Papyrus experts have discovered a document from the early days of Christianity. “The fragment is of extraordinary interest for research,” explained Lajos Berkes, a papyrus expert and associate researcher at the Faculty of Theology at the Humboldt University of Berlin.
The fragment of writing, about eleven by five centimeters, dating from the 4th and 5th centuries, has been identified as the oldest surviving Greek copy of the Infancy Gospel of Thomas.
The Gospel narrates the childhood of Jesus and is part of the so-called apocryphal writings. These were not included in the Bible, but their stories were very popular and widespread in Antiquity and the Middle Ages.
According to the information provided, The papyrus fragment had gone unnoticed for decades in the Carl von Ossietzky State and University Library in Hamburg, with the inventory number P.Hamb.Graec. 1011. The discovery was made by Berkes and his colleague Gabriel Nocchi Macedo, from the University of Liège (Belgium).
New knowledge about textual tradition
The fragment contains the remains of 13 lines of Greek letters, approximately 10 letters per line, and comes from late ancient Egypt. Until now, the oldest Greek version of the Gospel of Thomas, which was probably first written in the 2nd century AD, was considered an 11th century codex.
“Our findings on this late antique Greek copy confirm the current assessment that the Infancy Gospel according to Thomas was originally written in Greek,” says Nocchi Macedo.
The few words in the fragment indicate that the text describes the beginning of the “sparrow rebirth,” an episode from Jesus’ childhood that is considered the “second miracle” of the apocryphal Gospel of Thomas.
In this story, Jesus plays at a river ford and molds twelve sparrows out of clay. When Joseph’s father rebukes him and asks why he does those things on the holy Sabbath, five-year-old Jesus claps his hands and makes the clay figures come to life.
FEW (KNA, epd, Humboldt University Berlin)
