Using ultraviolet photography, scientists say they’ve found an ancient version of a Bible passage that had been hidden under another text for more than 1,500 years.

Historian Hryhoriy Kessel of the Austrian Academy of Sciences announced the discovery in a journal article New Testament Studies earlier this year. New Testament Studies is a peer-reviewed academic journal published by Cambridge University Press.

According to Kessel, he used ultraviolet photography to see previous text under three layers of words written in palimpsest, a type of ancient manuscript where people overwrite other words but often leave traces of the original writing.

Scrolls were used in antiquity due to the shortage of parchment. The words will be overwritten over and over the material until several layers cover the hidden words underneath.

Kessel said in a press release that the text described in Kessel’s discovery is a long-unknown version of Matthew chapter 12, which was originally part of the Old Syriac translations of the Bible about 1500 years ago. He said he made the discovery in a manuscript stored in the Vatican library.

According to a press release, the manuscript offers researchers a “unique way” to understand the early stages of the Bible’s textual development and shows some differences from modern translations of the text.

For example, according to the publication, the original Greek version of Matthew 12:1, which is most widely used today, says: “Then Jesus was walking in the fields on the Sabbath, and his hungry disciples began to gather ears of corn and eat.”

However, a recently discovered Syriac translation is slightly different. He says: “They began to gather ears of corn, rub them on their hands and eat them.”

This article was originally published Business Content.