Oxyrhynchus Papyri Update

If you are not familiar with the Oxyryhnchus Papyri being examined today, check out this article: Oxyrhynchus Papyri updated. This is really exciting stuff. I would only like to mention a bit of caution for some readers and followers of this sort of news, who happen to be Christian.

Here's a quote from the article:

There were plays by Sophocles and Euripides, poems of Pindar and Sappho, and some of the earliest documents recording Christianity's spread to Egypt. The gospel of Thomas, for example, records the "Sayings of Jesus" in a manner that some scholars of early Christianity believe is more authentic than the Gospels in the New Testament.

Also, about a month or so ago a report came out talking about a fragment of the Bible's Revelation that explained the number of the beast was 616 and not 666. If you are not careful, you could fall into the trap of believing your what some people out there are saying: that we've been wrong all these years, there is validity to the Gospel of Thomas, and so forth. You don't have to fear information that comes out, or a furtherance of knowledge.

The Gospel of Thomas is not a true "good news" account of Christ. All you have to do is begin to read the text. You don't get too far before you realize there is a problem. By the end, especially when you read about women being turned into men, you scoff at people's attempts to equate this with, or even supress, the true Gospels. I for one would love to have a grasp on the exact dating of the Gospel of Thomas. If the timing is correct, then we have this work being created before AD 79 and the eruption of Mt. Vesuvius. I personally believe the Gnostics were extant in the mid-first century, to the point that the Apostle John wrote about them in his epistles. To the point that Ignatius of Antioch would push his readers to reject the Gnostic heresy as he went to his martyrdom. But, maybe I will discuss the Gospel of Thomas on a later blog.

As for the number of the Beast, Irenaeus long ago (second century AD) wrote debunking the idea the the number was 616. We knew about this number existing long before this came out. It was wrong then; it's still wrong now. No need to fret. You have no idea how many bits and rants I've read from folks. Even some LDS folks posted such things as, "Christianity was wrong about the beast" and so forth. Then, you correct them, and they respond with silence.

There is no reason to be shaken by this sort of thing. It will still be decades before this is all sorted out and discussed thoroughly and developed into systematic information.

But, all things Soli Deo Gloria!