Codex Climaci Rescriptus resurfaces

CODEX CLIMACI RESCRIPTUS, last seen in June on auction at Sotheby's, has resurfaced in the hands of a private collector who seems to be trying to do the right thing with it:

Bible museum could make home in Dallas

12:00 AM CDT on Tuesday, March 30, 2010

By MATTHEW HAAG and SAM HODGES / The Dallas Morning News

Hobby Lobby Inc., the national arts and crafts store chain, says it has been on a buying spree of rare Bibles and other sacred documents to fill a proposed National Bible Museum, with Dallas a likely location.

The Oklahoma City-based company, owned by the Green family, announced Monday that it has collected a "vast array" of materials, including biblical papyri, Hebrew scrolls, medieval manuscripts and a comprehensive assortment of Bibles and rare books.

Steve Green, president of Hobby Lobby, said his family has a Christian commitment to helping tell the Bible's story and is working with a group, which includes people from Dallas, that came up with the National Bible Museum idea.

[...]

Sixth-century Bible

Hobby Lobby said Monday that it had bought Codex Climaci Rescriptus, a sixth-century Bible that includes New Testament passages in Palestinian Aramaic.

The extremely rare document – described in promotional materials as "one of the earliest-known near-complete Bibles in the world" – failed to sell at a Sotheby's auction last year, Carroll said.

In January, Hobby Lobby bought the book from Westminster College at Cambridge University, with Sotheby's handling the sale, Carroll said. He would not reveal the price.

A Sotheby's spokesman confirmed the transaction.

Carroll said the Green family agreed about four years ago to help secure property for the National Bible Museum and more recently became an aggressive buyer of materials.

[...]

UPDATE: Peter Head comments at Evangelical Textual Criticism.