In their attack upon the Christian scriptures, Saifullah and Azmy began their lengthy citation of Bentley’s work on Sinaiticus by mocking William Campbell’s emotional response upon seeing a in person when it was, at that time (1983) located in the British Museum. I, too, had the opportunity of seeing a, which is now housed in the British Library, and unlike Campbell, I didn’t avoid the reflection, but it doesn’t matter. It was simply incredible to stand that close to both Codex Sinaiticus and Codex Alexandrinus (“A” in the critical Greek texts, a being 01, and Alexandrinus 02), which sits immediately next to Sinaiticus. I was surrounded by incredible treasures: behind me was a 1611 KJV (ironic, no?), a Wycliffe Bible, and a Tyndale NT. I would truly enjoy spending a good deal more time in that room, but given that a project is pending to digitize a, I probably won’t have that chance anytime soon (which is not, please note, a complaint: better to have a available to all in digitized form, to be sure). To the right you see first Codex Sinaiticus, open to the end of the Gospel of John; and below it Codex Alexandrinus, open to the end of Luke and the beginning of John.
In any case, I was drawn back to the impudent sub-title offered by our Muslim antagonists, “William Campbell Has Good Reasons To Cry (Or A Sob Story That Will Break Your Heart!)”. Given the responses we have already provided, documenting not only errors in the material they were citing, but providing reasoned discussion of each of the variants cited, the boisterous and arrogant sub-title stands very much without foundation, reflecting not upon the biblical text, but upon Saifullah and Azmy themselves.
