Codex Bezae is one of the most important primary sources in New Testament scholarship. Together with other early manuscripts it represents one of our most significant links with the early church and its origins. Since its rediscovery in the sixteenth century, the riddles posed by its general appearance and its textual characteristics have continued to fascinate scholars, and David Parker here offers the first comprehensive study of Codex Bezae to appear for more than a century.

This book aims to cast light on the story behind this most enigmatic of manuscripts. Fresh data are presented here which make possible a reconstruction of the stages of copying from which the manuscript descends. A new appraisal of the earliest correctors of the Codex enables the author to extend his picture of its history to the medieval period.

By studying the characteristics of Codex Bezae, both physical and textual, and by comparing its Greek and Latin texts, Parker aims to show how a bilingual tradition developed, and thus to discover as much as possible about its earliest stages, which leads to a new theory of the origins of the manuscript. In a final section, the nature of the text of Codex Bezae is discussed, and its significance for the character of the earliest traditions about Jesus is assessed.