Let’s start here
Your assignment
Open the Codex Sinaiticus project below. Inspect its description and a manuscript page. Record language, approximate date, and what survives. What can this witness tell you—and what can it not?
Clue 1
A surviving Greek witness
The institutional Codex Sinaiticus project dates this handwritten Bible to the middle of the fourth century. It contains the earliest complete surviving New Testament. That describes the witness, not when its books were composed.
Read the institutional description →Clue 2
Inspect the object
A photograph lets you inspect the page; a transcription helps you read its letters. Neither replaces interpretation. The project identifies corrections: distinguish the original copying hand from a later intervention.
Open the manuscript viewer →Clue 3
Follow more than one trail
A manuscript, an early translation, and a quotation can bear witness to a reading. They answer different questions. The Latin and Greek evidence for 1 John 5:7 shows why date, language, and context matter.
Read the Greek and Latin evidence →Hear the objection
Could a later manuscript preserve an older reading? Yes. The age of a physical copy is not automatically the age of each reading. But a claim about an older reading still needs evidence; possibility is not proof.
Conclusion of this investigation
One manuscript cannot supply an unbroken record of every earlier copy or prove every reading original. Compare the documents behind competing explanations rather than the confidence of their presenters.
The argument above reaches a stated conclusion. The notebook below is for your own response.
Take the Test Now
What does the evidence establish?
A knowledge check, not a score for your faith. Read the evidence, then answer all three questions.
Choose an answer to each question to check your work.
Your investigator’s notebook
What convinced you—and what remains unanswered?
Optional and private. Nothing entered here is sent to Daniel. Saving stores notes only in this browser on this device, not on your other devices. Anyone using this browser may be able to read saved notes.