Scientists recover 42 lost pages of the New Testament

According to researchers, Codex H was originally a complete book, but was dismantled in the 13th century at the Great Lavra Monastery on Mount Athos in Greece. At the time, as parchment was expensive and scarce, its sheets were reused in the making and repair of other books. As a result, the manuscript pages began to be used as covers, binding reinforcements and supporting sheets placed at the beginning or end of other volumes.

According to the University of Glasgow, already known physical parts of the Codex H They are now spread across libraries in Italy, Greece, Russia, Ukraine and France. It was through the analysis of these preserved fragments that researchers were able to recover the 42 pages previously considered lost.

To recover the missing content, the team led by Professor Garrick Allen used multispectral imaging technology. The method makes it possible to identify ink marks invisible to the naked eye and digitally reconstruct texts that have been erased or covered by time.

According to Allen, the reapplication of ink in later times left “ghost prints” of the original text on neighboring pages. By processing these marks, the researchers were able to recover sections that no longer physically existed. Experts in Paris also participated in the project with carbon dating tests.

Although the recovered material contains already known parts of the Letters of Saint Paul, the discovery helps scholars understand how Christian texts were copied, organized and read in the first centuries. Among the finds, according to the university, are some of the oldest known examples of chapter lists from these letters. The fragments also reveal corrections made by scribes, marginal notes and signs of everyday religious use.