As many Turkish news outlets already reported last week, a significant discovery was made in Trabzon, Turkey following a minor earthquake: among the stonework in a collapsed wall in the non-reconstructed area of the Fatih Mosque (founded as the Panagia Chrysokephalos Church in the 900s) were several boxes, coated with plaster, which upon examination were found to contain assorted manuscripts, including a copy of the Gospels.
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| Janbi P. Sahtekar |
My guest today is J. P. Sahtekar, who was present when the first three boxes were opened.
Me: Thank you for taking time to share about this discovery, Dr. Sahtekar.
JPS: Thank you for spreading the news. And please call me J.P.; the "doctor" is a nickname.
Me: As you wish, J.P. What can you tell us about the contents of the discovery in the mosque?
JPS: The plastered boxes and the entire wall of bricks they were in seem to have been put in place during the mid-1400s, after the fall of Istanbul. So they serve as a sort of time capsule to show what the Christians wanted to preserve secretly in the church. In the first box there was an icon of Theodore the Studite, and in the second there was a rather unique bilingual copy of the Gospels written in Greek and Georgian.
Me: Can you divulge anything about the manuscript's text?
JPS: A full transcript is already in preparation, to be done by scholars from the Museum of the Bible in Washington D.C. I can say a few details: it has well-preserved miniatures for all four evangelists, and its text is mixed, with Matthew, Mark, and Luke being typical Byzantine, but in John it shifts entirely to what is typical of the family-1 cluster, with the story of the adulteress absent in John 8, and added at the end of the Gospel. There are also some strange omissions in John 11 - the whole chapter is rewritten so as to remove Martha of Bethany entirely.
Me: Why would anyone do such a thing?
JPS: I decline to speculate about scribal motives - and there might not be one; my preliminary understanding is that the scribe appears to have simply accidentally skipped a large portion of text. I can only say that the find creates a promising opportunity to re-examine what we know - or think we know - about Georgian-language scribes' interaction with Greek Gospels prior to the work of George the Hagiorite. More details will be included once the manuscript is officially catalogued.
Me: Thanks for the update - looking forward to learning more!
Footage of the discovery on the scene in Trebzon can be accessed HERE and HERE.
2 comments:
Glad to see this annual special back in print!
The man pictured as “Jahni P. Santekar” is actually J. P. Sears, a comedian from Austin Tx. What’s up with that?
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