Beneath the Pahlavi Script: The Greek Bible That Refused to Be Silenced

One of the most fascinating artifacts in the Papyrus Museum of the Austrian National Library in Vienna appears at first to be a seemingly ordinary piece of worn parchment. Large, dark Pahlavi writing (Middle Persian) dominates its surface. However, a closer look beneath the bold letters reveals another text emerging, a much older Greek manuscript of the New Testament hidden underneath.

The Story of Pahlavi Writing.

A late sixth-century Greek Bible codex forms the bottom layer, preserving portions of 2 Corinthians 5, 6, and 8. This manuscript, originally from Egypt, entered the hands of a Sasanian during the Sasanian (Persian) occupation of Egypt (AD 619–629). Someone took several pages from this Bible and wrote directly across them in Pahlavi, the official language of the Persian Empire. According to the museum’s label, the writer “did not take the trouble to wipe off the older manuscript.” Instead of carefully scraping away the biblical text, he simply wrote over it, most likely because he was a Persian who did not understand Greek. He may not have noticed that it was a religious text.

The result is extraordinary. On the same pieces of parchment, we see evidence of two very different worlds: the Christian communities that treasured Paul’s letter to the Corinthians, and the Persian administration that ruled Egypt for a brief decade.

A Window into Pahlavi Writing History

During the 7th century, people found parchment expensive and hard to obtain, so they often reused old manuscripts. Scribes most likely copied the Greek text onto new parchment, thereby making the old version available for a second use, as we see here. Even when someone treated a copy of Scripture as little more than scrap writing material, the words still bore witness to a Persian who used it.

The Greek text that lies beneath includes some of the most treasured verses in the New Testament:

“Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has passed away, behold, the new has come.” (2 Corinthians 5:17)

“God was reconciling the world to Himself in Christ, not counting people’s trespasses against them.” (2 Corinthians 5:19)

“He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God.” (2 Corinthians 5:21)

The very message proclaiming reconciliation with God and new life in Christ was literally hidden beneath another text for centuries. Maybe this was why someone made it available to a Persian official, to give the Word of God indirectly to this person in authority.

A Picture of the Human Heart

It is easy to feel saddened that someone treated a Bible manuscript with so little respect. Someone saw these precious pages not as the Word of God, but simply as useful parchment.

Yet before we criticize the unknown scribe too quickly, we should ask ourselves a more searching question. How often do we do something similar?

Some Christians would never write across the pages of a Bible. Yet it is possible to honor the book outwardly while ignoring its message inwardly. A Bible can sit clean and respected on a shelf while its words are neglected in everyday life.

Possibly the reuse of the manuscript reflected indifference, necessity, or simple practicality; it reminds us that people can easily overlook the value of God’s Word. The irony is striking: beneath the ordinary business of an earthly empire, the message of an eternal kingdom endures. The Pahlavi writing is noticeably Middle Persian, but no one has yet reported what these few symbols say. While one text recorded the affairs of a kingdom that soon disappeared, the hidden words of God’s Word continue to proclaim reconciliation with God through Jesus Christ nearly 2,000 years later.

The Words of Christ come to be fulfilled, “¹⁷ “Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. ¹⁸ For truly, I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, will pass from the Law until all is accomplished.” (Matthew 5:17-18, ESV). Here, the words of the eternal Word of God still ring out a message.