C.L.A.S.S. Compass Life Adult Sunday School
Pastor Pete
January 29, 2011
“Codex Alexandrinus and King James I”
I. Book Review: “The Bible in English” By David Daniell, Yale University Press, New Haven, CT. &
London, England. 2003
II. King James I
King Charles I
30 Year War
William Bradford
1566-1625
1600-1649
1618-1648
1590-1657
John Winthrop
Galileo
John Smyth
Richard Baxter
1587-1649
1564-1642
1570-1612
1615-1691
AUTOGRAPHS>>>>>ANCIENT MANUSCRIPTS>>>>>>GREEK NEW TESTAMENT>>>>>>TRANSLATIONS
II. Erasmus and the First Published Greek New Testament
On May 29, 1453 the great city of ________ falls to the ____ Empire. Many of the ____ of the city removed
the Greek ______ and relocated them to _________, away from the Muslim expansion. By 1454 Guttenberg’s
________ was in full operation; the Roman Catholic Church was its biggest user, printing ______. In 1458 the
University of ___ offers a course on Ancient ___. Desiderius Erasmus Roterodamus (1466 –1536), known, as
Erasmus of Rotterdam, was a Dutch Renaissance humanist, ________, social critic, teacher, early proponent of
religious _____, and theologian. In 1516 Erasmus of Rotterdam was the first to publish a ____________.
Erasmus published _ editions with ___ on one side and Greek on the other side. He did this prove that his Latin
version was superior to the _____. The basis of his Greek New Testament was about _ manuscripts from the
___ century and later. Some problems with his Greek New Testament were found in ________ and the addition
of the ______ formula, which came from pressure from the____ __________ (found only in __ very late
manuscripts). Erasmus’ work becomes what is known as the Textus Receptus (or the Authorized Text), which
is the foundation for the ______ Translation of the Bible.
III. The Four Great Uncial Codices
Codex Vaticanus (___), Codex Siniaticus (____), Codex Alexandrinus (___), and Codex Ephraemi Rescriptus
(____) are the four most important codices in the history of the church. The Alexandrinus text in the codex is
written in ___ columns in uncial script, with between __ and __ lines per column and 20 to 25 letters per line.
The beginning lines of each book are written in __ ink and sections within the book are marked by a _____
letter set into the margin. Words are written _______ in a large square uncial hand with no accents and only
some breathings. The codex contains a complete copy of the ___. It also contains all of the books of the
_________. There is an ______ marked in the index, which lists the Psalms of Solomon and probably contained
more apocryphal/pseudepigraphical books, but it has been torn off and the pages containing these books have
also been lost. Due to damage and lost folios, various passages are ______ or have _____: Lacking: 1 Samuel
12:18-14:9 (1 leaf); Psalm 49:19-79:10 (9 leaves); Mat. 1:1-25:6 (2 leaves); John 6:50-8:52 (2 leaves); 2 Cor
4:13-12:6 (3 leaves) Damaged: Genesis 14:14-17, 15:1-5, 15:16-19, 16:6-9 (lower portion of torn leaf lost).
Defects due to torn leaves: Gen 1:20-25, 1:29-2:3, Lev 8:6,7,16. There are ____ vellum folios (630 in the Old
Testament and 143 in the New Testament). The manuscript measures 12.6 by 10.4 inches and most of the folios
were originally gathered into quires of eight leaves each. The only decorations in the manuscript are decorative
tailpieces at the ___ of each book (see illustration) and it also shows a tendency to _____ the size of the first
letter of each sentence. These codices are considered to be perhaps one of the _____ Bibles that Emperor
________ had commissioned.
IV. Codex Alexandrinus comes to England
Kyrillos Loukaris was born in Candia, _____ on 13 November 1572, when Crete was part of the _____
maritime empire. In his youth he travelled through Europe, studying at ____ and Padua, and at ____ where he
came under the influence of the reformed faith as represented by _______. Over time he developed strong ___
for Roman Catholicism. For six years Lucaris served as professor of the ______ academy in Vilinis (now in
______). Due to ____ oppression combined with the proselytization of the Orthodox faithful by _____
missionaries, there was a shortage of schools, which taught the _______ Faith and the ____ language. Roman
Catholic schools were set up and Catholic churches were built ___ to Orthodox ones, and since Orthodox priests
were in ________ something had to be done. His first act was to found a theological seminary in Mount _____,
the Athoniada school. However his ultimate aim was to _____ the Orthodox Church along ________ lines, and
to this end he sent many young _____ theologians to the universities of ________, the northern Netherlands and
England. In 1629 he published his famous Confessio (______ doctrine), but as far as possible accommodated to
the language and creeds of the _____ Churh. It appeared the same year in two Latin editions, four French, one
German and one English, and in the Eastern Church started a ________, which culminated in 1672 with the
convocation by Dositheos, Patriarch of _______, of the Synod of Jerusalem by which the Calvinistic doctrines
were _______. Cyril was also particularly well disposed towards the Church of _______, and his
correspondence with the Archbishop of Canterbury is extremely interesting. It was in his time that Kritopouloslater to become Patriarch of Alexandria (1636–1639) was sent to _______ to study. Both Lucaris and
Kritopoulos were lovers of _____ and _______, and many of the items in the collections of books and these two
Patriarchs acquired manuscripts that today adorn the Patriarchal Library. Lucaris was several times temporarily
deposed and _______ at the instigation of both his ______ opponents and the Catholic French and Austrian
ambassadors, while he was supported by the _______ Dutch and English ambassadors to the ________ capital.
Meanwhile, in England King James tried ruling without convening ________. Without parliament’s approval
there could be no ______, instead he received money from the ______ and _____. Then the ________ broke
out and James ______ to support his Protestant son-in-law Frederick the King of ______. The people of
England considered him a _____. James promised to help the German ________ if Parliament would agree to
meet. James was secretly trying to marry his ___ to one of the ______ daughters, which was considered an
abomination to the ______. The codex was brought to Constantinople in ____ by Lucar (first a patriarch of
Alexandria, then later a patriarch of Constantinople). Lucar was involved in a complex struggle with the _____
government, the _____ Church, and his own subordinates. He was supported by ______ government and
presented the codex to _____ in 1624, as a gratitude for his help. The codex was presented through the hands of
Thomas Roe, the English ________ at the court of the ______. King James ___ before the manuscript started
for England, and the offer was transferred to _____ in 1627. It became a part of the Royal Library, British
Museum and since 1973 of the British Library. It was saved from the ____ at Ashburnam House on 23 October
1731, by the librarian, Bentley. Finally, when the _____ Sultan Murad IV was about to set out for the _____
War, the Patriarch was accused of a design to stir up the Cossacks, and to avoid trouble during his absence the
Sultan had him ___ by the Janissaries on June 27, 1638 aboard a ship in the ______. His body was thrown into
the ___, but it was recovered and buried at a distance from the capital by his friends, and only brought back to
_________ after many years.
V. Lessons from Codex Alexandrinus
1. The Bible___________________________
2. The Bible___________________________
3. The Bible___________________________
2/5 “John Winthrop and Massachusetts Bay Colony”