Researchers Deciphered Oldest Manuscript Describing Jesus’ Childhood, Here’s Why You Should Be Vigilant

German researchers have deciphered a manuscript dating back over 1,600 years, which is reportedly the oldest record of Jesus’ childhood.

The manuscript, written on papyrus, has been stored at a university library in Hamburg, Germany, for several decades.

The document went largely unnoticed until Dr. Lajos Berkes, from Germany’s Institute for Christianity and Antiquity at Humboldt University, and professor Gabriel Nocchi Macedo, from the University of Liège in Belgium, took on the task of translating it.

The manuscript dates back to the 4th and 5th century.

Berkes and Macedo’s translation of the manuscript describes a “miracle that Jesus performed as a child that appeared in the Gospel of Thomas, which claims Jesus brought clay figures of birds to life.”

Newly deciphered manuscript is oldest written record of Jesus’ childhood: ‘Extraordinary’ https://t.co/Bss8OZDkd7 pic.twitter.com/iXy5zjUHAe

— New York Post (@nypost) June 12, 2024

There’s a major concern for many Christians because the Gospel of Thomas isn’t included in the Bible.

Many theologians have called the Gospel of Thomas fake after its discovery in 1945.

The gospel contains controversial verses such as in Thomas 114, which states, “Simon Peter said to them, ‘Make Mary leave us, for females don’t deserve life.’ Jesus said, ‘Look, I will guide her to make her male so that she too may become a living spirit resembling you males. For every female who makes herself male will enter the kingdom of heaven”

The text can be clearly used out of context for trans activists to claim Jesus supported trans rights.

There’s a reason why they’re pushing this today…

First the Gospel of Thomas isn’t part of the true gospel and was discovered in 1945.

It was written two hundred years after Thomas the apostles’s death.

In the “gospel” of Thomas it states:

“Simon Peter said to them, ‘Make… https://t.co/jmX7g4eKta

— Anthony Scott (@AnthonyScottTGP) June 12, 2024

Per CBS:

A newly deciphered manuscript dating back 1,600 years has been determined to be the oldest record of Jesus Christ’s childhood, experts said in a news release.

The piece of papyrus has been stored in a university library in Hamburg, Germany for decades, historians at Humboldt University announced. The document “remained unnoticed” 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, studied it and identified it as the earliest surviving copy of the “Infancy Gospel of Thomas,” a document detailing Jesus Christ’s childhood.

The translation marks a “significant discovery for the research field,” Humboldt University said. Until now, it was believed that the earliest version of this gospel was a codex from the 11th century.

The document translated by Berkes and Macedo was dated between the 4th and 5th century. The stories in the document are not in the Bible, the news release said, but the papyrus contains anecdotes that would have been widely shared in the Antiquity and the Middle Ages. The few words on the fragment describe a “miracle” that Jesus performed as a child, according to the Gospel of Thomas, which says he brought clay figures of birds to life.

The document was written in Greek, Macedo said, confirming for researchers that the gospel was originally written in that language. The fragment contains 13 lines in Greek letters and originates from late antique Egypt, according to the news release.

The papyrus went ignored for so long because past researchers considered it “insignificant,” the news release said. New technology helped Berkes and Macedo decipher the language on the fragment and compare it to other early Christian texts.

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Recently deciphered (Greek) papyrus pushes back the material evidence for the Infancy Gospel of Thomas, which includes a miracle from Jesus' childhood that also appears in the Qur'an. https://t.co/WAq1jdSueV pic.twitter.com/wgljUCBiPD

— GabrielSaidR (@GabrielSaidR) June 10, 2024

Per Cross Examined:

In 1945, some farmers in Nag Hammadi Egypt were digging and came across an earthenware jar in the ground. The farmers, hoping to find treasure, were deeply disappointed when they found a bunch of texts instead. Little did they know those texts would be more valuable than any treasure they could hope to find.

Among the cache of texts was one that begins, “These are the secret sayings which the living Jesus spoke and which Didymos Judas Thomas wrote down,” and ends with “The Gospel According to Thomas.”

Unlike the canonical Gospels, Thomas doesn’t follow a narrative structure. It doesn’t report major parts of Jesus’ life — his birth, death, and resurrection. Instead, Thomas contains 114 esoteric sayings of Jesus, purporting to record the secrets Jesus taught to his disciples.

Did an apostle or close associate write the Gospel of Thomas? In a word, no. In fact, the consensus among scholarship is that the book dates to the middle of the second century — long after the apostles had died out. That is to say, Jesus’ disciple Thomas did not write this book.

A few reasons exist for dating this work late into the second century. First, the text reflects a type of Gnosticism (more on that in a minute) that wasn’t prevalent until the middle second century.

Additionally, the Gospel of Thomas demonstrates a deep dependance on large parts of the New Testament. It quotes or alludes to all four Gospels, Acts, most of Paul’s letters, and Revelation.3 Only someone who had access to all these works could pen this work, and we know that it took time for these works to circulate the Roman Empire.
Even more, some scholars suggest that Thomas relied heavily on the Diatessaron — a four Gospel harmony produced by Tatian around AD 170.4 If that’s the case, Thomas dates even later.

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Even if Thomas is independent of the Diatessaron, it’s mid-second century dating would have ruled it out for canonical consideration. Take the Shepherd of Hermas — a mid-second century work — for example. The early church loved this book. But as the Muratorian Fragment states, the church rejected its canonical authority because it was written “quite recently, in our own times,” and thus not backed by apostolic authority.