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Show A new treasure was found to crown our Expedition, There re-mins, however, a vital question to be answered. Is th© value of this ffCodex Arabians** - for this Is the nan© I gave it - confined to it being Sm&t a sera object of archaeologieal interest as a trilingual centuple Faliopseet? Wf a m » r is definitely in the negative, for since the Ixpedltion, I consulted several noted lew festaaent scholars and Syriologists of aany countries on these various texts. I should like to ess up the re-salts of t0 inquiry in order to give you the right ispresslon abo$t the eon» tests of the variolas super-daposed scripts. Let us consider the® in succ©s« sion froa the top downwards. The top layer is in perfect coalition and was probably written by a eonteiaporary of the Age of Cfearlemgn©, s© ancient to as yet so Ko&era ia comparison with the lower texts. It contains interesting new aaterial on so» Uvea of Saints and early aartyrdeoa together with what may be the aost ancient Arabic translation, of the Book of Job. lext cesses an older Kufic text, w&ry difficult to determine, but possibly the earliest Arabic tmns* lation of a Gospel, in the first century of th® Hijra, i.e., seventh-ei^th century A.C. The third layer is a Greek Iaetionery of St. Pa«l,s First Epistle to the Corinthians, evidently lata sixth early seventh century A.B*, with soiaa sinor variants froa Greek texts extant. Finally the Syriac is the oldest and • M l important* So far, portions of th© Gospels of St. Matthew, St. John and St. Iferk have been identified and they present several characteristics of very great antiquity. The Gospel of St. Hark in particular' includes a considerable nmnber of variants of great i^ortano© from the fifth century Feshltta text and is believed to be the aoot ancient Syriae text in ©idtstenee. If so, this text will bring us to the nearest version of the Gospels in the Age of Christ and the.Disciples. |