St. Catherine's at the Getty

This winter the Getty is hosting an exhibit of icons and manuscripts from the ancient monastery of St. Catherine’s at the foot of Sinai. Part of the exhibit will reconstruct some of the ambiance of that sacred ground. I am curious to know if the most important piece of furniture from St. Catherine’s will make the trip. I refer, of course, to the famous holy wastebasket.

St. Catherine’s was built in the sixth century and is the oldest monastic site in continuous operation to the present day. Their collection of icons and manuscripts is the stuff of legend.

In 1844 Tischendorf was scouring the Near East for anything of value when he stopped by St. Catherine’s and happened to glance in the trash. Dumpster diving is not a new practice. What he saw there evidently made his voice tighten a little and his hands shake, because the monks in charge of the trash wouldn’t let him have all of it. He later dated the 43 leaves he was able to rescue as mid-fourth century copies of one of the oldest Bibles he had ever seen.

In the end, after twenty years of trying, out of St. Catherine’s at Mt. Sinai (though not out of the trash, out of the collection) came one of the oldest and most complete copies of the Scriptures still in existence, Codex Sinaiticus, now in the British Museum.

So, what’s in your wastebasket?