Lobegott Friedrich Konstantin von Tischendorf
| Constantin von Tischendorf | |
|---|---|
Constantin von Tischendorf, around 1870
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| Born |
18 January 1815 Lengenfeld, Kingdom of Saxony |
| Died | 7 December 1874 (aged 59) Leipzig, Saxony, German Empire |
| Nationality | German |
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | theology |
Lobegott Friedrich Constantin (von) Tischendorf (18 January 1815 – 7 December 1874) was a world-leading biblical scholar in his time. In 1844 he discovered the world's oldest and most complete disputed Bible dating from 325, with the complete New Testament not discovered before. This Bible is called Codex Sinaiticus, after the St. Catherine's Monastery at Mt. Sinai, where Tischendorf discovered it. The codex can be seen either in the British Library in London, or as a digitalised version on the Internet. Textual disputes are resolved when the two oldest books, Codex Sinaiticus (source aleph, 4th AD) and Codex Vaticanus (source beta, 4th AD), agree with each other. Tischendorf was made an Honorary Doctor by Oxford University on 16 March 1865, and an Honorary Doctor by Cambridge University on 9 March 1865 following this find of the century. While a student gaining his academic degree in the 1840s, he earned international recognition when he deciphered the Codex Ephraemi Rescriptus, a 5th-century Greek manuscript of the New Testament.
The Codex Sinaiticus contains a 4th-century manuscript of New Testament texts. Two other Bibles of similar age exist, though they are less complete: Codex Vaticanus in the Vatican Library and Codex Alexandrinus, currently owned by the British Library. The Codex Sinaiticus is deemed the most authoritative surviving New Testament manuscript, as no older document is available. The content of the "oldest Bible of the world" (as it is more complete than Codex Alexandrinus or Codex Vaticanus) has been digitised.
Throughout his life Tischendorf sought old biblical manuscripts, as he saw it as his task to give theology a Greek New Testament which was based on the oldest possible scriptures. He intended to be as close as possible to the original sources. Tischendorf's greatest discovery was in the monastery of Saint Catherine on the Sinai Peninsula, which he visited in May 1844, and again in 1853 and 1859 (as Russian envoy).
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