page_title: Constantin von Tischendorf
section_title: Early life and education
hierarchical_section_title: Constantin von Tischendorf / Early life and education
caption_attribution_description: English: title page
context_page_description: Lobegott Friedrich Constantin Tischendorf was a world-leading biblical scholar in his time. In 1844, he discovered the world's oldest and most complete Bible, dated to around the mid-4th century and called Codex Sinaiticus, after the St. Catherine's Monastery at Mt. Sinai, where Tischendorf discovered it. Tischendorf was made an Honorary Doctor by Oxford University on 16 March 1865, and an Honorary Doctor by Cambridge University on 9 March 1865 following this find of the century. While a student gaining his academic degree in the 1840s, he earned international recognition when he deciphered the Codex Ephraemi Rescriptus, a 5th-century Greek manuscript of the New Testament.
context_section_description: Tischendorf was born in Lengenfeld, Saxony, near Plauen, the son of a physician. Beginning in 1834, he spent his scholarly career at the University of Leipzig where he was mainly influenced by JGB Winer, and he began to take special interest in New Testament criticism. Winer's influence gave him the desire to use the oldest manuscripts in order to compile the text of the New Testament as close to the original as possible. In 1838 he took the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, then became master at a school near Leipzig.
  After a journey through southern Germany and Switzerland, and a visit to Strassburg, he returned to Leipzig, and set to work upon a critical study of the New Testament text.
caption: Title page from Tischendirf's facsimile edition of the Codex Sinaiticus, published in 1862
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