Palimpsest

Long before paper, people wrote documents using fragile papyri (made of plant material) and enduring parchments (made from animal skin). Both were difficult to make and costly. As such, sometimes, someone would take an old parchment, erase or wash it, and rewrite a new material or information on that same old parchment. These parchments are called palimpsest manuscripts, coming from the Greek preposition palin “again” and verb psao “scrape”—a description of the procedure of “scraping again” to reuse the parchment.

Centuries later, scholars have found ways, such as using ultraviolet light, to read the original writing on these manuscripts. A great example is a Greek manuscript of the Bible from the 5th century AD, Codex Ephraemi Rescriptus or C or 04 (pic below). It contains most of the New Testament (missing 2 Thessalonians and 2 John) and some Old Testament, written in capital letters (called uncials). Sadly, this original manuscript was scraped, washed, and reused in the 12th century to record the Greek translation of Ephrem the Syrian’s 38 treatises. He was a fourth-century church father from the East.

Just as palimpsest parchments can’t be completely scraped and erased, prophetic utterances of the law and the prophets and the gospel message of God’s rule can’t be erased regardless of people’s violent attempts. Jesus said,

“The law and the prophets were prophesied until John; from then, God’s rule has been gospelized. Everyone will try to constrain it (βιάζω). But it is easier for heaven and the earth to pass away than for one small stroke of the law to fall away.” (Luke 16:16–17)

For centuries, enemies of God’s people, before or after Jesus’s generation, have tried to destroy God’s words, the Torah, or the Bible (even by burning it). But Jesus assured his disciples it would be easier for heaven and earth to pass away, which is impossible, than for any of God’s words—the law, the prophets, or the gospel—to disappear.

This should assure us, especially if we live in countries with great animosity towards the Christian faith. God’s word and gospel truth will abide regardless of violent opposition against it.

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The word biazo (βιάζω) occurs only in this discussion (Matt 11:12; Luke 16:16). But it was common in Classical Greek and meant “to constrain, overpower, force someone to do something (such as being a slave), suffer violence, or struggle.” Combining one of the latter meanings of the verb and the phrase “into it” (εις αυτήν, eis authen), many translations say something like, “Everyone is forcing their way into it [the kingdom of God]” (e.g., NIV). If we were to understand it as such, I am unsure what it means—why would everyone force their way into God’s rule?