A recently discovered document from the 4th and 5th centuries tells about Jesus' childhood. The stories are fascinating – but the content is not new.
"Papyrus Sensation: Oldest Childhood Manuscript Deciphered."
"A Secret Bible Text Changes Everything."
"Mislabeled fragment of Egyptian papyrus hidden in German library overturns thousands of years of ideas about the Bible and the life of Jesus."
These are just some of the headlines following the discovery of a 1.600-year-old manuscript fragment that provides insight into Jesus' childhood.
The researchers – two papyrologists named Lajoš Berkeš and Gabriel Noki Machedo – were somewhat surprised by these reactions. "It's not a new story and in any case it's not a true story about the person of Jesus," Berkeš told DW.
"So this does not change what we know about the Gospels and about Jesus," emphasizes the lecturer at the Institute for Christianity and Antiquity at Berlin's Humboldt University. "But it led to a lot of misunderstandings and controversy, even though we never claimed anything like that."
What they discovered, however, is still spectacular: it is the earliest manuscript of the so-called Infancy Gospel of Thomas - a so-called apocryphal writing that resembles a biblical text but never became part of the biblical canon.
The kid who turned clay figures into real birds
The manuscript contains fragments of a text that describes five-year-old Jesus playing by a stream, where he finds clay and makes birds out of it. His father Joseph reprimands him for working on the Sabbath, considering that the Sabbath is a day of rest for the Jews. This causes Jesus to clap his hands, whereupon the sparrows come to life and fly away.
Although the Infancy Gospel was not included in the official canon of biblical gospels at the time, it is a well-known work among scholars. It is estimated that the text was first transcribed in the second century.
Anyone who sees Jesus as a good and kind person will read stories in which the young Jesus is prone to outbursts of anger and a desire for revenge. He curses other kids who annoy him, scares them, blinds his neighbors, and even kills the teacher who reprimanded him.
Scholars have long debated why Jesus is portrayed as "the hero of ridiculous and corny pranks," as one author described the stories.
The New Testament itself provides little information about Jesus' childhood. Because the Infancy Gospel seemed to fill some of the gaps left by the canonical Gospels, it was very popular in the late Middle Ages. Ancient manuscript versions have been found in Greek, Latin, Syriac, Church Slavonic, Georgian, Ethiopic and Arabic.
New knowledge about language
"Greek is assumed to be the original language. And the oldest manuscript of that text dates back to the 11th century," Lajo Berkeš explains. A manuscript fragment found by him and Gabriel Nocchi Macedo, which dates back to the period between the 4th and 5th centuries, could therefore show how certain words were replaced in transcription over the centuries.
The two researchers are planning a complete revision of the existing text on childhood and are also working on a new translation. Although this will not significantly change the actual content, it may lead to a new understanding of the language that was used. It is already clear that "the stylistic linguistic art of that originally Greek text was much greater than previously assumed," says Berkeš.
The famous forgery: the "Jesus's wife" papyrus
Trying to understand the life of Jesus is a topic that continues to fascinate many. Discoveries and insights that potentially reveal more about the central figure of Christianity arouse widespread public interest.
One famous case dates back to 2012, when Harvard professor Karen L. King presented a papyrus fragment that contained a quote from Jesus referring to his "wife."
In Christian theology, there has long been an assertion that Jesus was married to Mary Magdalene, who, according to the canonical gospels, was one of his closest followers. This idea was also adopted by Dan Brown in his bestseller "The Da Vinci Code" (2003).
However, there is no actual historical evidence of this. The papyrus that made headlines in 2012 turned out to be fake, journalist Ariel Sabar proved in the investigation. His book: "Veritas: Harvard Professor, Fraudster and the Gospel of Jesus' Wife" was published in 2020.
Walter Fritz, the man believed to have forged the "Woman of Jesus" papyrus, was a German who abandoned his studies of Egyptology in Berlin and embarked on various ventures in Florida. He also worked in the sale of car parts and as a dealer of works of art, as well as an Internet pornographer - which gave the whole story a slightly surreal touch.
Berkeš emphasizes: "It was a very carefully constructed forgery, but many manuscript experts recognized from the beginning that it was something suspicious."
How the papyrus collection at the University of Hamburg was created
How can Berkes and Machedo be sure that their discovery is real?
Their document was found in the collection of the Karl von Ossiecki State and University Library in Hamburg. The collection was acquired at the beginning of the 20th century by the German "Papyrus Cartel", which had the task of buying papyri from Egypt for museums and libraries in Germany.
According to Berkesh, researchers at the time initially concentrated on examining better-preserved manuscripts and books. Smaller documents were often left aside. Systematic cataloging began only at the beginning of this century.
Of the over a thousand papyrus fragments at the University of Hamburg, about a third have been cataloged and are available in digital form – and it was there that two researchers discovered the current fragment.
"It was just a side project, to be honest, but then it turned out to be something big," says Berkesh. He adds that there are tens of thousands of such fragments in collections around the world. "I can't guarantee, but I believe there are other, similar fragments. If he's lucky, he says, he'll find something else, because it has to do with perseverance. But also with luck.
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