Ancient Bible Scripture Discovered: What it Means for Christians and Jews

Popular Mechanics reported that an ancient Bible Scripture has been discovered. Grigory Kessel published a paper. The paper details his discovery of an ancient version of Matthew 12 which could have significant repercussions for Christian and Jewish communities.

Ancient Bible Scripture Discovered With New Technology

So, how was the text discovered after all these years? Kessel used Ultra Violet Photography to look beneath three layers of text on a document that had been erased and copied over multiple times.  This is not unusual in documents from this period. Parchment was a scarce and valued commodity, at that time in history.  So, Kessel used today’s technology to peel back the layers and look into the document’s history.

New Translation of Matthew 12 Scripture Discovered to be Ancient

He discovered a copy of Matthew 12  that was written approximately 1,500 years ago, That dating makes this manuscript one of the earliest translations of the gospels. The hidden text was an Old Syriac translation making it the fourth known copy of such a translation.

Hope

The Possibility of Finding Lost Texts

The discovery of this text brings multiple repercussions, for both Christians and Jews. The fact that Ultra Violet Photography has worked so well gives us hope that further ancient scriptures may be discovered. This could potentially lead to the discovery of lost books. Indeed, The Sinai Palimpsests Project is working on decoding other such manuscripts now.  How could that change and shape our faiths? We can only imagine.

More Authoritative Text

Additionally, the text was found to agree with the Curetonianus text. This could help prove that the Curetonianus text was more authoritative in the ancient world than the Sinaiticus version. How might this change our translations of the text? Will future generations be reading a different version of The Bible than we know now?

New Understanding

Finally, this chapter of Matthew directly affects Jewish/Christian relations. Matthew 12 explains why the Jewish priest wished to have Jesus murdered. This is used by some Christians to justify anti-Semitism. Also, verse 8 has Jesus proclaim to be Lord of the Sabbath. ” ⁸ For the Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath.” This is deeply offensive to Jews. From a Jewish perspective, this verse can be seen as justification for crucifixion. Blasphemy is punishable by death under Jewish law. This statement can be read as Jesus claiming divinity which would be blasphemous to a Jew.

Might having an older previously unknown translation, give us deeper insight into these issues?  Might we find that some of these issues are due to mistranslations? I do not know the answers. However, having more knowledge can never be a bad thing. 

This ancient Bible Scripture, discovered beneath layers of other texts, offers hope. With better technology, we might regain some of our lost texts, find a new understanding of current texts, and better understand the views of other Abrahamic religions.   The world of Biblical Scholarship is expanding. Now is an exciting time to be a lover of Theology.

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