HISTORIC FIND

Feilding Star, Volume 8, Issue 2586, 2 December 1931, Page 7

HISTORIC FIND

BIBLICAL MANUSCRIPTS FOUR GOSPELS IN A SINGLE BOOK Biblit fii manuscripts rivalling in interest flu- historic finds of the last 00 years, and surpassing them all in antiquity, are announced by Sir Frederick Kenyon, director of flic British Museum from 1000 to 1030. Ho says that the discovery consists of a Group of Greek papyri acquired by Mr. Chester Beatty, tile wellknown collector of Illuminated manuscripts. Some of the leaves, which have become separated, are already iu the Michigan University Library, or in private hands, while possibly owing to tile incompleteness and lack of continuity of the manuscripts, other portions arc in existence elsewhere. Despite the missing portions, the collection is obviously the most valuable additional text of tile Greek Bible found for many a long (lay. It consists of 100 leaves, portions of the Book of Genesis. .Numbers, Deuteronomy, Esther, Isaiali, Jeremiah, Ezekiel. Daniel. Ecclesiastics, the Four Gospels, the Acts of the Apostles, the Epistles to the Romans, Phillippiuns, Colossians. Thessalonians an 1 Revelations, also part, of the lost Greo ktest of the apocryphal book of Enoch. It is estimated that the age of the earliest hook is early in the second century. The majority probably belong to the third century, and the others to the fourth ami fifth eentur--1 ies. The new Testament presents a Bibliographical phenomenon. All four Gospels and the Acts are’ ill a single’ book, which is surprising. Sir Frederick Kenyon admits that he was among those believing that tlie Gospels before the fourth century eould not have appeal’d in a single volume. Sir Frederick Kenyon urges that in yiew‘ of tlie importance of the newmaterial, it should be placed at t'hc disposal of Biblical students at the earliest possible moment.