A new translation of a chapter of the Bible has been unearthed by scientists after applying UV light to a manuscript housed in the Vatican Library.
A small manuscript fragment was masked behind two layers of writing on parchment paper and dates back to the 6th century. Experts say the text could provide new insight into how Christian texts and the New Testament have changed over the last 2,000 years.
The manuscript, written in Syriac, the official liturgical language of the Syriac Orthodox Church, comprises a translation from the Gospel of Matthew 11-12 from the New Testament.
Researchers say the text was originally produced in the 3rd century and copied in the 6th century and was then erased by a scribe in Palestine, a common practice because the parchment was made of animal skin and was hard to come by. The practice of rewriting, or writing over the original text, creates palimpsests, which are manuscripts comprising multiple layers of the script.
The new translation was discovered by Grigory Kessel from the Austrian Academy of Sciences and was found as part of the Sinai Palimpsests Project, where researchers use ultraviolet photography to see whether original texts on the parchment paper have been written over or reused between the 4th and 12th centuries. So far, researchers with the Sinai Palimpsests Project have deciphered 74 manuscripts using this method.
The complete findings of the study have not been published yet, but the Austrian Academy of Sciences has released parts of the translation on its website. For example, the original Greek version of Matthew chapter 12 says: “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,” and the Syriac translation says “[...] began to pick the heads of grain, rub them in their hands, and eat them.”
This translation provides new insights into the Gospel text and early translations of the Bible.
Just the other morning, there was a buzz on the ranch that felt almost like Christmas. Yes there was snow on the ground that might have been magical had it been December, but it wasn’t the magic of Santa or presents that was so exciting. No, it was the first branding of the season that kept my kids from falling to sleep. If this bunch had to choose between Christmas and branding, I would put my money down that they would take branding, hands down. From the cowboys roping in the pen to the cook fixing dinner to the kids racing across the range, everyone loves a branding day.
In fact, all sorts of visitors make their way to our range brandings- helpful neighbors, long lost family members, city folks looking for a real cowboy experience, and, not kidding, even a camera crew or two have bounced their way out there. It’s pretty easy to pick out the newbies between their dress, their walk, and especially their talk. I’ve teased before that someone needs to put together a dictionary of cowboy slang for our visiting cowpokes. At the very least then they could understand what we are talking about, although watching someone trying to work out what that old cowboy is saying can be pretty entertaining.
So without an ado, here are the first few entries for the revolutionary, Cowboy Jargon Dictionary.
1. A cowboy’s outfit: No this isn’t in reference to his clothing choice of the day. A cowboy does have some… different clothing choices but that’s because they choose function over fashion. But when one cowboy compliments another cowboy’s outfit, he’s talking about his truck and trailer. Can you imagine cowboys sitting around talking about clothes? Neither can I, but it doesn’t take ANY stretch of imagination to see them talking trucks. Isn’t that written in their DNA?
2. That green broke horse: Let’s just start by saying there is nothing “broken” on a green broke horse. It isn’t “broken” like it doesn’t work. And it’s not really green, unless it was just rolling in the manure… A green broke horse is a horse in training. Inexperienced. Raw. Needing some on the job training. Usually these are young horses with high energy and are a little ignorant to what they are doing. Just think of your favorite T-ball team- a lot of energy but most of it is spent playing in the dirt. Eventually they come around to learn the game and pull their weight. And if they don’t, we trade them off the roster.
3. Heading… or heeling… : Yes, I said that right. Just or, not a mumbled oer... Most often you hear these words together in reference to falling in love. You know- head over heels? But I’m not talking about that, although a branding would be a great place to pick up a cowboy! When you are talking heading and heeling with cowboys they are talking about roping. There’s two ends on a calf to rope- the head (hence “heading”) or the back feet or heels (yep you got it, “heeling”). I guess you could rope the front feet, but you really don’t have much control even though they are caught.
4. Roping a dogie: (doh-gee) Don’t get caught thinking we are talking about a cowboy’s dog. We are referring to the bovine species, not canine. Put simply, a dogie is a calf without a momma. I’m not sure how dogie ever got to be part of cowboy jargon, other than some cowboy long, LONG ago just started calling his motherless calves dogie. These calves can make branding a little tricky when you have several ranches worth of cattle together. Without knowing who the momma cow belongs to, we can only guess who the calf goes with. Nobody wants to be the guy that put the wrong brand on the wrong calf!
5. “Drag ‘em to the fire”: Those are your instructions once you’ve caught your calf. The cowboys drag the calf to the fire, where we have the branding irons set up, hot and ready to leave their mark. A real fire in the middle of a corral with calves, cowboys, and horses sounds like a disaster waiting to happen. It is if you’re not careful! But how else do we get branding irons hot? There are electric irons out there, but there aren’t a lot of electrical outlets amongst the sage brush!
But don’t imagine a big bonfire or even an open fire on the ground. Back in the day they would dig a hole in the ground and light up the fire. These days we have a not-so-fancy branding box with a burner (like the burner on a gas stove) to keep the irons hot. Still plenty hot (I recommend watching your step) but not as likely to reach out and burn a cowboy!
I’d say the last bit of cowboy jargon you need to know is the call to “rustle up some grub,” but I’m pretty sure that everyone knows what that means.
TLC is getting ready to test whether love really is the universal language.
The network announced a new dating series Love & Translation during Warner Bros. Discovery’s unveiling of the newly combined Max streaming service.
The series will bring three three American men and 12 international women together on a remote paradise island for a chance at finding romance. And here’s the twist: none of the women speak English and none of the men speak other languages. Without being able to speak to one another and without the use of translators, the singles need to count on their senses to help develop their connection and determine the power of their chemistry and attraction.
RELATED:Deadline’s Full CoverageOfMax Launch Event
Based on what they learn about one another, the men will take the women on dates and find out how love translates when the same language isn’t spoken – will they find true love or just a hot romance?
Love & Translation will premiere this winter on TLC.
The series is produced by Sharp Entertainment, a part of Sony Pictures Television, for TLC.
They did it. They actually made the Duolingo show.
The trailer for Love & Translation
While it was clearly in development long before Duolingo’s very funny and compelling April Fools’ joke, Love & Translation is definitely going to get a lot of comparisons to the viral ad. That’s because they’re basically the same thing.
In the new show, three men who only speak English look for love amongst 12 women who don’t speak any English at all, which is... a little cringier than the Duolingo gag. Also, there’s no green owl looming in the distance and trying to teach people to new languages so they can better communicate.
But if you’re okay with all that, this sure looks like the kind of show you’ll plow through on a rainy Saturday when you forget to put on real pants until like 5PM.
Love & Translation will be coming to TLC this winter, and given it was announced at the big HBO Max rebranding event, you can expect it to probably show up on the streaming service at some point in the future, too. It’s part of Warner Bros. Discovery’s new plan to expand HBO Max (now called Max) from a service focused exclusively on high-quality programming to one that can appeal to a far wider range of viewers, including ones who sometimes want to watch a dumb reality show instead of the next episode of Succession.
An original handwritten Syriac (Peshitta) translation of The Gospels from the 9th century is displayed at the "Book of Books" exhibition in the Bible Lands Museum on October 23, 2013, in Jerusalem, Israel. | Uriel Sinai/Getty Images
A scientist claims to have discovered a hidden ancient translation containing portions of the Gospel of Matthew which are said to be the only known "remnant of the fourth manuscript that attests to the Old Syriac version" of the Gospels.
The researchers, including medievalist Grigory Kessel of the Austrian Academy of Sciences (OeAW or Österreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften), used ultraviolet photography to find the ancient translation hidden underneath three layers of text.
The study, published last month in the journal New Testament Studies, features an interpretation of Mattew 11:30 to Matthew 12:26, originally translated as part of the Old Syriac translations nearly 1,500 years ago.
According to the British Library, Syriac was a dialect of Eastern Aramaic used by the Church in Syria and several countries in the Middle East from the first century until the Middle Ages. Although it was written in the same alphabet as Hebrew, the Syriac language has its own unique characters.
"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," the study reads. "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."
According to a statement released by OeAW earlier this month, the discovered text was made in the third century and copied in the sixth century. More than 1,000 years ago, a scribe in ancient Israel erased a book of the Gospel inscribed with Syriac text to reuse it, as the parchment was a scarce resource in the desert in the Middle Ages and was often reused.
"The tradition of Syriac Christianity knows several translations of the Old and New Testaments," Kessel stated. "Until recently, only two manuscripts were known to contain the Old Syriac translation of the gospels."
One of those fragments is kept at the British Library in London. The second fragment was discovered as a "palimpsest," or reused manuscript that still bears traces of its original form, in St. Catherine's Monastery at Mount Sinai.
The fragment identified by Kessel offers a "unique gateway" to an early phase of the "textual transmission" of the Gospels.
"For example, while the original Greek of Matthew chapter 12, verse 1 says: '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,' the Syriac translation says: '[...] began to pick the heads of grain, rub them in their hands, and eat them," the statement noted.
Claudia Rapp, the director of the Institute for Medieval Research at the OeAW, praised Kessel for the discovery, crediting the researcher for his "profound knowledge" of old Syriac texts and script characteristics.
Rapp estimated that the Syriac translation was produced at least a century before some of the oldest surviving Greek manuscripts, including the Codex Sinaiticus. The Codex Sinaiticus is a complete text of the Gospels believed to be older than the fourth century.
"This discovery proves how productive and important the interplay between modern digital technologies and basic research can be when dealing with medieval manuscripts," Rapp stated.
In February, The Christian Post reported on the upcoming auction of the Codex Sassoon in May, which is reportedly the earliest single codex containing all the books of the Hebrew Bible. Created circa 900, the book consists of 24 books divided into three parts.
The Hebrew Bible is foundational to three Abrahamic religions, Christianity, Judaism and Islam. The 24 books contain the canonical Hebrew Scriptures: the Torah, the Nevi'im and the Ketuvim.
Sotheby's, the fine arts company auctioning the book, suggests it could sell for up to $50 million at the scheduled auction in New York. Before the auction, the manuscript is touring several major cities, including Tel Aviv, Israel, Dallas and Los Angeles, providing the public with an opportunity to view it.
Samantha Kamman is a reporter for The Christian Post. She can be reached at: samantha.kamman@christianpost.com. Follow her on Twitter: @Samantha_Kamman
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If anyone could have predicted that this would be the year Dwayne Johnson threw caution to the wind and started openly flirting with the dictionary on Twitter, then we’d kindly ask that the next set of lottery numbers are shared with the class immediately.
It would have been much easier to call Black Adam bombing at the box office and ending in The Rock being exiled from the DCU after less than two hours of screentime than it would guessing the actor and producer would voluntarily suggest a name change from the iconic moniker that defined his professional wrestling career after being caught up in a social media exchange with Merriam-Webster.
And yet, this is currently where we find ourselves, with Johnson suggesting a more accurate and academic rebranding that doesn’t quite have the same ring to it.
This made me belly laugh 😂 👏🏾👏🏾👏🏾
And I, henceforth will known as “The Geological One”.
I’ll see myself out now, Jess 😂🥂
— Dwayne Johnson (@TheRock) April 10, 2023
The Geological One has never been known as a shrinking violet, which to be expected when he’s constantly reminding us that as well as being an A-list megastar and one of the highest-paid talents in Hollywood, he just so happens to be the part-owner of an entire football league, rapidly-expanding tequila brand, and an energy drink as well.
If anyone can flirt with the dictionary and get away with it, then you’d have to put Johnson somewhere near the top of the list, not that it was a roster we’d even considered compiling this time yesterday. Suffice to say, Twitter remains as strange a place as it ever was, and that isn’t going to change.
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