Bible Synapse
Codex Washingtonianus
Manuscript · 4th–5th century AD · Bible manuscripts · also called Washington Manuscript of the Gospels, Codex W
See it on the map and timeline
- Date
- 4th–5th century AD (the copying (an estimate from the handwriting))
- Found
- Giza, near Cairo, Egypt (bought from a dealer), 1906. Bought by Charles Lang Freer from a dealer named Ali in Giza on 19 December 1906. Henry A. Sanders, who published it in 1912, traced it to a refuge of monks from a ruined monastery near the pyramids, but did not publish the exact find-spot.
- Now
- Freer Gallery of Art (National Museum of Asian Art), Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC (F1906.274)
- Passages
- Mark 16:9–20, Mark 16:14, John 7:53 – John 8:11
What it is
A parchment codex of the four Gospels in Greek, 187 leaves, in the order Matthew, John, Luke, Mark. The opening of John is a replacement added around the 7th century. The character of its text changes from section to section, perhaps because it was copied from more than one older exemplar.
How it connects to the Bible
It includes the longer ending of Mark, and after Mark 16:14 it adds a passage found in no other manuscript, the ‘Freer Logion’: the disciples excuse their unbelief by blaming an age under Satan’s power, and Christ replies that the term of Satan’s power is fulfilled. Like the other early copies, it lacks John 7:53–8:11.