Vita gazette – Researcher Grigory Kessel from the Austrian Academy of Sciences utilised ultraviolet photography to discover the chapter buried beneath three text layers.

Nearly 1,500 years after it was first written, researchers have discovered a long-lost “hidden chapter” of the Bible. The study, published in the journal New Testament Studies, claims that the lost portion constitutes one of the oldest Gospels translations, as the Independent reported.

Researchers like Grigory Kessel from the Austrian Academy of Sciences utilised ultraviolet photography to discover the chapter buried beneath three text layers.

It was first translated about 1,500 years ago

Until recently, only two manuscripts were known to contain the Old Syriac translation of the gospels. The British Library in London has one, and St. Catherine’s Monastery at Mount Sinai has the other. According to researchers, the recently discovered text is an interpretation of Matthew chapter 12 of the Bible, first translated 1,500 years ago as part of the Old Syriac translations, the Independent reported. 

They claimed the fragment offers a “unique gateway” to the earliest period in the trajectory of the literary transmission of the Gospels because it is currently the sole remaining piece of the fourth manuscript that attests to the Old Syriac version. Additionally, the work provides new perspectives on the variations in translation information. 

For instance, the original Greek of Matthew chapter 12 verse 1, reads, “At that time Jesus went through the grainfields on the Sabbath; and his disciples became hungry and began to pick the heads of grain and eat,” while the Syriac translation says, “…began to pick the heads of grain, rub them in their hands, and eat them.”

“As far as the dating of the Gospel book is concerned, there can be no doubt that it was produced no later than the sixth century,” scientists noted in the research 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,” they remarked.

Due to the parchment shortage in the region 1,300 years ago, the pages were often reused by erasing the old Bible text.