What kind of writing materials is the bible’s handwriting written on?
In the last part of the article series “What kind of writing materials is the bible’s handwriting written on?” We will get more familiar with a somewhat rare word, that is palimpsest.
What is palimpsest?
Since papyrus and parchment was both expensive and difficult to acquire, handwritings were often used several times. Such handwritings are called palimpsests. How was such old text removed? When it comes to papyrus, there are divided opinions among researchers about how this was done[1]. Some believe that only water was used to remove ink, while others believe that it would only work if the ink was somewhat “fresh”. Again, others claim that special chemical mixtures were required. As for parchment it was a lot easier, since you could scrape the ink from the skin. Thus the term “palimpsest”[2] which means “scraped again”.
Palimpsests have played a very important role for biblical studies, because they have lead to the discovery of really old texts. One of those significant handwritings is Codex Ephraemi Syri rescriptus[3]. Rescriptus is latin and means “written over” The handwritings original text[4] is from the 5th century, but in the 12th century it was removed and written over. It was as soon as the 17th century when it was discovered that something was written beneath the current text. However, there was no attempt to restore the original text until about 200 years later. For this, chemicals were used, something which would prove to do more harm than good. In 1840 the German linguist Konstantin Tischendorf (1815-1874) managed to decipher 99% of the original text[5], through only using his eyes. Today researchers use ultraviolet- and infrared lights among other things on such overwritten handwritings to decipher the underlying texts.
Footnotes
[1] For different arguments see: https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/20663035.pdf
[2] The word comes through latin from two greek roots, palin, “again” + psên, “scrape”
[3] To study the handwriting carefully. See: http://www.katapi.org.uk/BibleMSS/EphraemiAnimation.html
[4] With the exception of 2 Thessalonians and 2 John, the handwriting consists of the entire New Testament (NT); and six books from The old Testament in greek.
[5] Several other people were working on the handwriting prior to Tischendorf, among others Johan Wettstein. But Tischendorf was the one who deciphered both OT and NT.
