A group of university researchers discovered a ancient manuscript which This was not found in the Bible. In it he talks about what Jesus was like during his childhood.
This discovery was possible thanks to Lajos Berkèsfrom the Institute of Christianity and Antiquity at the Humboldt University of Berlin (HU) and professor Gabriel Nocchi Macedo from the University of Liège in Belgium.
For decades, this papyrus fragment with inventory number P.Hamb.Graec. 1011 remained ignored in the Carl von Ossietzky State and University Library in Hamburg. The fragment found is the oldest copy of the Infancy Gospel of Thomas and is dated between the 4th and 5th centuries.
This is the manuscript found on the childhood of Jesus
This discovery is really important because dates back to the early days of Christianity. To date, an 11th-century codex was considered the oldest Greek textual version of the Gospel of Thomas.
The fragment found measures approximately 11 by 5 centimeters and contains remnants of 13 lines of Greek letters, or about 10 letters per line. This manuscript comes from End of ancient Egypt.
This papyrus remained unnoticed for a long time because its contents were considered insignificant. Lajos Berkes emphasizes in statements collected by the Humboldt University Berlin that “the people I thought this was part of a daily documentlike a private letter or a shopping list, because the writing seemed very clumsy.
However, he adds that he and Gabriel Nocchi noticed the word “Jesus” in the text. “We then deciphered it letter by letter by comparing it with many other digitized papyri and quickly understood that This couldn’t be an everyday document. When we researched early Christian texts, we recognized that they were a copy of the Infancy Gospel according to Thomas“, he said.
“Compared to the already known manuscripts, we know that our text is the oldest. It follows the original text which, according to current research, It was written in the 2nd century AD» adds Berkes.
What is this papyrus centered on Jesus about?
These researchers suspect that the copy of the Gospel was created as a writing exercise in a monastery or in a school. Hence the green writing with irregular lines.
The few words that can be deciphered from this papyrus reveal that the text describes the beginning of the “Rebirth of the sparrows”episode from Jesus’ childhood considered the “second miracle” in the Gospel of Thomas: “Jesus plays in a raging stream and forms twelve sparrows with the soft clay he finds in the mud. When his father Joseph reprimands him and asks why he does these things on the Sabbath, five-year-old Jesus applauds and brings the clay figures to life.
This incredible find opens new doors to knowledge the childhood of Jesus, providing previously unknown details.
