charred and brittle 復習
あまり良くない保存状態で見つかった史上最古級の旧約聖書の写本の中身が最新技術により明らかにされました。
Scientists finally read the oldest biblical text ever found
Scientists have finally been able to read the oldest biblical text ever found.
The 2,000-year-old scroll has been in the hands of archaeologists for decades. But it hasn’t been possible to read it, since it was too dangerous to open the charred and brittle scroll.
Scientists have now been able to read it, using special imaging technology that can look into what’s inside. And it has found what was in there: the earliest evidence of a biblical text in its standardised form.
The passages, which come from the Book of Leviticus, show the first physical evidence of a long-held belief that the Hebrew Bible that’s in use today has is more than 2,000 years old.
The discovery was announced in an article in Science Advances written by researchers from Kentucky and Jerusalem. It described how the researchers used a tool called “virtual unwrapping”, which provides a 3D digital analysis of an X-ray scan.
By using that, it was the first time that researchers have been able to read an ancient scroll without actually opening it.
今回取り上げるのはcharred and brittleです。
charを『ジーニアス英和辞典』（第五版、大修館書店）で調べると、「（火・熱などが気などを）灰にする、…を黒焦げにする」とありました。Oxford dictionaries.com.によると「木炭、炭」の“charcoal”からの逆成語だそうです。
また、brittleは“break up”と同じ意味の古英語の“breotan”から来ていて「（物が）固い、もろい」という意味があります。
よって“the charred and brittle scroll”で「黒焦げで、すこしでも触れたら今にも崩れそうな巻物」を表しているかと思います。
この巻物は３〜４世紀頃に記されましたが、６世紀に起きた火災によってこのような状態となってしまったそうです。(flyingbird)
charred 復習 - 田邉祐司ゼミ 常時英心：言葉の森から
