A newly deciphered manuscript on a papyrus fragment that went largely unnoticed for decades at a library in Germany has been identified as the earliest known account of Jesus Christ's childhood.
Papyrologists Dr. Lajos Berkes from the Institute for Christianity and Antiquity at the Humboldt University of Berlin, and Professor Gabriel Nocchi Macedo from the University of Liège, Belgium, have identified the fragment as the earliest surviving copy of the Infancy Gospel of Thomas.
The manuscript dates back to the early days of Christianity more than 1,600 years ago.
"The fragment is of extraordinary interest for research," Lajos Berkes, lecturer at Humboldt University's Faculty of Theology, said in a statement. "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."
Until now, a codex from the 11th century was oldest known Greek version of the Gospel of Thomas, which was likely written in the 2nd century AD and tells episodes of Jesus' childhood. Although these writings were not included in the Bible, their stories were very popular and widespread in Antiquity and the Middle Ages.
The fragment, which measures around 11 x 5 centimeters, contains a total of thirteen lines in Greek letters, around 10 letters per line, and originates from late antique Egypt. The papyrus remained unnoticed for a long time because the content was considered insignificant.
"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," said Berkes. "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."
Using other key terms such as "crowing" or "branch," which the papyrologists searched in other early Christian texts, they recognized that it was a copy of the Infancy Gospel according to Thomas.
Researchers assume that the copy was created as a writing exercise in a school or monastery, as indicated by the clumsy handwriting with irregular lines, among other things.
The few words on the fragment show that the text describes the beginning of the "vivification of the sparrows," an episode from Jesus' childhood that is considered the "second miracle" in the Gospel of Thomas: Jesus plays in a rushing stream and molds twelve sparrows from soft clay he finds in the mud. When his father Joseph rebukes him and asks why he is doing such things on the holy Sabbath, the five-year-old Jesus claps his hands and brings the clay figures to life.