Posted on 06/27/2009 4:28:45 PM PDT by NYer
Known as the Codex Climaci Rescriptus, the piece was written over the span of three centuries and stowed in a sacred monastery until landing in the hands of a pair of British twins by way of local Egyptian dealers. Now an English college is cannibalizing its library and cashing out, to pay for some building renovations. The ancient manuscript could sell for close to $1 million, according to Sotheby's
The codex (Latin for "book") dates to the sixth century, when Christian Palestinian scribes wrote down the words of Christ in Aramaic, the ancient language that is believed to have been close to the dialect spoken by the messiah himself. It includes the despairing plea Jesus was said to have uttered on the cross: "Eli Eli, lema sabachthani [My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?]"
The sixth-century text includes chunks of the Old and New Testaments in both Aramaic and Greek. Each of the 137 leaves on auction is vellum made of sheepskin. "It feels like stiff leather," says Sotheby's medieval manuscript specialist Timothy Bolton.
But there are several added layers of intrigue to the manuscript. Apparently the sixth-century scribes who wrote it were living in what was then Judea, somewhere in present-day Israel. The document was taken to the Sinai desert in Egypt and stowed away for 300 years at a monastery called St. Catherine's, at the foot of the mountain where Moses is said to have received the Ten Commandments.
(Excerpt) Read more at forbes.com ...
Hmmmm...let all the Bible-bashers who claim there is nothing to substantiate God's words know about this!
Thanks for all the posts.
“The codex (Latin for “book”) dates to the sixth century, when Christian Palestinian scribes”
Christians, yes; Palestinians, no (There were no “Palestinians” then, and no Arabs in “Palestine”.)
“Apparently the sixth-century scribes who wrote it were living in what was then Judea, somewhere in present-day Israel.”
Judea was “Israel” in those days, too (although renamed by the Romans after the Philistines).
Good grief I meant PINGS.
“Palestinian Christians” is somewhat misleading, indicating there really may have been a country by such a name in history. Those “Palestinian Christians” are converted Jews and Arabs, who eventually spread out, taking various forms of early Christianity (including “gnosticism”) with them.
Wow, this is exciting. Hopefully it will be translated before someone buys it and hides it away.
Doesn’t the Vatican have whole libraries of “secret” documents like this that only Cardinals and above are able to see? Will the Vatican try to buy it and then stash it in their library? Will anyone publish it and translate it?
I just hope no one with evil intentions buys it. In the world today, I could see some rich crazy person buying it just to destroy it.
It should really be given to the Israeli government, the Vatican, or some other institution that will respect its meaning and historical value, IMO.
LOL!
A codex you say?
Well, if it contains the words of Christ, then all anyone has to do to read a translation is to pull out an English bible.
There really isn’t going to be anything “new”.
Christ sometimes spoke in Aramaic, especially when he was in Galilee, where that was the majority tongue. But at other times he spoke in Hebrew (he certainly read it in the synagogue) and maybe even (to some individuals) in Greek.
For what he said, you can read it in your own tongue, thanks to the work of thousands of translators over the centuries.
There was, in fact, a Roman province Palaestina, and that is where Palestinian Christians were from. The term Palestine is a standard translation of Palaestina, and is used throughout modern Biblical studies to refer to that place and time.
Ah, just leave it to a secular financial megazine writer to educate those Bible ignorant catholic christians. /s
Jesus was NOT uttering despairing plea. He was citing the beginning of Pslam 22, praising the Lord in His mercy.
http://bible.oremus.org/?passage=Psalm+22
But hey, what do we know.
A priceless document...
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Thanks NYer. |
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Google Codex Vaticanus and you will see that the Vatican has the oldest manuscripts of the scriptures.
The base date in a particular programming language I used to use extensively was backed up to accomodate the age of documents stored at the Vatican. The vendor let it be known because they were so proud to have been chosen by the Vatican for use as their database and language. According to our vendor reps there is some seriously old stuff there that will never see the light of day for whatever reason and just a lot of documents stored there.
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