92 Book Reviews / Novum Testamentum 50 (2008) 81-96 Michelle P. Brown (ed.), In the Beginning: Bibles before the Year 1000 (Washington DC: Smithsonian Institution, 2006). 360 pp. ISBN 0934868037 (paperback), $24.95 . Larry W. Hurtado (ed.), Th e Freer Biblical Manuscripts: Fresh Studies on an American Treasure Trove (Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2006), x + 308 pp. ISBN 1589832086 $34.95, (= Text Critical Studies 6). Scot McKendrick, In a Monastery Library: Preserving Codex Sinaiticus and the Greek Written Heritage (London: Th e British Library), 48 pp. ISBN 0712349405, ₤6.95. In the Beginning: Bibles before the Year 1000 is an outstanding and attrac- tive introduction to and catalogue of an exhibition held at the Arthur M. Sackler Gallery in association with the Freer Gallery of Art and the Bodle- ian Library, Oxford from October 2006 to January 2007. Th e book (10 1/2 inches × 9 1/2) is lavishly illustrated throughout and also contains seventy- four full colour plates. Th e whole has been published to a very high profes- sional standard, and our thanks are extended to the editors, contributors and publishers. Th e exhibition marked the centenary of Charles Lang Freer’s visit to Egypt in 1906, where he purchased his first biblical manuscripts, which are now housed in the Freer Gallery. Th e Washington Codex of the Four Gospels (variously known as the Freer Gospels, Codex Washington(i)ensis or Codex Washingtonianus) is the most famous text. Among the others are the Washington Codex of Deuteronomy and Joshua, the Washington Manuscript of the Pauline Epistles, the Coptic Psalter, the Washington Codex of the Psalms, and the Washington Codex of the Minor Prophets; all were on display at the exhibition and of course figure in this catalogue. Th ese Freer manuscripts are justly famous in their own right and are valu- able texts, but at the exhibition they were surrounded by a cornucopia of other major manuscripts from around the world. As well as exhibits from the partner institution, the Bodleian, are treasures from St Catharine’s, Mount Sinai (including some of its new finds from the 1970s), from the British Library, the Bibliothèque nationale de France, the Chester Beatty Library, the National Library of Russia and elsewhere. (Strangely, only one Italian collection—the Laurenziana, Florence—contributed.) Seldom does one have the chance to see such manuscript riches. Th e reader of this cata- logue is enabled to share the enthusiasm of and authoritative comments by © Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2008 DOI: 10.1163/156853607X223453 Book Reviews / Novum Testamentum 50 (2008) 81-96 93 a number of experts on this representative selection of valuable manu- scripts from the first millennium A.D. Splendidly clear pictures of all of these manuscripts appear in the catalogue (pp. 104-244) and each manu- script is accompanied by an informative description (pp. 246-310). Th e exhibits are divided into sections, and we may appreciate from the following listing just how comprehensive this book is in its coverage: Scrolls and Codex a) “Th e Earliest Hebrew Scriptures” (plates 1-9), b) “Th e Earli- est Christian Scriptures” (10-20); Formation and Codification a) “Th e Evo- lution of the Bible” (21-25), b) “Th e Earliest Christian Bibles” (26-31); From Babel to Pentecost: ‘Sacred Languages’ and the Vernaculars, that is East- ern versions, the Arabic, Syriac, Slavic, Ethiopic, Armenian and Georgian (32-40); Spreading the Word a) “Th e Single-Volume Bible (41-43), b) “Th e Book as Desert: Th e Scribe as Evangelist” (44-45), showing how scribes sometimes saw their role in evangelizing, c) “From Eastern Deserts to Western Isles” (46-52), demonstrating the widespread dissemination of Bibles, especially psalters and lectionaries, d) “Early Christian Britain and Ireland” (53-61) with many examples of the distinctive texts that origi- nated in the British Isles; Th e Book as Icon (62-74), demonstrating the ways in which the illuminations and indeed the covers of the manuscripts show the book as an artefact to be venerated. Each of these sections containing the albums of plates is briefly intro- duced. Plate 44 (Codex Aureus) appears twice, once in sequence, where its portrait of Matthew is shown (and later, pp. 283-284, described) and again after plate 69, that time showing a double-page spread of text to enable a ready comparison with another purple Gospel codex, the codex Brixianus (Plate 70). Cross-references could usefully have been given on the pages of plates as well as in the comments. We meet important texts like the Second Isaiah Codex, the Aleppo Codex, the Egerton Gospel, the Magdalen fragments of Matthew (where the notes, wisely, ignore Th iede’s notorious controversies of a decade ago!), P45, P46, P.Oxy 1, Codex Sinaiticus, Codex Claromontanus, the Alcuin Bible, the Codex Aureus, Bede’s Commentary on Proverbs, and the Rab- bula Gospels. But it is invidious to isolate these well-known manuscripts. All seventy four are important examples of their respective genres. I par- ticularly valued having BL add. 21932, an Armenian Gospelbook photo- graphed at the end of Mark, where it is patently obvious that the scribe hesitated whether to include the ‘longer ending’ or not, decided in the end not to do so, and utilized the space by writing out in an exaggerated way the closing verses of Mark 16:1-8. It is also good that we have examples of .