Early texts of monotheistic faiths go on show

Religious and artistic similarities between the Jewish, Christian and Islamic faiths are to be shown in a groundbreaking exhibition of some of the world's earliest surviving sacred texts.

Sacred: Discover What We Share, opening tomorrow at the British Library in London, will feature rare and exquisite examples of early bibles, korans and torahs.

It marks the first time a flagship exhibition will display texts from the major monotheistic faiths side by side in order to emphasise their similarities, both in the stories they contain and how they are decorated.

Among the show's 200 manuscripts and artefacts is a fragment of the Dead Sea Scrolls from the first century, never before been seen in Britain, as well as a koran written a hundred years after Prophet Mohamed's death in the 7th century and the Lindisfarne Gospels, which illustrate the richness of Anglo-Saxon art.

The exhibition will showcase the British Library's own collection, considered to be the finest in the world, as well as treasures borrowed from international centres, such as three priceless korans from Morocco's Royal Library in Marrakesh.

Among the manuscripts to be displayed is the Codex London, one of the oldest surviving texts of the Torah, and the first five books of the Old Testament. The Jewish view is that the five books were dictated toMoses by God and this copy was made in the 10th century.

Meanwhile, the Codex Sinaiticus, which is the oldest complete manuscript of the New Testament, also on display, is regarded as key in the history of Christian scholarship. Produced around 350 AD, its name derives from the Monastery of St Catherine, near the foot of Mount Sinai in Egypt, where it was preserved for many centuries.

Graham Shaw, the head curator of the exhibition, said the show was conceived in order to explore and examine the interactive nature of these sacred texts. "What can been seen is that the Old Testament Christian Bible is essentially the same as the Hebrew Bible of Judiasm, and in turn, Islam takes many of its stories from Christianity and Judiasm. There is a textual link that can be studied in the exhibition," he said.

The exhibition continues until 23 September.