Vaticanus, Codex

The Codex Vaticanus (designated B or 03) is widely regarded as the oldest surviving vellum manuscript of the Christian Bible and one of the most important witnesses to the text of Scripture. Dating to the early fourth century AD (circa 300–325), it is written in Greek uncial script on fine vellum and contains most of the Old Testament in the Septuagint (LXX) translation as well as the New Testament, though it lacks portions of Genesis, Psalms, Hebrews, the Pastoral Epistles, Philemon, and Revelation. It has been housed in the Vatican Library in Rome since at least the fifteenth century.

Together with the Codex Sinaiticus, Vaticanus forms the foundation of modern critical editions of the Greek New Testament and has profoundly shaped modern Bible translations. Because it and Sinaiticus represent an Alexandrian text-type that often differs from the later Byzantine manuscripts underlying the Textus Receptus, their use in modern scholarship has generated ongoing discussion among textual critics and Bible translators. Vaticanus is generally considered a careful and accurate manuscript, and its agreement with other early witnesses—papyri, the Old Latin versions, and early Church Fathers—has given it enormous weight in establishing the earliest recoverable text of the New Testament.