1,200-year-old Egyptian text describes a shape-shifting Jesus [NBC News]

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"A newly deciphered Egyptian text, dating back almost 1,200 years, tells part of the crucifixion story of Jesus with apocryphal plot twists, some of which have never been seen before.
Written in the Coptic language, the ancient text tells of Pontius Pilate, the judge who authorized Jesus’ crucifixion, having dinner with Jesus before his crucifixion and offering to sacrifice his own son in the place of Jesus. It also explains why Judas used a kiss, specifically, to betray Jesus — because Jesus had the ability to change shape, according to the text — and it puts the day of the arrest of Jesus on Tuesday evening rather than Thursday evening, something that contravenes the Easter timeline…"
Read more here: science.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/03/12/17286044-1200-year-old-egyptian-text-describes-a-shape-shifting-jesus?lite

Well, this is one of the more interesting (and dare I say, entertaining?) apocryphal texts! As it came from Egypt around 800 AD, what factors do you think may have influenced its fantastical stories?

NB: Mods, I put this in Non-Catholic Religions instead of World News, as I figured it would be seen more here. Please move it wherever you see fit.
 
I’m not trying to lend any validity to this find but quite seriously, I always wondered how Jesus seemed to get away just at the time that the crowd was ready to kill him.
 
Every year, around this time, nonsense is published concerning Jesus. Every year.

Ed

Did I mention, every year?
 
Every year, around this time, nonsense is published concerning Jesus. Every year.

Ed

Did I mention, every year?
Sad part is, there’s so many gullible people who believe in this stuff every single year.
 
Get ready for Dan Brown’s next book: The Shape-Shifting-Jesus.
 
I’m not trying to lend any validity to this find but quite seriously, I always wondered how Jesus seemed to get away just at the time that the crowd was ready to kill him.
It’s unknown “how” it happened nor does it matter. For faith, it suffices that it was not yet time.

My current speculation: He never resisted. A murderous crowd may be focused on one who is trying to resist them.
 
I’m so glad the Church is led by the Holy Spirit and not by the next big myth.

🙂
 
It’s unknown “how” it happened nor does it matter. For faith, it suffices that it was not yet time.

My current speculation: He never resisted. A murderous crowd may be focused on one who is trying to resist them.
That’s what I usually imagine, too: a sort of holy passive resistance, combined with great human dignity and a certain look of divine reproach in his eyes, calmed and shamed the crowds so that he could gather himself and walk away.
 
Every year, around this time, nonsense is published concerning Jesus. Every year.
Hey, now, the article isn’t nonsense unless you think the scholarship or translation is bad. Or, if you think the reporting of this research is not accurate. Of course, the actual translated text can well be nonsense itself, but the scholarly study of an ancient text is never nonsense.

Maybe the text was a gnostic christian text. Maybe gnostic christianity persisted in Egypt that late. I thought it died out around 300 AD, but I’m not in any way an expert. Anyway, it’s an interesting discovery.
 
Hey, now, the article isn’t nonsense unless you think the scholarship or translation is bad. Or, if you think the reporting of this research is not accurate. Of course, the actual translated text can well be nonsense itself, but the scholarly study of an ancient text is never nonsense.

Maybe the text was a gnostic christian text. Maybe gnostic christianity persisted in Egypt that late. I thought it died out around 300 AD, but I’m not in any way an expert. Anyway, it’s an interesting discovery.
I think the primary objection is that there seems to be a flurry of articles that cast alternative views of the Lord in the weeks preceding Easter (ad well as Christmas). Whether this is really the case or a perception created by proximity to the holiday is unclear to me as I haven’t seen a statistical analysis regarding the release of such articles.

The article does not mention when the study was published so it is possible they sat on it for some time. At any rate, its publication may intensify the manuscript’s study to better determine who the authors were and understand more about them.
 
yawn

Yeah, those kisses can completely prevent a supposed shape shifting Son of God from shape shifting. And if you take his communicator away, he can’t be beemed up to the Enterprise.:rolleyes:
 
yawn

Yeah, those kisses can completely prevent a supposed shape shifting Son of God from shape shifting. And if you take his communicator away, he can’t be beemed up to the Enterprise.:rolleyes:
😃
Those silly Gnostics!

In all seriousness though, this is very interesting historically. I did feel a very strong Gnostic-theme when reading those excerpts. Like a poster above said, I thought Gnosticism died out fairly early (pre-300s, I would say); the fact that this text was from 800 or so shows that it was still believed. Very interesting.
 
I think the primary objection is that there seems to be a flurry of articles that cast alternative views of the Lord in the weeks preceding Easter (ad well as Christmas). Whether this is really the case or a perception created by proximity to the holiday is unclear to me as I haven’t seen a statistical analysis regarding the release of such articles.

The article does not mention when the study was published so it is possible they sat on it for some time. At any rate, its publication may intensify the manuscript’s study to better determine who the authors were and understand more about them.
Ah, I understand what you mean. I think maybe what happens is that a lot of the world doesn’t really think about Christian theology all that much (or at all) most of the time. But, when there is a holiday that brings Christianity back to the forefront of people’s attention, you get editors and journalists looking for unique Christianity-related stories.
 
That’s what I usually imagine, too: a sort of holy passive resistance, combined with great human dignity and a certain look of divine reproach in his eyes, calmed and shamed the crowds so that he could gather himself and walk away.
That is how imagine it as well. Although Jesus could have achieved it miraculously. He walked on water etc…
 
The only unfortunate thing about these texts (because in historical terms they are valuable) is that … Then academics get together and say “AH HA!!! See those evil orthodox christians were just suppressing everything they disagreed with. Here’s another equally valid part of the story”…

If only they knew, really knew…
 
This stuff sounds like it came out of the Islamic book the Quran.

4:157

That they said (in boast), “We killed Christ Jesus the son of Mary, the Messenger of Allah”;- but they killed him not, nor crucified him, but so it was made to appear to them, and those who differ therein are full of doubts, with no (certain) knowledge, but only conjecture to follow, for of a surety they killed him not

Here is Islamic explanation of 4:157

This verse is explicit on the point that the Prophet Jesus Christ was rescued from crucifixion and that the Christians and the Jews are both wrong in believing that he died on the cross. A comparative study of the Qur’an and the Bible shows that most probably it was Jesus himself who stood his trial in the court of Pilate, who sentenced him to death, but they could not kill or crucify him, for Allah raised him to Himself.

This is what happened, Pilate knew fully well that Christ was innocent and had been brought in his court out of jealousy. So he asked the crowd whether Jesus Christ should be released on the occasion of the Festival or Barabbas, a notorious robber.

But the high priests and elders persuaded the crowd to ask for the release of Barabbas and for the crucifixion of Jesus. After this, God, Who can do any and everything He wills, raised Jesus to Himself and rescued him from crucifixion and the one who was crucified afterwards was somehow or other taken for Chris.

Nevertheless, his miraculous escape does not lessen the wicked crime of the Jews, because they knew it well that the one, whom they crowned with a crown of thorns, and on whose face they spat and whom they crucified with disgrace was Christ, the son of Mary. As regards the matter how “it was made doubtful for them” that they had crucified Jesus, we have no means of ascertaining. Therefore it is not right to base on mere guess-work and rumors an answer to the question how the Jews were made to believe that they had crucified him, whereas in fact, Jesus, the son of Mary, had escaped from them.

“Those who have differed”: the Christians. They do not agree in their versions of crucifixion. The very fact that they offer so many different accounts of the matter is by itself a proof that they possess no definite knowledge of it and are, therefore, in doubt about it.

One version is that the person who was crucified was not Jesus but someone who bore his likeness, whom the Jews and the Romans had disgracefully put on the cross, while Jesus was standing nearby and laughing at their folly.

Another version is that the one who was nailed to the cross was Jesus, but he did not die on the cross and was alive when he was taken down from it. Some others say that he died on the cross but came to life afterwards and met his disciples more than ten times and talked to them.

Still others say that death due to crucifixion occurred on the physical body of Jesus and he was buried but the Divine Spirit within him was raised. There are still others who say that after his death Jesus came to life with his body and was raised with his body. Obviously, if the Christians had any knowledge of the truth, they would not have given so many different versions of it.

Source taken from an Islamic site.

searchtruth.com/tafsir/tafsir.php?chapter=4
 
The bubonic plague and heretical ideas from gnosticism is what greatly weakened the faith of the Catholic Christians where Egypt fell to Islam.
 
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