Vrijdag 14 april 2023
Scientists Discover an Ancient Hidden Chapter in One of the Earliest Translations of the Bible
"The tradition of Syriac Christianity knows several translations of the Old and New Testaments. Until recently, only two manuscripts were known to contain the Old Syriac translation of the gospels."
Grigory Kessel is a senior scientist at Institute for Medieval Research of the Austrian Academy of Sciences who focuses on the literary heritage of Syriac Christianity with particular attention to Syriac manuscripts. In his new paper on the old Syriac Gospels, published in the journal New Testament Studies, Kessel how 1300 years ago a scribe in Palestine decided he needed a piece of parchment. Because this was a scarce commodity, he took a book of one of the earliest translations of the Syriac Gospels, erased the Syriac text and reused the pages … not knowing he was altering the next 1300 years of Christin bibles.
Syriac is a dialect of Aramaic, the language of Jesus who spoke it in the Galilean dialect. Sections of the Old Testament were written in Aramaic, and Syriac translations of the New Testament date back to the 2nd century, making them the oldest translations. In particular, the Gospel of Matthew and the Gospel of Luke were written in Syriac text in Syria. That makes Syriac versions and translations the some of the earliest biblical texts in existence. The scribe obviously didn’t know this. As Kessel notes in a press release, only two manuscripts were known to contain the Old Syriac translation of the gospels – one is kept in the British Library in London, and the other was discovered as a palimpsest in St. Catherine's Monastery at Mount Sinai. A palimpsest is a piece of writing material on which the original writing has been erased but traces can still be seen. That palimpsest manuscript led to the "Sinai Palimpsests Project" which led Kessel to a small fragment of a third manuscript discovered in the Vatican Library. This was also a palimpsest but, as we now know, a scribe wrote over the erased text.
Kessel decided to attempt to see if there were any remnants of the erased text. For that he used what has become a standard technique for reading what is on a paper page underneath the top layer of writing or printing – ultraviolet light. Anything which may have been written on the page before it was erased soaked deep into the paper and still absorbs the ultraviolet light and glows blue. While he was not surprised to find hidden text, Kessel told The Daily Mail he was shocked at how much he found and in more than one layer.
“The Gospel text is hidden in the sense that the early 6th c. parchment copy of the Gospels Book was reused twice and today on the same page one can find three layers of writing (Syriac - Greek - Georgian).”
Kessel told The Daily Mail the deepest layer of text was an Old Syriac translation of the scriptures called 'Peshitta' – this was the official translation used by the Syriac Church, an early branch of Eastern Christianity, in the fifth century. That text was erased and the next thing written on the pages was the Apophthegmata patrum - a collection of more than 1,000 Syriac stories and sayings from the late fifth and early sixth centuries. Apophthegmata patrum is Greek for “Sayings of the Fathers” – in this case, the “fathers” were early Christian hermits who practiced asceticism in the Egyptian desert starting around the 3rd century, leading to the eventual development of Christian monasticism. Those valuable stries and sayings were then erased and the papers were reused to copy the Iadgari of Mikael Modrekili, a Georgian manuscript of the 10th century that included a collection of hymns from the of the early Byzantine period. While the subsequent writings are interesting and valuable in their own rights, it is the Syriac Gospel which has impressed Kessel and ancient biblical scholars.
“Grigory Kessel has made a great discovery thanks to his profound knowledge of old Syriac texts and script characteristics. This discovery proves how productive and important the interplay between modern digital technologies and basic research can be when dealing with medieval manuscripts.”
Claudia Rapp, director of the Institute for Medieval Research at the Austrian Academy of Sciences, highlights the importance of both the text and the ultraviolet technique used by Kessel to reveal the hidden text. That Syriac translation of the Gospel of Matthew was written at least a century before the oldest Greek manuscripts that have survived, including the Codex Sinaiticus - the fourth-century Christian manuscript of the Greek Bible. And, as stated at the beginning, it reveals a new verse in the Gospel of Matthew.
“For example, while the original Greek 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," the Syriac translation says, "[...] began to pick the heads of grain, rub them in their hands, and eat them."
OK, that is pretty close … but we’re talking about the Christian Bible here and the gospels upon which so many religions and ministers and members depend on for guidance. If the earliest of the translations from the original language texts have differences, what does that say about the many translations to chapters and verses have gone through to reach modern English … or Spanish or French or whatever language your Bible is written in?
We’ll leave that question to the biblical scholars. In the meantime, remember that no matter how hard you rub that paper with your eraser, someone will be able to read it. Time to go digital?
Geschreven door peter om 17:38
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