In the Middle Ages, the Syrians often altered manuscripts, since it was difficult to find parchment in the desert.
Medieval studies is a section of historical science,studying the history of the European Middle Ages. In a broader, but in less common sense, medieval studies studies the history of this period and other regions. Specialists in the history of the Middle Ages are called medievalists.
“The tradition of Syrian Christianity knows severaltranslations of the Old and New Testaments,” explains the expert. “Until recently, only two manuscripts were known that contained the ancient Syriac translation of the Gospel.” While one of them is now kept in the British Library in London, the other is a palimpsest in the Monastery of St. Catherine on Mount Sinai. Fragments from the third manuscript were recently identified during the Sinai Palimpsests project.
Fragment of the translation of the New Testament. Source: Austrian Academy of Sciences
Gregory Kessel used ultravioletlight to identify a tiny fragment of manuscript as a third layer of text, or a double palimpsest. It is now considered the fourth “textual evidence.” The fragment provides a unique window into the earliest history of the textual transmission of the Gospel. The fact is that this is the only known fragment of the fourth manuscript that provides evidence for the Old Syriac version.
While in the original Greek Gospel ofMatthew chapter 12 verse 1 says, “At that time Jesus walked through the grain fields on the sabbath; His disciples became hungry and began to pluck the ears of corn and eat, the Syriac translation says: “They began to pluck the ears of corn, rub them with their hands, and eat.”
The discovery was published in New Testament Studies.
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