One of the world’s oldest books is up for sale: a rare manuscript that ‘revolutionized the study of Christianity’ could fetch as much as £3 million

One of the oldest books in existence, written ‘at the dawn of Christianity’, could be yours – if you have £3 million to spare.

Crosby-Schøyen Codex – an ancient Bible manuscript from Egypt – will be sold tomorrow by London auction house Christie’s.

Dating back 1,700 years, it contains five early Christian texts written in Coptic, a language descended from ancient Egyptian.

Among them are the earliest known texts of two books of the Bible: the Book of Jonah and the First Epistle of Peter.

Although the precious manuscript no longer exists in one piece, Christie’s expects it to sell for as much as £3 million ($3.8 million).

Christie’s calls it ‘the earliest known book in private hands’ (not owned by a museum) and ‘one of the earliest books in existence’.

It is a ‘codex’, essentially an ancient book consisting of sheets of papyrus, the main writing material in ancient Egypt, made from the pith of the papyrus plant.

It is an early example of the transition from the scroll to the book as we know it today.

However, the 104 pages (52 individual sheets or ‘sheets’) are no longer stitched together and are each behind protective plexiglass.

“It is precisely at that period, that transitional period, that the papyrus scroll begins to turn into codex form,” says Eugenio Donadoni, Christie’s senior specialist in medieval and Renaissance manuscripts.

‘There is evidence that codices existed earlier, but none have survived.

‘That makes this a unique object in the history of Christianity and information technology.’

The Crosby-Schøyen Codex contains five different texts, originally composed by five completely different authors.

But all five were copied by the same ‘scribe’ – a person who made written copies of documents – in the 3rd century AD.

Probably an Egyptian monk, he would have used a ‘freshly cut reed’ dipped in ink to write on the papyrus sheets.

Dr. Meredith Warren, senior lecturer in biblical and religious studies at the University of Sheffield, called the work a “key example of the birth of Christian culture and literature.”

“What makes the codex so remarkable, beyond its age and completeness, is its contents,” she said in a piece for The conversation.

It contains the oldest surviving complete texts of two books of the Bible: the Book of Jonah and the First Epistle of Peter.

“Jonah was an important figure to early Christians because he was famously swallowed by a huge fish as he reluctantly responded to God’s call to deliver his prophetic warning to the Ninevites, depicted as a very wicked city,” said Dr. Warren.

“The three days that Jonah spent in the belly of the fish were read allegorically by early Christians as a foreshadowing of the time between the death and resurrection of Christ.”

The Crosby-Schøyen Codex was found in Egypt in 1952 among some other manuscripts that had been inexplicably buried in a jar in the sand.

Donadoni attributed its preservation to Egypt’s arid climate, adding that only a handful of books from the 3rd and 4th centuries have survived to this day.

“All the important finds of Christian manuscripts that we had in the 20th century and at the end of the 19th century are all concentrated in Egypt because of those very precise climatic conditions,” he said.

It was acquired by the University of Mississippi in 1955 before being purchased by Norwegian businessman and collector Martin Schøyen in 1988.

Schøyen is now selling the item, along with other highlights from his Shoyen collection, one of the largest private manuscript collections in the world.

The in-person auction will take place tomorrow (June 11) at 2pm at Christie’s King Street in London, with an estimated sale price of £2 million to £3 million.