For decades, an ancient piece of papyrus sourced from Egypt had been gathering dust in a university library in Hamburg, Germany. At first glance, it doesn’t look like much. The fragmented text is written in clumsy handwriting and, at first glance, looks like some private letter or some other kind of trivial document like thousands of others in the museum’s collection.

But when researchers had a second look, the word “Jesus” written in Greek letters immediately stood out. Upon closer inspection, it dawned on them that the unnoticed document contains fragments of the “Infancy Gospel of Thomas,” which features stories from Jesus Christ’s childhood.

A controversial gospel not found in the Bible

Further analysis revealed the papyrus is 1,600 years old, making it the earliest document detailing Jesus’ childhood. Previously, the earliest known version of this gospel came from an 11th-century codex.

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 and translated the ancient text. It was written sometime between the 4th and 5th century in late antique Egypt.

The surviving text, which measures around 11 x 5 centimetres, includes just 13 lines written in Greek letters, but the researchers could tell it describes one of the miracles known to be featured in the Gospel of Thomas. It tells the story of how, as a 5-year-old Jesus turned clay figurines into real birds.

The full story reads like so:

“This child Jesus, when five years old, was playing in the ford of a mountain stream; and He collected the flowing waters into pools, and made them clear immediately, and by a word alone He made them obey Him. And having made some soft clay, He fashioned out of it twelve sparrows. And it was the Sabbath when He did these things. And there were also many other children playing with Him. And a certain Jew, seeing what Jesus was doing, playing on the Sabbath, went off immediately, and said to his father Joseph: Behold, your son is at the stream, and has taken clay, and made of it twelve birds, and has profaned the Sabbath. And Joseph, coming to the place and seeing, cried out to Him, saying: Why do you do on the Sabbath what it is not lawful to do? And Jesus clapped His hands, and cried out to the sparrows, and said to them: Off you go! And the sparrows flew, and went off crying. And the Jews seeing this were amazed, and went away and reported to their chief men what they had seen Jesus doing.”

A different version of Jesus

The Gospel of Thomas is believed to have been composed around the 2nd century AD. In the apocryphal text, we encounter a young Jesus performing miracles that are both awe-inspiring and, at times, troubling. For instance, the story of Jesus shaping sparrows from clay is one of the most famous and wholesome in this gospel. But there are also stories where Jesus’ actions result in harm and death. In one such story, Jesus strikes a boy dead, only to revive him after Joseph admonishes young Jesus.

The Gospel of Thomas is not included in the Bible for several reasons, primarily due to factors related to its origin, content, and theological consistency. This gospel was written much later than the canonical gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. Its authorship is uncertain, and it was not attributed to any of the apostles or their close associates.

Some of the stories, such as the one where Jesus causes harm to others, are not consistent with the core teachings of Christianity. Other scholars believe that the Infancy Gospel of Thomas may have been influenced by Gnostic thought. This was considered heretical by orthodox Christianity. Gnosticism often emphasized esoteric knowledge and portrayed Jesus in ways that diverged from mainstream Christian doctrine.

Nevertheless, the resurfaced papyrus is incredibly valuable from a historical perspective. For instance, it seems to confirm assumptions that the very earliest texts of the Gospel of Thomas were written in Greek. The clumsy writing suggests that this copy was created as a writing exercise in a school or monastery.

The fragment is “of extraordinary interest for research,” Berkes said, noting that it offers “new insights into the transmission of the text.”