A new chapter of theBiblehas been found , hidden inside a 1,750 - yr - old translation from the Gospel of Matthew . The chapter was find by medievalist Grigory Kessel , who used ultraviolet photography on manuscripts in the Vatican Library .

The hidden schoolbook was found as part of theSinai Palimpsests Project , where researchers aim to recuperate texts that were delete and written over by scribe in the 4th-12thcenturies CE . Palimpsest manuscripts – where earlier text has been washed or scraped off , then reused – were fairly common due to the scarcity of writing materials . However , centuries later , schoolbook can berecoveredby illuminate the manuscripts with fluorescence or different wavelength of light .

Using these methods , investigator have already decrypt 74 manuscripts , but the latest find was peculiarly particular , containing a interlingual rendition a century older than the oldest Greek translations , including theCodex Sinaiticus .

" The tradition of Syriac Christianity knows several translations of the Old and New Testaments , " Kessel said in astatement . " Until recently , only two manuscript were known to contain the Old Syriac interlingual rendition of the gospels . "

The translation – first written in the 3rdcentury CE and copied in the 6thcentury CE – has not yet been released in full , but offers somewhat more detail than the Hellenic translation of Matthew chapter 12 . In verse 1 of the Greek translation , a judgment of conviction reads " at that metre Jesus went through the grainfields on the Sabbath ; and his disciples became athirst and began to beak the heads of texture and eat , " while the Syriac translation discovered by Kessel ends " start to pick the heads of grain , scratch them in their hands , and consume them " .

" Grigory Kessel has made a great discovery thanks to his profound knowledge of one-time Syriac texts and handwriting characteristics , " Claudia Rapp , director of the Institute for Medieval Research at the Austrian Academy of Sciences tote up . " This find prove how productive and important the interplay between modern digital technologies and basic inquiry can be when consider with chivalric manuscript . "

you could view the fresh found fragmenthere .

An former version of this clause was print in April 2023