Posted on 07/25/2006 12:21:17 PM PDT by lunarbicep
IRELAND'S national museum today hailed what it said was one of the most significant discoveries in decades - and perhaps centuries - after an ancient prayer book was found by chance in an Irish bog.
The National Museum of Ireland said fragments of what appeared to be an ancient Psalter or Book of Psalms, written around AD 800, were uncovered by a bulldozer in a bog in the south Midlands.
"In discovery terms this Irish equivalent to the Dead Sea Scrolls is being hailed by the Museum's experts as the greatest find ever from a European bog," the museum said in a statement.
The Dead Sea Scrolls, found in the mid 20th century, are considered to be of enormous religious and historical significance since they include some of the earliest known surviving Biblical documents.
The Irish discovery, recovered from bogland last Friday, comprises extensive fragments of what is thought to be an Irish Early Christian Psalter, written on vellum, a fine animal skin parchment.
"In my wildest hopes, I could only have dreamed of a discovery as fragile and rare as this," Museum Director Pat Wallace said, adding it was not so much the fragments themselves, but what they represented, that was of such "staggering" importance.
"It testifies to the incredible richness of the Early Christian civilisation of this island and to the greatness of ancient Ireland," he said.
The museum said it did not know how the manuscript ended up in the bog.
"It may have been lost in transit or dumped after a raid, possibly more than a thousand to twelve hundred years ago."
Part of Psalm 83, a lament to God over other nations' attempts to wipe out Israel, is legible but the museum said the extent to which other Psalms or additional texts are preserved would only be determined by lengthy work by a team of experts.
Bernard Meehan, Head of Manuscripts at Trinity College Dublin, who was invited to advise on the context and background of the manuscript, said he believed it was the first discovery of an Irish Early Medieval manuscript in two centuries.
Initial impressions placed the composition date of the manuscript at about AD 800, a time of Viking raids in Ireland.
Yep, I'll bet a Viking picked it up in a raid and then tossed it away after checking it over for any gold or encrusted jewels. He had no idea the contents were far more valuable than any jewels or precious metals.
It's mine. Amazon said they lost the order and credited my account. Now I gotta wait for the paperback.
Incredibly apt.
ggg ping
This is the eeriest discovery I've ever heard of, especially given current events. It actually sends chills up my spine.
Oh, BTW, if the name 'Nechtan is in the front of the book...we want it back. ;)
The careless tossing reminds me of the Talmud story of the "Gentile Prince and the Mezuzah."
(The prince didn't know the value of what he had received and was careless with it.)
Fascinating!
I have been listening to Psalms on my iPod lately.
It is extremely relevant to what is going on in the Middle East right now.
There is no reason to suspect Viking involvement, other than the fact that it was dropped somewhere where it shouldn't have been. Fumbles and the Vikings go hand in hand, but that is not enough to prove guilt here! Where's my lawywer!
I'd hardly equate this to the Dead Sea Scrolls, frankly. Yes, it's an old book of Psalms, but there's no new information in it. the Psalms date back way before 800 A.D.
Nice find, though.
It's all right here:
How the Irish Saved Civilization
Bump
Impressive.
Ping.
Check out the Text of the Psalm uncovered in a bog today.
Coincidence?
In Scripture there are three reasons why the Lord keeps silence
3. There is a third reason: God, as it were, keeps silence in the midst of the greatest troubles, that he may, as it were, gather the wicked into one faggot, into one bundle, that they may be destroyed together. There is a great deal of ado to "gather the saints" in this world; and truly there is some ado to gather the wicked. So God withdraws himself from his people, yet he hath a hook within their hearts, he holds them up secretly by his Spirit, that they shall not leave him; yet the world shall not see but that God hath quite left them, and all their ordinances and his gospel and everything; and there the wicked come together and insult, whereby God may come upon them at once, and destroy them, as we find ten nations in the Psalm. And so in Genesis God stirs up the nations against Abraham and his posterity, and there are ten nations that God promised to cut off before Abraham at once, the Perizzites, and the Jebusites, and the Canaanites, etc. So God heaps them together, and burns them like stubble. Those that burn stubble have rakes, and they gather it to heaps, and then they fire it. This is the way of God's keeping silence among his people, and sitting still in the midst of their miseries, thus God gathers their enemies in heaps as stubble, that he may burn them together. Gualter (Walter) Cradock, in "Divine Drops." 1650.
http://grace-for-today.com/chstp83.htm
It felt like ice cubes going down my back when I read this, and shared the news with my mother just now.
This past Sunday the First Reading in the Catholic Mass was from Jeremiah, also stating that Israel would be saved.
---maica at ColdSpringGirl's computer
"there's no new information in it."
Well, with the exception of the "copper scroll" (which was possibly a listing of the contents of the First Temple), there wasn't much "new" information in the Dead Sea Scrolls.
What they did was confirm that our current Bible is --- nigh word-for-word --- the same as then, despite all that hand copying by scribes.
This (presumably) will do much the same, in an interim sense.
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