Earliest known account of Jesus Christs childhood found [Video]

A newly deciphered manuscript on a papyrus fragment that went largely unnoticed for decades at a library in Germany has been identified as the earliest known account of Jesus Christ’s childhood.

Papyrologists Dr. Lajos Berkes from the Institute for Christianity and Antiquity at the Humboldt University of Berlin, and Professor Gabriel Nocchi Macedo from the University of Liège, Belgium, have identified the fragment as the earliest surviving copy of the Infancy Gospel of Thomas.

The manuscript dates back to the early days of Christianity more than 1,600 years ago.

“The fragment is of extraordinary interest for research,” Lajos Berkes, lecturer at Humboldt University’s Faculty of Theology, said in a statement. “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 …