Posted on 06/12/2024 9:41:36 AM PDT by george76
Experts in Germany have uncovered a deciphered manuscript that has been determined to be the oldest record of Jesus Christ’s childhood.
As CBS News reported, the 1,600-year-old document had been stored in a university library in Hamburg, Germany, for decades. It was ignored until Dr. Lajos Berkes, from Germany’s Institute for Christianity and Antiquity at Humboldt University in Berlin, and professor Gabriel Nocchi Macedo from Belgium’s University of Liège looked it over and revealed it as the earliest surviving copy of the “Infancy Gospel of Thomas,” a document detailing Jesus Christ’s childhood.
The two experts said in a news release the papyrus contains anecdotes not found in the Bible but one that would have been available and shared during the Middle Ages. The words on the document reveal a remarkable miracle Jesus performed as a child, where he brought clay figures of birds to life.
In the Gospel of Thomas story, a five-year-old Jesus is playing in a stream while molding 12 sparrows out of soft clay in the riverbed mud. But when his father, Joseph, sees what he is doing, he scolds Jesus and demands to know why he is molding clay on the Sabbath.
Jesus responds by telling the clay figures to take flight as living birds, and they obey his command.
...
According to Macedo, the papyrus was written in Greek. CBS notes it contains 13 lines in Greek letters and originates from late antique Egypt.
Berkes and Macedo said the papyrus was neglected for so long because past researchers considered it “insignificant.” However, new technology enabled the two men to translate the language on the document and compare it to other early Christian texts.
“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 explained. “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.”
The experts speculated that the story of Jesus’s miracle was written as part of a writing exercise in a school or monastery. This is due to the awkward handwriting and inconsistent lines, as the Daily Mail notes.
“Apart from what can be deduced from the general history of the collection, there is no evidence of how or when the papyrus was discovered,” Berkes and Macedo wrote.
Macedo said the date the papyrus was placed in the library is unknown, but it was likely after 2001.
Dr Macedo told the Daily Mail that he and Berkes would produce a critical edition and commentary on the manuscript. They will also re-address the style and language of the Gospel of Thomas text.
The results will be published in the Journal of Papyrology and Epigraphy.
As will I.
I agree.
The story is in the Catholic Bible.
“You can always count on Gateway”
And cbs for everything Jesus, bible and spirituality related. 👌
I’ll see what my Pastor has to say about it.
The miracle is not in the Bible because the Gospel of Thomas, although long known, is regarded as not canonical. I heard the story of Jesus as a boy making birds of clay come to life about sixty years ago in Catholic elementary school, with the admonition that it may not have been true.
By “church fathers” do you mean the Catholics whose predecessors chose what was included in the Bible to begin with?
>>>The Catholic Church already rejected it.
Well the Catholic Church seems to have rejected a lot of stuff that is true.
Your quote of what Jesus said when his parent scolded Him for staying behind when he was 12 sort of demonstrates the kind of thing his parents scolded him for doing.
Deciphered, or translated?
AI fakes are older that we have been thinking.
Is this from hitlers collection ?
Wasn’t he stealing anything historically interesting during his plaque on humanity ?
"But we have nevertheless felt compelled to give a catalogue of these also, distinguishing those works which according to ecclesiastical tradition are true and genuine and commonly accepted, from those others which, although not canonical but disputed, are yet at the same time known to most ecclesiastical writers — we have felt compelled to give this catalogue in order that we might be able to know both these works and those that are cited by the heretics under the name of the apostles, including, for instance, such books as the Gospels of Peter, of Thomas, of Matthias, or of any others besides them, and the Acts of Andrew and John and the other apostles, which no one belonging to the succession of ecclesiastical writers has deemed worthy of mention in his writings. And further, the character of the style is at variance with apostolic usage, and both the thoughts and the purpose of the things that are related in them are so completely out of accord with true orthodoxy that they clearly show themselves to be the fictions of heretics. Wherefore they are not to be placed even among the rejected writings, but are all of them to be cast aside as absurd and impious."From Eusebius Pamphilus, Ecclesiastical History, Book III, Chapter XXV, in A Select Library of Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers of the Christian Church, Second Series, Volume I, p. 157.
If I were SunkenCiv I might say something like:
Earliest manuscript of Gospel about Jesus’s childhood discovered
News 04.06.24 posted by Abteilung Kommunikation, Marketing und Veranstaltungsmanagement
Humboldt University
Die Humboldt-Universität
published Jun 04, 2024, last modified Jun 04, 2024
https://www.hu-berlin.de/en/press-portal/nachrichten-en/june-2024/nr-2464
Researchers uncover earliest known Gospel copy about childhood of Jesus
by Dario Radley June 10, 2024
https://archaeologymag.com/2024/06/earliest-gospel-copy-about-childhood-of-jesus/
also, here’s a anti-Trump hit piece masquerading as a Christian perspective, linked as “related” on the Daily Mail.
Why our world today is uncannily – and worryingly – like the one Jesus was born into 2,023 years ago
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12895595/world-today-uncannily-one-Jesus-born.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gospel_of_Thomas
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logia
Nope, not gonna buy it. Extra-biblical sources are never reliable.
It’s the oldest copy of a well known gnostic gospel that still dates 400 years after Christ.
This is old news!
I find it interesting that in this story, Joseph chides him for breaking the Sabbath, and not for creating the birds. I just looked it up. Jesus’ response was to ignore his dad and release the birds. When the priest heard and chided Jesus, Jesus said some words and the priest’s son “withered away”. Then he caused an entire crowd of people to go blind.
I didn’t read far enough to come to the point where the child has some sort of epiphany and becomes the person we know of in the Bible.
Another thing that is interesting is that His first REAL miracle was fairly mundane (as miracles go); turning water into wine. And He didn’t make a big show about it. And did it perhaps reluctantly, only after his mom requested that he do it. Moms are good about stuff like that - knowing when their child is ready and giving them a little push!
Also the only words I know of that she does not address to God, an Angel, or family: “Do Whatever He says!”
Words to live by.
1st Council of Nicea where the current Old and New Testaments were canonized, was in 325AD. Contemporary with this manuscript.
Gospel of St Thomas is an interesting read and it is easy to see why the early church rejected it as it completely undercut the churches power.
“Lift a stone and you will find me. Split a piece of wood and I am there...” No need for a priest to intercede on your behalf with your Deity...
My wife, rather than praying for a specific outcome, often just prays the circumstance (”Jesus - he has no place to live.”) Our son lives out of state and his roommate situation changed and needs a place to rent. He can sleep on a friend's couch for a week but after that.... And with school and work he is starting to stress out.
"This BEGINNING of signs Jesus did in Cana of Galilee, and manifested His glory; and His disciples believed in Him."
This was Christ's first miracle.
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