Biblical scholars at the University of Texas in Austin have discovered a Christian text dating back to 1,500 years. The manuscript is a fragment of the New Testament Apocrypha, known as the "First Apocalypse of James," which refers to early Christian literature and is rejected by the church as heretical. On Friday, December 1, The Independent reports.
The manuscript was found in the archives of the Egyptian Research Society at Oxford University. It is part of the Nag Hammadi Library, a collection of ancient manuscripts discovered in 1945 near the Egyptian settlement of Nag Hammadi. The Library includes the texts of Gnostic Christianity, which included the mythology and philosophy of Hellenism and was considered by orthodox Christians as a heretical teaching.
The found manuscript is one of the few written in Greek. Most of the Nag Hammadi texts are translations into Coptic, which was common in Hellenistic Egypt.
The text describes the secret revelations of Christ to one of the seventy apostles - James, who, according to a number of versions, is the brother of Jesus. In them, the Messiah talks about the Kingdom of Heaven, predicts the future and describes the death of Jacob himself. The manuscript also includes an account of the life and ministry of Jesus.
According to scientists, the manuscript could be used for educational purposes and be a model for learning to read and write. Most of the text, written in neat, legible handwriting, was divided into syllables by dots, which is unusual in ancient manuscripts.