrassing.
That is why I am going to tell them to you.
But first, let me say that there is a book
that calls itself a Sinaiticus New Testament,
by Henry T Anderson.
But it's not really the Sinaiticus.
In many of the things I will show you, they didn't dare put
what the Sinaiticus actually said -- or didn't say.
I call "foul" on that.
No fair changing the Sinaiticus.
So to keep it simple, I'll stick with
the original Sinaiticus text as carefully handwritten,
I will not count its corrections, erasures,
line-outs, marginal notes, or any other sneaky tricks.
That seems fair to me.
Ready?
The New Testament has a number of
one of a kind readings in Sinaiticus.
Matthew 13:54 says in the King James,
54 "And when he was come into his own country,
he taught them in their synagogue ..."
"Country" here is "patrida."
But that's not what the Sinaiticus says.
It says "And when he came
into his own 'antipatrida' Antipatris" --
which is 46 miles away from Nazareth,
in Samaria, not Galilee.
It's a clear error.
Here.
Here's Galilee, here's Nazareth.
And there's Antipatris.
Neither Anderson's
Sinaiticus New Testament, or even
Tischendorf's English New Testament
admits that.
Not even in a note!
How about Luke 1:26?
The King James reads simply:
26 "And in the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent from God
unto a city of Galilee, named Nazareth,"
"Galilaias."
See the word right there?
Mary and Joseph are from Nazareth, in Galilee.
Everybody knows that...
...except the Sinaiticus.
The Sinaiticus reads
"Eis polin tis Ioudaias he onoma Nazaret"
"unto a city of Judea, named Nazareth."
That will liven up your Bible study.
Even Sunday school kids know that's wrong!
But Anderson and Tischendorf didn't admit it.
Not even in a note.
Let's kick it up a bit.
John 7:53 to 8:11, the story of the Jesus
and the woman caught in adultery, is completely missing
from Sinaiticus.
See?
On the same line, it goes from John 7:52 to 8:12.
But gutless Anderson and Tischendorf
both stuck those 12 verses into their New Testaments.
Why?
If Sinaiticus "oldest and best;" if Sinaiticus is so good,
put your money where your mouth is.
Remove John 7:53-8:11 from your Bible.
And while you're at it, be honest.
Remove Mark 16:9-20.
Don't fudge and write it in italics or put a bar or a bracket around it.
Don't write some big explanation.
Just remove the resurrection appearances of Christ
in Mark 16.
But they won't sell you a New Testament
without those 24 verses, even though they are missing
from Sinaiticus.
What about the important words of Luke 24:51?
51 "And it came to pass, while he blessed them,
he was parted from them, and carried up into heaven."
"kai anefereto eis ton ouranon."
The words, "And was carried up into heaven" are actually
not in the original writing of Sinaiticus.
See?
They're added in a note later, up at the top.
That means that there is no mention
of Jesus' bodily resurrection in the Sinaiticus Gospels at all,
Mark 16 or Luke 24.
So the only mention in Sinaiticus of Jesus' bodily ascension
into heaven is in Acts 1, verses 2, 10 and 11.
Scholars have used this to argue that Jesus
didn't actually ascend at all.
Like my old professor Bob Schaper at Fuller said,
"If you had Polaroid camera, you wouldn't have seen
Jesus ascend into heaven."
Despite the fact, of course, that the real scriptures say
that is exactly what He did.
Did he base his disbelieving Jesus' ascension
because of the Sinaiticus?
Then these unbelieving "scholars" make up a 3 step argument
using Sinaiticus and their own evolutionary theory
about the Gospel:
1) Even though history says the order the Gospels were written
was Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, just like all the Bible manuscripts,
and even Origen, these scholars made up the lie
that "Mark came first."
2) Since Sinaiticus Mark doesn't have the resurrection
or ascension in 16:9-20, and Sinaiticus Luke
takes out the part of the ascension from 24:51,
they made up the lies that "Jesus' wasn't bodily raised
from the dead" and that "Jesus
didn't ascend into heaven."
Then they made up the lie that "Jesus' resurrection
and ascension were added to the gospel later."
3) Then they show that Sinaiticus Mark 1:1 didn't say
Jesus was "the Son of God."
But, Sinaiticus still says God calls Jesus
"my beloved Son, In whom I am well pleased"
in verse 11
So based on Sinaiticus Mark 1, they stated the lies
that "Jesus was only a man," "God adopted Jesus
as His son His baptism,"
on top of the lies that "Jesus wasn't bodily
raised from the dead," and "Jesus didn't ascend into heaven."
Brothers and sisters, that's what some text critics claim
is "original Christianity!"
So because of the textual critic Constantin Tischendorf,
claiming Sinaiticus was the "World's Oldest Bible,"
and people accepted it without thinking twice,
there came the false doctrine
that "Jesus that was an ordinary man,
adopted by God as His Son at His baptism,
who was killed, and buried, but who wasn't raised from the dead
and wasn't ascended into heaven.
Would you buy a real Sinaiticus New Testament now?
Now for some good news.
Codex Sinaiticus is a FAKE, a PHONY, a FRAUD.
And over the past year I've learned that it was actually created
between 1839-1840, and it was probably edited
up through 1843.
Eyewitnesses originally saw it as white.
Some white pages are still in Leipzig and you can see them online,
marked LUL on codexsinaiticus.org.
And the rest of it was colored (that's the very next page).
The rest of it was colored to make it look old,
probably about 1853.
You can see that marked BL for British Library.
So the "World's Oldest Bible" -- isn't.
You don't have to place your faith in the Codex Sinaiticus.
It's not the world's oldest Bible.
But it is a part of the world's biggest fraud.
One book I wrote that is coming out soon
deals with that.
The next book will go into detail about who made the Sinaiticus,
where, when and why.
Guys, don't let them tear down your faith
with a flaky fake.
Grab hold of the rock in English, the King James Bible,
and don't let it go.
God bless you, and have a wonderful day.