A discovery in a Hamburg library has brought to light a copy of the Gospel of Thomas believed to date back nearly 1600 years. A papyrus expert from the Institute of Christianity and Antiquity at Humboldt University in Berlin, along with colleagues, notes that the find has attracted significant attention from researchers. The team, including Lajos Berkes and his counterpart from Belgium, has discussed the material and the text in recent communications. The researchers emphasize that the document, once puzzling to scholars, is now beginning to reveal its long-hidden story to the academic world. In discussions attributed to the discovery team, the Hamburg item is identified as a piece that could shed new light on how the text circulated in antiquity and how copies of the Gospel were transmitted across distant regions.
According to the report, the papyrus, cataloged under inventory number 1011, had remained in the library’s holdings for a considerable time before modern scholars could finally interpret its writing. The breakthrough came through careful paleographic analysis and preliminary linguistic work, enabling researchers to read what had eluded prior centuries of study. The significance lies not only in the contents but also in the physical analysis that helps place the fragment within a broader historical framework.
Experts state that the fragment shows strong dating to the 4th to 5th centuries, a window that places it among the oldest known copies of the text and marks it as a crucial piece in understanding how the Gospel of Thomas circulated in late antiquity. In discussing the implications, the researchers point out that the material may offer fresh information about how the text was transmitted, copied, and shared among early Christian communities. This adds a new layer to discussions about the textual lineage of the Gospel of Thomas and its reception in different linguistic and cultural environments.
Previously, the scholarly consensus around the earliest Greek renderings of the Gospel of Thomas centered on a different set of artifacts, notably wax-covered wooden tablets dating from later medieval periods that were organized into a notebook-like collection. The Hamburg find challenges that timeline by suggesting an earlier Greek textual witness and invites a re-evaluation of what constitutes the oldest surviving Greek version of the gospel. The narrative surrounding these discoveries reflects how fragile and evolving our understanding of ancient texts can be, especially when new material comes to light.
In a broader scholarly context, historians have long explored how early modern England approached questions of belief and accusation. For instance, studies conducted at Cambridge have examined why, in the XVI–XVII centuries, some working women faced charges related to witchcraft, revealing social dynamics that intersect with how communities interpreted unusual or unexplained phenomena. Additional investigations have also looked at seemingly unrelated historical threads, such as the tale of a lost letter associated with Shakespeare, which underscores the way literary and scholarly mysteries persist across generations. These threads illustrate the richness and complexity of historical inquiry and remind readers that new discoveries often interact with longstanding questions about the past. ”