Sources

Manuscripts

Codex Sinaiticus (4th c., ~350 AD)

The oldest substantially complete copy of the Christian Bible. Originally one codex containing both the Septuagint Old Testament (in Greek) and the New Testament. Discovered by Constantin von Tischendorf at Saint Catherine's Monastery, Sinai, in the 19th century. Now distributed across the British Library, the Russian National Library, the Leipzig University Library, and Saint Catherine's. Digitized at codexsinaiticus.org with both folio images and verbatim transcription, licensed CC BY-NC-SA 3.0.

This library contains the folio scans for all 260 surviving NT chapters and the 240 surviving LXX/OT chapters of Codex Sinaiticus.

Codex Vaticanus (4th c., ~325-350 AD)

Vaticanus Graecus 1209 at the Vatican Apostolic Library. With Sinaiticus, one of the two earliest near-complete Greek Bibles. Digitized at digi.vatlib.it. Verse-level folio mapping is provided by the New Testament Virtual Manuscript Room (INTF Münster, CC BY 4.0), docID 03.

This library contains 220 New Testament chapters from Codex Vaticanus.

Codex Bezae Cantabrigiensis (5th c., ~400 AD)

Cambridge University Library MS Nn.2.41. A bilingual Greek/Latin codex containing the Gospels and Acts, the most important witness to the Western text tradition. Digitized via the Cambridge Digital Library IIIF. Verse-level page mapping via NTVMR docID 05.

This library contains 45 Gospel and Acts chapters from Codex Bezae (Greek side).

Venetus A (10th c.)

Biblioteca Marciana Marc. gr. Z. 454 (olim 822), the most important complete medieval manuscript of Homer's Iliad, famous for its extensive marginal scholia. Digitized with line-level folio mapping by the Homer Multitext Project (CC BY).

This library contains all 24 books of the Iliad mapped folio-by-folio to Venetus A.

Codex Regius (GKS 2365 4to, c. 1270 AD)

The unique Icelandic vellum manuscript that preserves the Poetic Edda. Housed at the Árni Magnússon Institute for Icelandic Studies in Reykjavík. Digitized at handrit.is with full-resolution folio photography in the public domain.

This library contains 11 mythological poems of the Poetic Edda from Codex Regius.

Codex Alexandrinus (5th c.)

British Library Royal MS 1 D. VIII. With Sinaiticus and Vaticanus, one of the three great uncial Bibles. Page images are the 1909 British Museum reduced photographic facsimile of the New Testament volume (ed. F. G. Kenyon), public domain, scanned by the Getty Research Institute on the Internet Archive. Verse-level page mapping from the NTVMR (docID 20002, CC BY 4.0), confirmed against the verse caption Kenyon printed under every plate. This library contains 228 New Testament chapters; the codex lacks Matthew 1:1-25:5, John 6:50-8:52 and 2 Corinthians 4:13-12:6.

Codex Washingtonianus (4th-5th c.)

Freer Gallery of Art, Smithsonian Institution, F1906.274 (the Freer Gospels, GA 032). Images from the Smithsonian's own IIIF service (asia.si.edu; non-commercial use with credit). Verse-to-page lookup via CSNTM. This library contains 88 Gospel chapters; the codex lacks Mark 15:13-38 and John 14:26-16:7.

Leningrad Codex, Firkovich B19a (1008 AD)

National Library of Russia, St Petersburg. The oldest complete manuscript of the Hebrew Bible and the base text of every modern critical edition. Page images are the 1990 West Semitic Research Project colour photographs as redistributed by the Internet Archive (Public Domain Mark) and Wikimedia Commons; the photographer asserts copyright in the frames, and that residual risk is recorded on every entry. Folio-by-folio verse index from tanach.us, cross-checked against Sefaria for all 929 chapters. This library contains all 929 chapters.

Great Isaiah Scroll, 1QIsa-a (c. 125 BCE)

Israel Museum, Shrine of the Book. The complete Isaiah scroll from Qumran Cave 1. Column images are cropped from the public-domain composite photograph on Wikimedia Commons (Google Art Project); each of the 54 columns was checked against the scroll's own transcription. This library contains all 66 chapters.

Codex Parisino-petropolitanus, BnF Arabe 328 (7th-8th c.)

Bibliothèque nationale de France. One of the oldest surviving Quran manuscripts, in Hijazi script. Images via Gallica IIIF (non-commercial reuse with credit "Source gallica.bnf.fr / BnF"); folio-by-folio sura and verse ranges from Corpus Coranicum (BBAW, CC BY 3.0), each image cross-checked against Corpus Coranicum's image of the same folio. This library contains 33 suras on the 70 Paris leaves.

Epic of Gilgamesh, Nineveh tablets (7th c. BCE)

British Museum, library of Ashurbanipal, including the Flood Tablet K.3375. Photographs are the British Museum's, served by the Electronic Babylonian Library (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0). This library contains 19 tablets of Tablets I, VI and XI.

Verbatim Original-Language Texts

• Tischendorf 8th edition (1869). Constantin von Tischendorf's critical text of the Greek New Testament, based heavily on his discovery of Codex Sinaiticus. Public domain. Retrieved verbatim via the bolls.life API. Primary Greek for the 265 Vaticanus and Bezae chapters; shown as a comparison reading beneath the manuscript transcription on the 260 Sinaiticus NT chapters.
• Codex Sinaiticus Project transcription. The verbatim diplomatic transcription of the Sinaiticus manuscript itself, preserving uncial forms, lunate sigma (ϲ), nomina sacra abbreviations (θϲ for θεός, κϲ for κύριος, etc.), and lectional marks. CC BY-NC-SA 3.0. Used as the primary Greek for all 500 Sinaiticus chapters (240 LXX/OT and 260 NT).
• Perseus Digital Library Greek Iliad (Munro & Allen, PD). Used for the 24 books of the Iliad.
• Heimskringla.no Old Norse texts. Public-domain editions of the Eddaic poems. Used for the 11 Edda entries.
• Unicode/XML Leningrad Codex (tanach.us). A transcription of the Leningrad Codex itself; the biblical Hebrew text may be copied without restriction. Used for the 929 Leningrad chapters.
• ETCBC Dead Sea Scrolls dataset (Jacobs, Naaijer, Roorda, from Martin Abegg's transcription; CC BY-NC 4.0). The scroll's own readings, column and line by column and line. Used for the 66 Isaiah Scroll chapters.
• Tanzil Uthmani Quran text (CC BY 3.0, reproduced unchanged). Used for the 33 suras.
• Electronic Babylonian Library (LMU Munich, CC BY-NC-SA 4.0). Tablet-by-tablet Akkadian transliteration. Used for the 19 Gilgamesh tablets.

Verbatim English Translations

• King James Version (1611). Public domain. Retrieved verbatim via bible-api.com. Used for the biblical chapters across Sinaiticus, Vaticanus, Alexandrinus, Bezae, Washingtonianus, the Leningrad Codex, and the Isaiah Scroll.
• King James Version Apocrypha (1611) and Brenton's Septuagint (1851), both public domain via ebible.org. Used for Tobit, Judith, Wisdom, Sirach, 1 Maccabees (KJV) and 4 Maccabees (Brenton).
• J. B. Lightfoot, The Apostolic Fathers (1891). Public domain. Used for the Epistle of Barnabas and the Shepherd of Hermas.
• Marmaduke Pickthall, The Meaning of the Glorious Koran (1930). Public domain in the United States since 2026. Used for the Quran.
• R. Campbell Thompson, The Epic of Gilgamish (1928). Public domain. Used for Gilgamesh, with an explicit line concordance to the modern numbering.
• Samuel Butler, The Iliad of Homer (1898). Public domain, Project Gutenberg #2199. Used for the 24 Iliad books.
• Benjamin Thorpe, The Elder Eddas of Saemund Sigfusson (1866). Public domain. Retrieved verbatim from Project Gutenberg eBook #14726. Used for the 11 Edda entries.

What's Not Here (Yet)

Anything we cannot triple-verify is excluded. We will not print an "original-language" field that is really the English translation again, and we will not reuse one representative scan across an entire multi-chapter entry. A text only ships when every section has its own specific manuscript page, its own verbatim original, and its own public-domain English translation.

Traditions we are actively pursuing pipelines for: the Masoretic Hebrew Bible (Leningrad Codex B19a), the Latin Vulgate (Codex Amiatinus), additional Greek NT uncials (Washingtonianus, Alexandrinus, Boreelianus), and additional Dead Sea Scrolls. Pipelines not yet feasible: Sanskrit (Rigveda, Upanishads, Gita), Egyptian hieroglyphic (Book of the Dead), Akkadian cuneiform (Gilgamesh, Enuma Elish), Quranic Arabic, Avestan, and Coptic — each awaits a source with page-level primary text available in the public domain.