Scientists Report Discovery of a New Version of the Bible 0 8

A scholar from Austria has found an expanded version of a chapter of the Bible, hidden in a manuscript beneath a later text over one and a half thousand years old. This was reported by Insider.

Grigori Kessel, a historian from the Austrian Academy of Sciences, announced his discovery in an article for the academic journal New Testament Studies. He explained that he used ultraviolet imaging to uncover the early text beneath three layers of ink.

In ancient manuscripts, texts were often recorded palimpsestically: new writings over old ones. This was due to the high cost of parchment and its frequent scarcity. As a result, the original text would disappear beneath a fresh layer of ink.

Kessel noted that the fragment of text he discovered is an expanded version of Matthew 12 that has not been encountered by scholars and theologians before. It was found in an ancient Syriac translation of the Bible created around 1500 years ago. The manuscript Kessel worked with was stored in the Vatican Library.

The manuscript will provide modern researchers with a unique opportunity to study the early stages of the evolution of evangelical texts and see how they differ from contemporary Bible translations.

One such difference is illustrated in Kessel's article with the well-known line Matthew 12:1. Today, it reads: "At that time Jesus went through the grain fields on the Sabbath; and His disciples were hungry and began to pluck heads of grain and to eat." In the ancient Syriac version, the second part of the line reads somewhat differently: "began to pluck heads of grain, rub them in their hands, and eat."