A fragment of a letter, underestimated for many years, turned out to be a copy of the Gospel telling about the miracle of Jesus

The oldest copy of the Gospel of Thomas, which tells the story of Jesus’ miracle as a child, was discovered by researchers at the Carl von Ossietzky Library in Hamburg, Germany. The parchment fragment is written in Greek and was created between the 4th and 5th centuries. Information provided by the Faculty of Theology of Humboldt University.

The fragment, measuring approximately 11 x 5 centimeters, contains a total of thirteen lines in Greek letters and comes from Egypt. The papyrus remained unnoticed in the library’s inventory for several decades because its contents were considered insignificant. “It was thought to be part of an everyday document, such as a private letter or a shopping list, because the handwriting looked very clumsy,” explains Lajos Berkes, a professor at the Faculty of Theology.

When they noticed that the word “Jesus” was on the parchment, they began to compare the text with the text of other papyri that had already been digitized. The researchers then realized that this piece of parchment could not be an everyday document. When they tried to connect the keywords “Sing” and “branch”, they determined that it was the text of the Gospel of Thomas.

According to researchers, it is likely that this copy of the Gospel of Thomas was created as a writing exercise in a school or monastery due to imprecise handwriting and irregular lines.

The Gospel of Thomas tells episodes from the childhood of Jesus and is part of the biblical apocrypha. The texts were not included in the Bible, but the stories were very popular and widespread in Antiquity and the Middle Ages.

The story told in this Gospel took place when Jesus was only five years old. Jesus made twelve sparrows from soft clay that he found in the mud. When his father, Joseph, reprimands him and asks why he does such things on Holy Saturday, Jesus claps his hands and brings the clay figurines to life.