Amazing rare text showing Jesus’ secret teachings to his ‘brother’ James unearthed by scholars in Oxford
Researchers were amazed to find a Greek copy of a heretical Christian document at the University of Oxford earlier this year
AN ancient Christian document said to reveal secret teachings that Jesus made to to his "brother" has been uncovered.
Biblical scholars found the 1,600-year-old Ancient Greek manuscript at the Oxford University, showing how Jesus passed on to disciple James teachings of the heavenly realm and predictions for the future – including James’s own death.
It is extremely rare to find a copy of such a manuscript in Greek, since any writing that added to or changed the existing New Testament in any way was considered heretical by the church.
Dr Geoffrey Smith, an assistant professor of religious studies at the University of Texas at Austin and one of the two scholars who made the discovery, said: “The text supplements the biblical account of Jesus’s life and ministry by allowing us access to conversations that purportedly took place between Jesus and his brother, James — secret teachings that allowed James to be a good teacher after Jesus’s death."
The pair were not literally brothers, although are often referred to as such for their close relationship.
added: "This new discovery is significant in part because it demonstrates that Christians were still reading and studying extra-canonical writings long after Christian leaders deemed them heretical.”
The documents were first discovered in Egypt 70 years ago. Called the Nag Hammadi Library, they are a collection of 13 Coptic Gnostic books.
The shock find earlier this year revealed several fifth or sixth century fragments of the Gnostic story of the First Apocalypse of James.
Gnosticism is a modern name for a variety of ancient religious ideas and systems, originating in the first and second century AD.
Researchers believe that the text, with its neat, uniform handwriting and words separated into syllable, was likely used as a teaching piece to help young Egyptians learn Greek centuries ago.
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“To say that we were excited once we realised what we'd found is an understatement,” enthused Dr Smith. "We never suspected that Greek fragments of the First Apocalypse of James survived from antiquity. But there they were, right in front of us.”