Historians recently discovered a hidden fragment of the Bible.

World History

A s detailed in a 2023 research paper, an Austrian medievalist examining texts in the Vatican Library discovered an ancient fragment of the Book of Matthew, which had been hidden for around 1,500 years under two other layers of text. The biblical text is an interpretation of parts of Matthew 11 and 12 that had never been seen before. It's from one of the earliest translations of the Bible, written in Old Syriac. The Old Syriac translation dates back to the third century CE — even before the New Testament canon was officially established — but was lost for centuries, and only four examples have been unearthed in modern times, including the 2023 discovery.

Some of the earliest versions of the Gospels — the four canonical New Testament books that tell the story of Jesus Christ — originated in Syria, which was home to major early Christian hubs such as Damascus and Antioch; these early versions were written in or translated to Old Syriac. The text unearthed in 2023 dates back to the sixth century, so it's possible it was in widespread use before its disappearance.

When the earliest forms of the Bible were taking shape in the first few centuries CE, scholars wrote on parchment made from animal skin. (Paper didn't reach the Middle East until the eighth century CE.) Since it wasn't easy to come by, pieces of parchment were often erased and used for other works. Today, historians can use ultraviolet photography to reexamine materials that have already been in academic or religious libraries for a long time and see what was originally written beneath. In the case of the 2023 discovery, it's believed the parchment containing the Old Syriac Gospel was covered by a Greek translation of the Sayings of the Desert Fathers (a collection of stories about early Christian hermits in Egypt), which was covered again by a Georgian manuscript.

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By the Numbers

Chapters in the modern Bible

1,189

Approximate extant copies of the Gutenberg Bible

Did you know?

Archaeologists discovered a 4,250-year-old library in Syria.

More than 4,000 years ago, the city of Ebla in northwestern Syria was a major hub of manufacturing, education, and agriculture. In 1974, archaeologists were excavating the former site of its royal palace when they discovered 42 tablets filled with cuneiform script. The palace, including the wooden shelves where the tablets were stored, had burned down around 2250 BCE, but the fire baked and preserved the clay tablets. Archaeologists kept digging and eventually found more than 17,000 cuneiform tablets, containing everything from commercial ledgers to literary works.