Experts Decipher Oldest Manuscript of Jesus Childhood Gospel

Experts have deciphered an ancient manuscript, finding that it represents the earliest surviving copy of a gospel about Jesus' childhood. The fragment of papyrus, a paper-like material used during antiquity as a writing surface, was being kept at Hamburg, Germany's Carl von Ossietzky State and University Library, but for decades it had largely gone unnoticed. Now, a pair of researchers have determined that the ancient Greek text written on the fragment comes from the Infancy Gospel of Thomas (IGT) and represents the oldest known version of it, according to a study published in the journal Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik. The IGT is one of the "apocryphal" infancy gospels, a set of early Christian writings that are generally not considered part of the biblical canon by the religion's major denominations.

These writings provide details about the early life of Jesus, although they are of uncertain origin. Despite not being included in the Bible, the stories were popular and widespread in antiquity and the later medieval period. Before this latest study, an 11th-century codex represented the oldest known Greek version of the IGT, which is thought to have been written in the second century. But the study's authors—Lajos Berkes of the Institute for Christianity and Antiquity at Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin and Gabriel Nocchi Macedo of the University of Liège, Belgium—managed to date the Hamburg library papyrus fragment to the fourth to fifth centuries. "The fragment is of extraordinary interest for research," Berkes said in a press release. "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." As well as dating the papyrus fragment, which originated in Egypt, the authors deciphered the text written on it. This text is spread out across 13 lines, with each line featuring roughly 10 Greek letters.

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The content of the papyrus had long been overlooked because it was not considered to be of significant historical value. "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," Berkes said. The study authors first came across the papyrus thanks to a "purely accidental" discovery, Macedo told Newsweek. "We were going through the images of papyri kept at the Hamburg State and University Library (available online) at Lajos' office in Berlin and came across the fragment," Macedo said. At a first glance, the researchers recognized a few words and used them to search a textual database of ancient Greek literature, finding a match. "We first noticed the word Jesus in the text. Then, by comparing it with numerous other digitized papyri, we deciphered it letter by letter and quickly realized that it could not be an everyday document," Berkes said in the press release. Subsequent analysis of the text led the researchers to conclude that it represented a copy of the IGT. "From the comparison with already known manuscripts of this Gospel, we know that our text is the earliest. It follows the original text, which according to current state of research was written in the 2nd century A.D.," Berkes said. Taking into account that the Hamburg papyrus is now the earliest-known version of the IGT, the latest findings support the idea that this apocryphal gospel was originally written in Greek, according to the researchers. "The discovery of the Hamburg papyrus is significant for the history of the Infancy Gospel of Thomas, a 2nd-century work that had a good deal of success among readers in antiquity and the Middle Ages," Macedo told Newsweek. The researchers suggest that this particular text may have been created in a school or monastery as part of a writing exercise, as evidenced by the clumsy handwriting and irregular lines, among other factors. Do you have a tip on a science story that Newsweek should be covering? Do you have a question about archaeology? Let us know via science@newsweek.com. Update 06/11/24, 11:20 a.m. ET: This article was updated with additional comment from Gabriel Nocchi Macedo.