Secret Bible text changes everything

It changes nothing. When the earliest example of the story was written down centuries after the events it purported to describe, there is no warrant for its truth or accuracy. It could well be fiction, And the earliest mentions of it do say it was fiction

At least if a newly discovered papyrus about Jesus Christ’s childhood is to be believed. He fibbed. He tantrumed. He killed.

If so, little wonder the canonical (accepted) Gospels of the Biblical New Testament don’t say much about the Christian messiah’s early years.

The books of Matthew and Luke offer the only accounts of his birth.

Luke adds the story of a 12-year-old messiah-to-be stunning the theologians of the Second Temple in Jerusalem with his deep understanding of Jewish lore.

The Infancy Gospel of Thomas is significantly more comprehensive - and less righteous.

It purports to be an eyewitness account of the juvenile Jesus’ life in Nazareth. By implication, it’s written by his brother Judas Thomas.

This text was one of many put before Christian bishops drawn together from across Europe and the Middle East in 325 AD by Emperor Constantine.

The powerful convert wanted a standardised religion to help unify his rapidly disintegrating Roman Empire.

The 27 books of the New Testament as we know it today, were their final choice.

Dozens of texts claiming to be gospels, letters from the disciples and collections of Jesus’ sayings were rejected.

These were declared to be, at best, apocryphal (of dubious authenticity), or worst - heretical (against the religion).

The Infancy Gospel of Thomas didn’t make the cut.

Early Christian theologian and Bishop of Rome Hippolytus had previously declared it a dangerous fake in his decree Refutation of All Heresies, written around 230AD.

A century later, Constantine’s bishops agreed.

As such, all copies were ordered to be destroyed on sight.

Almost all were.

But a mislabeled fragment of Egyptian papyrus filed away in a German library has turned out to be the oldest known surviving copy of the original text.

This fragment of papyrus, long labelled as being a hastily written note, has turned out to be a Fourth-century copy of the Infant Gospel of Thomas - an account of Jesus’ childhood banned as heretical by the founders of the Roman Catholic Church.

This fragment of papyrus, long labelled as being a hastily written note, has turned out to be a Fourth-century copy of the Infant Gospel of Thomas - an account of Jesus’ childhood banned as heretical by the founders of the Roman Catholic Church.

The 11cm by 5cm fragment contains just 13 lines of Greek text.

It sat ignored at Berlin’s Hamburg Carl von Ossietzky State and University Library for decades.

But researchers Dr Lajos Berkes and Professor Gabriel Nocchi Macedo recognised its true significance.

“It was thought to be part of an everyday document, such as a private letter or a shopping list because the handwriting seems so clumsy,” explains Dr Berkes.

“We first noticed the word Jesus in the text. Then, by comparing it with numerous other digitised papyri, we deciphered it letter by letter…”

Previously, a codex dating from the 11th Century was the oldest known fragment of the Infancy Gospel written in its original form.

“From the comparison with already known manuscripts of this Gospel, we know that our text is the earliest,” adds Dr Berkes. “It follows the original text, which, according to the current state of research, was written in the 2nd century AD.”

While the papyrus is a tiny fragment, most of the stories contained in the Infancy Gospel have survived through the centuries in some form or another.

It had been widely quoted by early theologians probing the boundaries of acceptable belief. And the tales of the young Jesus persisted in popular storytelling through Antiquity and into the Middle Ages - possibly for their shock value.

But it’s because there is so little surviving of the original text that determining the gospel’s origins is problematic. The general consensus of Biblical scholars is that it was most likely first written down somewhere between 110AD and 130AD.

This particular fragment survived by chance. It is believed to have been discarded from a monastery’s scribe school. That’s because the handwriting is so poor.

“The fragment is of extraordinary interest for research,” adds Dr Berkes. “On the one hand, because we were able to date it to the 4th to 5th century, making it the earliest known copy. On the other hand, because we were able to gain new insights into the transmission of the text.”

https://www.news.com.au/technology/science/archaeology/a-roman-emperor-ordered-dozens-of-biblical-texts-to-be-destroyed-and-almost-all-were-but-a-dogeared-fragment-in-a-german-library-has-turned-out-to-be-the-real-thing/news-story/a1e32cec576803997e6b5bd00585c86b

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