SYRIAC WATCH:
Ancient Syriac text reveals lost Gospel details after 1,500 years. The Old Syriac text specifies disciples 'rubbing it in their hands,' highlighting significant nuances in interpretation (Jerusalem Post).
Using ultraviolet (UV) photography, Kessel revealed a lost Bible chapter hidden beneath layers of writing in an ancient manuscript. This practice of reusing parchment was common in medieval times due to the scarcity of writing materials, particularly parchment made from animal skins. Scribes often scraped off existing text to overwrite new content, resulting in palimpsests—manuscripts bearing traces of previous writings.
I've been debating whether to post this one, since PaleoJudaica has already posted on the story itself. But the bold-font phrase (my emphasis) is appearing often enough in the media that I think it merits some comment.
The story involves a significant discovery. But it is quite misleading to call it the discovery of "a lost Bible chapter." This phrase and similar have been appearing a lot in the coverage. Usually the Jerusalem Post handles such stories well, so I was surprised to see it here.
The actual story: new technology has allowed scholars to read the erased bottom-layer text of a double-palimpsest section of a Georgian manuscript. Written under the Georgian text was a Greek copy of the Apophthegmata patrum. And under that was an Old Syriac translation of the Gospels dated to the sixth century, which is early. Not much of this layer is left, but part of a chapter of Matthew has been recovered.
That in itself is exciting, but of further interest the text of Matthew 12:1 has a rare variant reading. It adds "and rub them in their hands" after (the disciples) "began to pick the heads of grain." This is not a unique reading. It also appears in another (fifth-century) Old Syriac manuscript called the Codex Curetonianus (British Library, Add. 14451). The two share a number of readings against the text of the Syriac Peshitta.
A notable story overall. Already covered in 2023 in the articles I linked to here.
It is technically true that a Syriac biblical manuscript was lost, and part of a chapter of it has now been found. Let us rejoice. But no chapter of the Bible went missing and has only now been rediscovered. That would be newsworthy indeed.
As I said, the phrase has appeared in many headlines. I don't mean to single out the JP. The rest of its article is substantially accurate. But one more detail is worth mentioning.
The article credits "Jerusalem Post Staff," but at the bottom it adds, "The article was written with the assistance of a news analysis system." I take that to mean that someone used an LLM AI to produce the piece. I see more and more articles that have notes like this at the end.
Journalists, please don't try to cut corners with AI. It is unintelligent. It has no judgment. It makes things up. And it propagates bad takes like "a lost Bible chapter." Double and triple check anything it tells you.
Cross-file under Technology Watch.
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