A research that was released in the journal New Testament Studies last month claims that an Austrian expert has translated a “hidden chapter” of the Bible that is estimated to be 1,750 years old.
The Syriac translation of Matthew chapters 11 and 12 was examined using ultraviolet photography by medievalist Grigory Kessel of the Austrian Academy of Sciences behind three layers of text in a manuscript.
“The tradition of Syriac Christianity knows several translations of the Old and New Testaments,” Kessel said in a statement.
Up until recently, there were only two manuscripts known to contain the Old Syriac translation of the gospels.
Due to the scarcity of parchment throughout the Middle Ages, paper was frequently employed to erase manuscripts. A scribe in Palestine is said to have burned a book containing a Syriac text some 1,300 years ago as a result of this scarcity, according to Phys.org.
After what is believed to have been the text’s composition in the third century, it was copied in the sixth century.
According to reports, academicians were already familiar with the disputed text in 1953. But after being recovered in 2010, it was digitalized and released in 2020. The pictures obtained under daylight and ultraviolet light were then added to the Digital Vatican Library.
Only two surviving manuscripts include the gospels’ Old Syriac translation. The oldest continually operating monastery in the world, St. Catherine’s Monastery on Mount Sinai, has one of them and the British Library in London has the other.
By employing imaging techniques to locate erased passages from manuscripts in the St. Catherine’s collection, the Sinai Palimpsests Project has uncovered a third manuscript.
Currently, Grigory Kessel’s finding is referred to be the “fourth textual witness.”
According to Phys.org, the original Greek translation of Matthew chapter 12, verse 1, says, “At that time Jesus went through the grainfields on the Sabbath; and his disciples became hungry and began to pick the heads of grain and eat.” However, the translation from the recently discovered Syriac language reads, “[…] began to pick the heads of grain, rub them in their hands, and eat them.”
Kessel’s findings were lauded in a statement by Claudia Rapp, director of the Institute for Medieval Research of the Austrian Academy of Sciences.
Grigory Kessel’s “profound knowledge of old Syriac texts and script characteristics,” which resulted in this significant finding, was hailed by Rapp.
The author went on to say that this outcome shows the usefulness and efficacy of integrating fundamental research with modern digital technologies when working with medieval manuscripts.
