The Sinaiticus Syriac Gospels

About this book

A transcript of the famous Syriac Sinaiticus Palimpsest discovered at "in the Convent of St. Catharine, on Mount Sinai."Also includes an introduction in English which explains the importance of the manuscript, as well as many of the interesting readings contained therein. From the Introduction: "THE manuscript from which this version of the Four Gospels has been transcribed was found by me in the Convent of St Catharine, on Mount Sinai, in the month of February, 1892. It was shown to me by the late Librarian, Galaktion, amongst a number -of other Syriac MSS. and I was attracted by its look of venerable antiquity, also still more by the fact that, as nearly all its leaves were glued together, my eyes were undoubtedly the first which had gazed intelligently on it for centuries. On separating the leaves with my fingers I saw that it was a palimpsest; that the upper, or later writing, was a Martyrology, or collection of lives of women-saints, and that the under, or earlier one, con-tained a good portion of the Synoptic Gospels. This I judged from the titles, and from the initial or final words of the lines which I could decipher along the margins. I therefore resolved, with the help of my sister, Mrs James Young Gibson, to photograph the whole book and thus take a complete copy home to Cambridge. During the process of development the first pages were shown to several Syriac scholars, whose eyes were, like my own, not sufficiently keen to read between the lines of writing in .the photographs; but presently more favour-able specimens appeared, and in the month of July 1892 some of these were deciphered by Professor Bensly and 'by Mr F. C. Burkitt, and were pronounced by them to belong to a version nearly allied to the so-called Curetonian, which has hitherto been known only from a single imperfect copy. It was now apparent that the manuscript was of great importance for Biblical criticism..."Originally published as: THE FOUR GOSPELS IN SYRIACTANSCRIBED FROM THE SINAITIC PALIMPSESTBY THE LATE ROBERT L. BENSLY M.A. Lord almoner's professor of arabic in the university of cambridge...