<P> The Book of Kells contains the text of the four Gospels based on the Vulgate . It does not, however, contain a pure copy of the Vulgate . There are numerous differences from the Vulgate, where Old Latin translations are used in lieu of Jerome's text . Although such variants are common in all the insular Gospels, there does not seem to be a consistent pattern of variation amongst the various insular texts . Evidence suggests that when the scribes were writing the text they often depended on memory rather than on their exemplar . </P> <P> The manuscript is written primarily in insular majuscule with some occurrences of minuscule letters (usually e or s). The text is usually written in one long line across the page . Françoise Henry identified at least three scribes in this manuscript, whom she named Hand A, Hand B, and Hand C. Hand A is found on folios 1 through 19v, folios 276 through 289, and folios 307 through the end of the manuscript . Hand A, for the most part, writes eighteen or nineteen lines per page in the brown gall - ink common throughout the West . Hand B is found on folios 19r through 26 and folios 124 through 128 . Hand B has a somewhat greater tendency to use minuscule and uses red, purple and black ink and a variable number of lines per page . Hand C is found throughout the majority of the text . Hand C also has greater tendency to use minuscule than Hand A. Hand C uses the same brownish gall - ink used by hand A and wrote, almost always, seventeen lines per page . </P> <P> There are a number of differences between the text and the accepted Gospels . In the genealogy of Jesus, which starts at Luke 3: 23, Kells names an extra ancestor . </P> <P> Matthew 10: 34b The canonised Bible reads "I came not to send peace, but a sword," but the manuscript reads gaudium ("joy") where it should read gladium ("sword") and so translates as "I came not (only) to send peace, but joy ." </P>

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