Last Sunday my fiancée Lorenza and I were very pleased to meet Suzanne McCarthy, who blogs at Suzanne’s Bookshelf. She writes about meeting me here. She and a friend were visiting London from Canada. We had arranged to meet up at the British Library, to look at the gallery of manuscripts and printed treasures.

The Lindisfarne Gospels: Gospel of St Matthew the Evangelist, initial page

I had been there before, but still found the collection amazing. Suzanne’s primary interest was the beautiful Lindisfarne Gospels, which  include the oldest surviving translation of any of the Bible into (Old) English. I was more excited to find sitting together in the same museum case two of the three most important Greek manuscripts of the New Testament, Sinaiticus and Alexandrinus (Vaticanus remains in the Vatican). In the next case was part of the Old Testament of Sinaiticus, now separately bound, which is one of the main sources for the Septuagint text.

St Luke's Gospel, 'Codex Sinaiticus', c.350

[Sinaiticus] was made up of over 1,460 pages, each of which measured approximately 41cm tall and 36cm wide. … At the British Library the largest surviving portion – 347 leaves, or 694 pages – includes the whole of the New Testament.

We also paid a visit to the nearby British Museum. This was far too brief to take in all its treasures, but we got to see the Rosetta Stone, the Assyrian reliefs, and the not yet returned Parthenon friezes, or Elgin Marbles.

The Rosetta Stone

Then we visited the National Portrait Gallery, my first visit, where we found the originals of some familiar images, including this one of John Wesley which has featured on many blogs:

John Wesley, by Nathaniel Hone, oil on canvas, circa 1766

It is a privilege to live only 1½ hours away from such world class treasures, of which these are just a sample. I really should make more of an effort to explore them in detail.