A “hidden” chapter of the Bible was discovered by scientists almost 1,500 years after it was first written.. st catherines .Despite knowledge of the manuscript as early as 1953, it had been considered lost until it was rediscovered in 2010, leading to its digitization a decade later..Thanks to technological advances, scientists are now able to further examine such manuscripts, many of which were rewritten over existing text due to historical shortages of parchment..The “hidden” chapter was discovered underneath three layers of text, and contains the Old Syriac translation of the Gospels..It contains translations of Matthew chapter 12, and includes minor differences from the original version of the same chapter..The original Greek of Matthew chapter 12 verse 1 says “At that time Jesus went through the grain fields on the Sabbath; and his disciples became hungry and began to pick the heads of grain and eat.”.However, the newly discovered translation differs slightly and says “began to pick the heads of grain, rub them in their hands, and eat them.”. st catherines .The manuscript is now one of three Old Syriac translations currently known, with two others located in the British Library in London and St Catherine’s Monastery at Mount Sinai in Egypt..“As far as the dating of the Gospel book is concerned, there can be no doubt it was produced no later than the sixth century,” wrote Grigory Kessel, senior scientist at Institute for Medieval Research of the Austrian Academy of Sciences and author of the study..“Despite a limited number of dated manuscripts from this period, comparison with dated Syriac manuscripts allows us to narrow down a possible time frame to the first half of the sixth century.”.“The Syriac Gospel manuscript, in its turn — or at least the folio under consideration — was reused for the Apophthegmata patrum in Greek.”.Click here to read the study in full.
