“New discovery sheds light on Jesus’ childhood”. “Secret Bible Changes Everything.” “Fragment of Egyptian papyrus blows up everything we knew about the Bible.” These were just some of the headlines hailing recent scientific announcements of the discovery of a 1,600-year-old papyrus fragment with accounts of Jesus’ childhood in a Hamburg library.

The discovery is credited to the German theologian Laios Berkes and the Belgian archaeologist Gabriel Nocchi Macedo, who, as they claim, have themselves been surprised by the reactions. Speaking to DW, Laios Berkes points out how valuable the find is, but at the same time “grounds” some of the exaggerated expectations fueled by the scientific announcements.

“This is neither a new narrative nor a true story about the person of Jesus, and it certainly does not change what we know about him,” says the German Theology lecturer at the Humboldt University of Berlin. “Although we had not claimed such a thing anyway, misunderstandings and aggressive reactions were caused…”.

In any case, however, this particular papyrus is considered an impressive discovery. It is the oldest known manuscript from the so-called (Infant) Gospel of Thomas, a text that had been rejected by the Church and had never been included in the New Testament. Today it is classified as one of the “Apocryphal Gospels”, not included in the Canon of Holy Scripture.

A “child miracle” of Jesus

In one verse the particular manuscript mentions how Christ had performed a miracle when he was only five years old. It is the story of the “bringing the sparrows to life”: Jesus sits by the river and plays with lumps of clay, which he molds to give them the shape of sparrows. But Joseph scolds him, because all this takes place on Saturday, a traditional day of rest and complete cessation of work. Then Jesus claps his hands and suddenly turns the clay objects into living birds, which fly away.

The Gospel of Thomas dates from the 2nd century AD. and is known to theologians throughout the world. Bishop Irenaios of Lougdunos (of today’s Lyon) had characterized it as “inauthentic” and “heretical”. His accounts are rather disconcerting to those who know that Jesus was distinguished for his love and noble deeds, even as an infant. Because in this particular Gospel, the little Jesus appears to express feelings of anger and revenge, to insult or anger his peers when they annoy him, even to kill a teacher.

What does the new finding mean?

The New Testament says little about Christ’s childhood. It is a gap that somehow fills the Gospel of Thomas, perhaps that is why it was particularly popular in the Middle Ages. From time to time various translations or adaptations of the text have appeared in several languages, for example in Latin or Arabic. But as Laios Berkes points out “Greek is considered the original language. Until recently, the oldest version of the text was from the 11th century.”

But the fragment of the manuscript identified by Berkes and Macedo dates from the 4th or 5th century. This discovery may lead us to a “new understanding” of the language of the time, since, as Berkes points out to DW, “the level of use and stylistic value of the original Greek text was much higher than we previously appreciated.” .

The alleged “wife of Jesus”

To this day, the attempt to make the life of Jesus more understandable, beyond what is written in the normative texts, is a fascinating field of research, but it does not always lead to correct conclusions. For example, in 2012, Karen King, professor of theology at Harvard, presented in New York a fragment of a papyrus that referred to the “wife” of Jesus.

There is no lack of theologians who speculate that Christ was married to Mary Magdalene (one of the most faithful persons who followed his teaching, according to the canonical texts). But this is not the prevailing view, even if the American author Dan Brown contributed to its spread with the world bestseller “The Da Vinci Code” published in 2003. To date, there is no evidence to historically substantiate this claim .

A few years later, the journalist Ariel Sambar, with his research that was first published in The Atlantic magazine and then published in a book, debunked the theories about the authenticity of the papyrus that had appeared in 2012. It is assumed that the pioneer in the attempt to make the papyrus appear genuine was the German Walter Fritz, who had given up archeology studies in Berlin to move to Florida, USA and engage in a variety of activities, from the auto parts trade to art buying and Internet pornography. As Laios Berkes points out “the forgery was well thought out, but many experts had pointed out from the beginning that something was wrong…”.

How the discovery was made in Hamburg

With all this data, how are Berkes and Macedo sure that their own finding is authentic?

The fragment is part of the (presumably reliable) art collection at the State and University Library “Karl von Osietsky” in Hamburg. It was the property of the German Papyrus Cartel, which began operating in 1906 with the aim of buying Egyptian papyri for museums or libraries in Germany. At that time researchers had focused on well-preserved papyri, while the smaller fragments remained in obscurity, not always going through the appropriate recording process.

Only at the beginning of our century did a systematic effort to record and digitize all finds begin. The Hamburg collection included about 1,000 objects and that’s where the fragment was found. “To be honest, it was a research that was done … by the way, but it turned out to be important for us,” says Laios Berkes. “We want to continue it and I believe that other similar findings await us from the same manuscript or from other ‘Apocryphal Gospels’, although of course I cannot guarantee such a thing. This is not something you can purposefully look for. You have to research the whole collection, it takes persistence and luck…”.

Edited by: Yiannis Papadimitriou