St. Catherine’s Library

St_catherine_monasterySt. Catherine’s Monastery (left), also known as the Monastery of the Transfiguration,  is the world’s oldest monastery.

Built in the 6th century at the foot of Mt. Sinai in Egypt (or at least the traditional location of Mt. Sinai, since we’re not sure of its exact location), the monastery houses the largest collection of ancient Christian manuscripts besides the collection belonging to the Vatican.

Now the monks there are using hi-tech means to try to read some of the more faded manuscripts in its collection.

The monastery’s librarian, Fr. Jusin (a fellow Texan! Yee-haw!) has been digitizing manuscripts with a camera capable of 72 megapixel resolution. Many will be online later this year.

The process holds out the prospects of helping us better understand the history of the text of the Bible (including potential new evidence regarding the original reading of uncertain passages) and may even turn up previously unknown texts, as at Oxyrhynchus.

GET THE STORY.

MORE ON ST. CATHERINE’S MONASTERY.

Author: Jimmy Akin

Jimmy was born in Texas, grew up nominally Protestant, but at age 20 experienced a profound conversion to Christ. Planning on becoming a Protestant seminary professor, he started an intensive study of the Bible. But the more he immersed himself in Scripture the more he found to support the Catholic faith, and in 1992 he entered the Catholic Church. His conversion story, "A Triumph and a Tragedy," is published in Surprised by Truth. Besides being an author, Jimmy is the Senior Apologist at Catholic Answers, a contributing editor to Catholic Answers Magazine, and a weekly guest on "Catholic Answers Live."

7 thoughts on “St. Catherine’s Library”

  1. “World’s Oldest Monastery?”
    Didn’t Saint Benedict live before the 6th century, and don’t a couple of his original monasteries still survive?

  2. Of all the places I’ve been, St. Catherine’s is very near the top of my favorite list. Seeing the life there in the monastary and some of the manuscripts along with the three or four hour climb up Mt. Sinai were all the highlights. Then there’s the room with hundreds of skulls of the former monks all piled up to the ceiling. Very sobering for the monks there I’d think. BTW, it is the oldest monastary in the world.

  3. Didn’t Saint Benedict live before the 6th century, and don’t a couple of his original monasteries still survive?

  4. Eric,
    Saint Benedict lived in the late 5th and early 6th Century, and you are correct that some of the monasteries he founded “survive” as far as their communities go, e.g. Monte Casino. However, this latter monastery was destroyed three times and rebuilt. So the statistic might possibly refer to the oldest original structure still housing a religious community.

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