Experts Have Discovered The Earliest Known Record Of Jesus’ Childhood On A Fragment Of 1,600-Year-Old Papyrus

After noticing the word "Jesus" in the text, researchers realized that this seemingly insignificant papyrus contained a part of the Infancy Gospel of Thomas, which had been left out of the Bible.

Staats- und Universitätsbibliothek HamburgThe papyrus fragment was long dismissed as something insignificant, like a shopping list.

For decades, researchers at Hamburg Carl von Ossietzky State and University Library dismissed a scrap of papyrus in their collection as “insignificant.” But two researchers took a second look — and realized that it was actually the oldest written record of Jesus Christ’s childhood.

The papyrus belongs to the Infancy Gospel of Thomas — which is not included in the Bible — and recounts one of the first times that Jesus, at the age of just five, performed a miracle.

The Surprise Discovery Of The Papyrus Describing Jesus’ Childhood

According to Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin (HU), the papyrus dates back to the fourth or fifth century C.E. and spent decades in a collection at Hamburg Carl von Ossietzky State and University Library. Just a ragged fragment, and covered in an untidy scrawl, the papyrus was long dismissed as something “insignificant” like a letter or a shopping list.

But then papyrologists Lajos Berkes of the Institute for Christianity and Antiquity at Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin and Gabriel Nocchi Macedo from the University of Liège, Belgium, took a second look.

“The discovery was purely coincidental,” Berkes told All That’s Interesting. “On a hot summer afternoon in my office in Berlin, we were looking through images of papyri in the Hamburg State and University Library… and came across the fragment. At first glance, we recognized a few words and used them to search a text database of ancient Greek literature and found a match.”

Staats- und Universitätsbibliothek HamburgAfter researchers noticed that the papyrus contained the word “Jesus,” they began to investigate it further.

To their astonishment, the researchers realized that the papyrus recorded a part of the Infancy Gospel of Thomas, a piece of biblical apocrypha (a text not included in the Bible) that recounts a story from Jesus’ childhood. When the Bible was written, the authors and compilers of the Christian holy book excluded many accounts like this one.

“The discovery was a great surprise,” Berkes told All That’s Interesting, “and at first we did not want to believe our identification.”

But not only did the fragment roughly match up with modern versions of the Infancy Gospel of Thomas, it was the oldest version of the text ever discovered. The original was likely written around the second century C.E., and this papyrus was produced sometime between the fourth and fifth centuries.

So what does the papyrus say?

The “Second Miracle” Of Jesus Christ

The scrap of papyrus, which is 11×5 centimeters and 13 lines long, tells part of the story of Jesus Christ’s “second miracle,” which he performed as a boy.

Public DomainIn his “second miracle,” Jesus turned clay sparrows into real birds.

It contains the beginning of the “vivification of the sparrows,” in which Joseph finds Jesus playing near a stream and making twelve sparrows out of clay. When Joseph scolds Jesus for doing so on the Sabbath, five-year-old Jesus claps his hands — and brings the sparrows to life.

According to HU, the story was probably copied by someone as part of a writing exercise in a school or monastery. That would explain the clumsy handwriting and irregular lines.

Public DomainThe oldest known depiction of Jesus Christ.

Today, many questions about the life of Jesus Christ remain, including his real name, his race, his appearance, his actual date of birth — it was certainly not December 25 — and even his height. But the Infancy Gospel of Thomas, though apocryphal, fills in small details about his childhood.

What’s more, this papyrus is a fascinating example of how Biblical stories were spread throughout the centuries. To a bored student hundreds of years ago, this papyrus was a chore. To researchers today, it’s a treasure.

“The fragment is of extraordinary interest for research,” Berkes said. “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.”

He and Macedo also took a look at other images in the same collection but did not identify others of “similar importance.” However, Berkes told All That’s Interesting that there are certainly more still out there.

“[T]here are still hundreds of thousands of papyri in numerous collections around the world that have not yet been studied by scholars,” he said. “[W]e are confident that similar discoveries are yet to come.”

After reading about how researchers found the earliest written record of Jesus’ childhood on a scrap of forgotten papyrus, discover the story of Pontius Pilate, the Roman governor who condemned Jesus Christ to death by crucifixion. Then, see how Jesus’ loyal follower Mary Magdalene became one of the most misunderstood figures in the Bible.