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Thursday, February 14, 2019

More on those four "Aramaic" books from Turkey

UPDATE: 4 ancient books depicting life of Jesus seized in Turkey's Denizli (The Daily Sabah). This is the article mentioned in yesterday's post, which I have only now been able to find.

This article includes a larger version of the image of the four books. The cover of the second from the right has some Syriac writing on it, although it's too blurry for me to be sure what it says.

The article also includes another photo of two pages in one of the books. They contain color images, mostly in gold leaf, and writing in the Greek alphabet. On the left is an image of an eagle on a pedestal, holding a cross. On the right, two people doing something. Is that a game board or a box between them?

The writing, as far as I can make it out, is gibberish. I see no actual Greek words and many of the letter combinations look bizarre.

It's a fake.

The way to bet is that they are all fakes. But I would have to see more of the other three to be sure.

By the way, both articles had this odd sentence:
Archaeology Professor Fahriye Bayram from Pamukkale University confirmed the authenticity of the books, saying that they had been requested and used by royals.
I don't know what the last clause means. Perhaps it was translated badly from Arabic. UPDATE: Sorry, that should be Turkish. I must have been thinking of SANA instead of the Daily Sabah.

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