Fragment of a 1,750-year-old New Testament translation discovered

Phys dot org ^ | Osterreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften

[SunkenCiv]

Parchment was scarce in the desert in the Middle Ages, so manuscripts were often erased and reused.

A medievalist from the Austrian Academy of Sciences (OeAW) has now been able to make legible the lost words on this layered manuscript, a so-called palimpsest: Grigory Kessel discovered one of the earliest translations of the Gospels, made in the 3rd century and copied in the 6th century, on individual surviving pages of this manuscript. The findings are published in the journal New Testament Studies...

The small manuscript fragment, which can now be considered as the fourth textual witness, was identified by Grigory Kessel using ultraviolet photography as the third layer of text, i.e., double palimpsest, in the Vatican Library manuscript. The fragment is so far the only known remnant of the fourth manuscript that attests to the Old Syriac version—and offers a unique gateway to the very early phase in the history of the textual transmission of the Gospels...

Claudia Rapp, director of the Institute for Medieval Research at the OeAW, says, "Grigory Kessel has made a great discovery thanks to his profound knowledge of old Syriac texts and script characteristics." The Syriac translation was written at least a century before the oldest Greek manuscripts that have survived, including the Codex Sinaiticus. The earliest surviving manuscripts with this Syriac translation date from the 6th century and are preserved in the erased layers, so-called palimpsests, of newly written parchment leaves.

[SunkenCiv]

The fragment of the Syriac translation of the New Testament under UV light

Credit: Vatican Library

[SunkenCiv]

Front five rows are the splash zone.

[Captain Peter Blood]

If we could go back in time and actually see what happened with Jesus I wonder what the story would be. My guess not what we think and what has been embellished over the centuries and turned into Myth.

[griffin]

This is cool!!
SO...what does it say? What Book is it from?

Epstein didn’t kill himself?

[griffin]

[griffin]

Myth huh?

[mitch5501]

Yeah, that’s why society is so much better now that all the smart people have dispensed with believing that myth.

[nwrep]

The above is a common misunderstanding among the uninitiated. The historical scholars have no such myth delusions, and have attested to the existence and crucifixion of Christ.

[algore]

is there an archive.org link for the full book?

I have a really old copy of this maybe, or not?

https://archive.org/details/thebookofjasher1840/page/n9/mode/2up

[algore]

“If we could go back in time and actually see what happened with Jesus I wonder what the story would be. My guess not what we think and what has been embellished over the centuries and turned into Myth.”

https://soundcloud.com/user-216129961/art-bell-dr-glenn-kimball-the-lost-history-of-jesus

[week 71]

Lol. Must not be very familiar with textual criticism. Holy Writ has been verified with all the variations. To suggest it is myth is staggeringly ignorant.

Slight differences is what one would expect without a printing press. This variance sounds pretty authentic as it appears to be what an eyewitness saw.

[moovova]

Bkmk

[madison10]

Why even admit there was a Jesus? It would be better if you just discounted Him altogether.

[imardmd1]

This overwriting of a rubbed-out text means that it was so bad a rendering that it was not worth keeping. Lawrence Schiffman, an authority on the Dead Sea Scrolls, would say so, I believe.

[umbagi]

Folks should remember, too, that the relative age of two documents, without more, is not that good a measure of accuracy. Many other factors are considered, including their generations (how many times has it been copied) and comparisons with other copies of the same material. I’m no scholar, but I know there are relatively late manuscripts considered better sources than earlier Hebrew texts of some Old Testament material — in some cases, because they were translated from earlier Hebrew texts no longer available.

[linMcHlp]

https://www.thetextofthegospels.com/2016/02/early-syriac-versions-of-gospels.html

EXCERPT:

Even the two copies that we possess have barely survived: the Sinaitic Syriac is a palimpsest; it has survived, not because anyone valued it as a copy of the Gospels, but because a copyist in the year 778 erased its Gospels-text and recycled the pages as material on which to write part of a later composition (a collection of stories about female saints and martyrs). Its faded Gospels-text was recovered, following its discovery at St. Catherine’s monastery in the 1890’s, by the gentle application of ammonium hydrosulfide to the parchment.

[21twelve]

“This overwriting of a rubbed-out text means that it was so bad a rendering that it was not worth keeping.”

Interesting thought. I learned that before writing had been invented they would say the scriptures and if someone got even the smallest thing wrong the next person would pick up the verses.

Same goes for later on when the scribes would write it. And doing a ritual cleansing each time before they wrote the name of God (YHWH). If they even got the smallest thing wrong (like a jot or that other symbol over a letter) they had to toss the entire page iirc.

So - perhaps it was just a small error?? I guess they can compare it to other forms of the same verse.

[griffin]

Definitely! /s

[MadMax, the Grinning Reaper]

Pushing history and our understanding of it further back in time. Love it!