The end of 2 Peter and the beginning of 1 John. Actual size: 32 × 26 cm (12.6 × 10.4 in).
Codex Alexandrinus (early 400s) is one of the oldest complete Christian Bibles we have. It was probably written in Alexandria, Egypt in the early 400s.
Alexandrinus was a complete Bible – it had all of the Old and New Testament. Some 98% of the Old Testament and 76% of the New Testament have survived (most of Matthew is gone).
It is all in Greek: the Old Testament is the Septuagint, the Hebrew Bible as translated into Greek by the Library of Alexandria circa -200. The text type of the gospels is strangely Byzantine (= from Constantinople) while the rest of the New Testament is Alexandrian, with its more polished Greek.
It is one of the four Great Uncial Codices, the four oldest Bibles (all dates approximate):
- 325-50: Codex Vaticanus
- 330-60: Codex Sinaiticus
- 400-40: Codex Alexandrinus
- 450: Codex Ephraemi
A codex is a book written on pages bound between two covers – as opposed to a scroll.
Uncial is a style of handwriting common from the 300s to 700s. The particular style of writing in Codex Alexandrinus places it in Egypt in the early 400s.
In 1627 it was given to King Charles I of England by the Patriarch of Constantinople. Meaning that the King James Bible of 1611 was translated independently of it.
In 1733 it was saved by librarian Richard Bentley from a fire at the Royal Library. It is now at the British Library along with part of Codex Sinaiticus.
Additional content: In addition to what you find in the King James Bible with an Apocrypha, Alexandrinus adds (or the King James Bible leaves out):
- Old Testament: 3 Maccabees, 4 Maccabees, Psalm 151, 14 Odes (mostly outtakes from other parts of the Bible)
- New Testament: 1 Clement, 2 Clement
- Other: 18 Psalms of Solomon
And it has an introduction to the Psalms.
Missing content: Not counting the pages that are damaged or missing, Alexandrinus is missing these verses that are found in the King James:
- Mark 15:28
- Luke 22:43-44 (Christ’s agony at Gethsemane)
- John 7:53-8:11 (Christ saves an adulteress from stoning)
- Acts 8:37, 15:34, 24:7, 28:29
- Romans 16:24
- 1 John 5:7 (the Johannine Comma)
It does have Mark 16:9-20 where Jesus rises from the dead at the end of the Gospel of Mark. That part is missing from the older Vaticanus and Sinaiticus.
Pericope Adultera (John 7:53-8:11) – this is what scholars call the story where Jesus saves an adulteress from stoning. “He who is without sin, let him cast the first stone” and all that. That page of John is missing from Alexandrinus, but it seems to be missing just that number of verses. Since Vaticanus and Sinaiticus leave out those verses, it seems likely Alexandrinus did too.
The story of the adulteress goes back to at least the middle 200s, but it does not seem to begin to appear in Bibles till the late 300s. Augustine, John Chrysostom and Cyril of Alexandria all wrote lengthy commentaries on the Gospel of John at about the time of Alexandrinus or just before, but only Augustine brings up those verses. They were not yet a full-fledged part of the Bible. The Catholic and Orthodox Churches, though, have since signed off on them.
– Abagond, 2021.
See also:
- codex
- Roman Egypt
- Bible
- Why the Septuagint matters
- New Testament canon
- Augustine’s Bible
- English Bible translations
- Authorized Version – aka the King James Bible
- St Augustine
- Greek
- uncial
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Abagond 
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