There is truly incredible news: a new chapter of the Bible has been discovered hidden inside a 1750 year old translation of the Gospel of Matthew.
Grigory Kessel, an expert in medieval texts, he used ultraviolet photography on manuscripts kept in the Vatican Library to bring back an authentic piece of history.
Bible, the lost pages
The chapter was found during the “Sinai Palimpsests Project“, an initiative aimed at recovering the manuscripts erased and rewritten by copyists between the 4th and 12th centuries AD. In fact, due to the scarcity of material on which to write, palimpsests were very common, i.e. manuscripts in which a previous text was removed to make way for a new one.
A possible cultural treasure of incalculable breadth. And now, thanks to new technologies, it can be brought back to light. Researchers have already decoded 74 manuscripts using similar methods, but this discovery is particularly significant. The translation found is in fact older than a century compared to earlier Greek translations of the Bible, such as the Codex Sinaiticus.
The Syriac translation and its surprises
Kessel explains that the translation, composed in the third century AD and duplicated in the sixth century AD, has not yet been fully disclosed, but offers a few more details than the Greek version.
For example, in verse 1 of the Greek translation, a phrase reads “at that time Jesus passed through the cornfields on the Sabbath; and his disciples were hungry and began to pick the ears of corn and eat them”. In the Syriac chapter found, the translation discovered by Kessel instead reads "they began to pick the ears of corn, rub them with their hands and eat them".
Technology and research: a winning combination
The discovery of the "hidden chapter" of the Bible demonstrates how productive and important the synergies between modern digital technologies and basic research can be.
Between the lines are hundreds of little more details about the ancient traditions and history of Christianity.
