Sunday, August 14, 2011

Earliest Irish manuscript contains biblical psalms

THE EARLIEST SURVIVING MANUSCRIPT FROM IRELAND contains biblical psalms:
A history of Ireland in 100 objects

Set of writing tablets, late sixth century (Irish Times)

A MAN CUTTING turf in Springmount bog in Ballyhutherland, Co Antrim, found this set of six yew tablets, held together by leather straps. The inner tablets are hollowed out on both sides, forming the pages of a small wooden book. These inner surfaces are filled with wax, on which someone wrote, or rather literally inscribed with a pointed stylus, a biblical text.

This is the earliest extant Irish manuscript. Someone, a monk or a scholar at a monastic school has written, onto the wax, parts of Psalms 30 and 31 from the Old Testament in a beautifully precise hand.

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(HT Abu 'l-Rayhan Al-Biruni.) Follow the link for a photo. I assume these psalms come from the Latin Vulgate, although the article does not specify this.

This manuscript is not to be confused with the Irish Bog Psalter, which also contains Latin biblical psalms, but is made of vellum and is slightly later. Note also the Staffordshire Anglo-Saxon Gold Hoard, which contains a piece bearing a Latin biblical quotation, possibly also from the book of Psalms.