Manuscript
Codex Amiatinus
Also known as Amiatinus · Florence, Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana, Amiatino 1 · A
The oldest complete Latin Bible in Jerome's translation — made in the north of England and carried toward Rome.
translationslatinvulgatewhole-bible
Overview
Codex Amiatinus(c. AD 692–716)— Written at Wearmouth–Jarrow, Northumbria; taken to Italy in 716
It was written at the twin monasteries of Wearmouth and Jarrow in Northumbria, in the years around AD 700, under Abbot Ceolfrith. Three complete Bibles were made; this is the one that survives.
Ceolfrith set out in 716 to give it to the Pope and died on the way. The book reached Italy anyway, spent centuries at the abbey of Monte Amiata — hence the name — and is now in Florence.
It is enormous: over 1,000 leaves of parchment, weighing around 34 kilograms, requiring the skins of a very large herd.
Manuscript Details
- Date
- c. AD 692–716
- Language
- Latin
- Script
- Uncial
- Material
- Parchment
- Current location
- Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana, Florence (Amiatino 1)
- Discovery location
- Written at Wearmouth–Jarrow, Northumbria; taken to Italy in 716
- Contains books
- The complete Bible in Latin (Vulgate)
- Tags
- translations · latin · vulgate · whole-bible
Significance
The best single witness to what Jerome's Latin Bible actually said, because it was copied early and copied carefully from good exemplars. The Vulgate was the Bible of western Europe for a thousand years, so its text is the ancestor of most European translation before the Reformation.
Where this witness is read
Codex Amiatinus is one of the manuscripts named in the places your Bible carries a footnote. Each passage below shows what this witness reads and the case each way.
- Mark 16:9-20The Ending of MarkCodex Sinaiticus (א) (c. AD 330-360) reads: Ends the Gospel at 16:8, with no long ending of any kind.
- John 7:53 - 8:11The Woman Caught in AdulteryPapyrus 66 (P66) (c. AD 200) reads: Does not contain the passage. John 8:12 follows directly on John 7:52.
- 1 John 5:7-8The Three Heavenly WitnessesEvery Greek manuscript before roughly the 14th century (2nd-13th century) reads: Reads only the earthly witnesses: "there are three that bear witness, the Spirit, and the water, and the blood: and these three agree in one." The heavenly witnesses are absent from all of them, without exception.
- Matthew 17:21Prayer and fasting — a verse that is missing from MatthewCodex Sinaiticus and Codex Vaticanus (4th century) reads: No verse 21 at all — the text runs straight from verse 20 to verse 22.
- Matthew 18:11"The Son of man is come to save that which was lost"Codex Sinaiticus and Codex Vaticanus (4th century) reads: No verse 11 — verse 10 is followed directly by the parable in verse 12.
- Acts 8:37The Ethiopian's confession — "If thou believest with all thine heart"The earliest Greek manuscripts of Acts, including Codex Sinaiticus, Codex Vaticanus, and Codex Alexandrinus (4th–5th centuries) reads: No verse 37. Verse 36 is followed immediately by verse 38 and the descent into the water.
- Matthew 6:13"For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory"The earliest Greek manuscripts, including Codex Sinaiticus, Codex Vaticanus, and Codex Bezae (4th–5th centuries) reads: The prayer ends at "deliver us from evil."
- Luke 22:43-44The angel in Gethsemane and the sweat like drops of bloodAn early Luke papyrus (P75) and Codex Vaticanus (3rd–4th centuries) reads: Without the two verses — the prayer is followed directly by Jesus rising and coming to the disciples.
- John 5:4The angel who troubled the water at BethesdaThe earliest papyrus copies of John (P66, P75) (about AD 200 – 3rd century) reads: No angel, no troubling of the water — the explanation is simply absent.
- Mark 1:41Compassion or anger? Jesus and the leperCodex Sinaiticus, Codex Vaticanus, Codex Alexandrinus, and the Byzantine majority (4th–15th centuries) reads: *splanchnistheis* — "moved with compassion."
- Romans 8:1"No condemnation" — with a condition, or without one?Codex Sinaiticus and Codex Vaticanus, original hands (4th century) reads: "...no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus." The sentence ends there.
- 1 Timothy 3:16"God was manifest in the flesh" — two letters apartCodex Sinaiticus, original hand (4th century) reads: ΟΣ — "who was manifested in the flesh." A later corrector changed it to ΘΣ.
- Revelation 22:19"Book of life" or "tree of life" — and the missing last pageThe Greek manuscripts of Revelation (4th–15th centuries, all of them) reads: "the tree of life" — without known exception in Greek.
- Isaiah 53:11"He shall see light" — a word the Dead Sea Scrolls restoredThe Great Isaiah Scroll from Qumran (1QIsaᵃ) (roughly the second century BC) reads: "he shall see light" — the extra word present in the Hebrew.
- Psalm 22:16"They pierced my hands and my feet" — or "like a lion"?The Greek Old Testament (Septuagint) (translated in the last centuries BC) reads: "They dug/pierced my hands and my feet" — a verb. This is Jewish translators reading a Hebrew text as "pierced" long before there was any Christian reason to.