Oxyrhynchus

fragment of a poem about the Labors of Heracles. 3rd century

One final fragment to complete our list of lost, hidden, invented or simply hypothetical gospels; this one is known as Oxyrhynchus, a word that means "sharp-nosed" in ancient Egyptian, though the place is now called el-Bahnasa in modern Arabic; it is located in Upper Egypt, about 120 miles south of Cairo, and has been a site of almost continuous archaeological excavation for decades, yielding huge numbers of papyrus manuscripts that include "The Gospel according to Thomas", the plays of Menander, and even fragments of Euclid's "Elements".

Oxyrhynchus was originally a fish, and in Egyptian mythology it was the very fish that swallowed Osher's (Osiris') penis after he had been gored by Set into fourteen pieces; Eshet (Isis) found them, on the coast of Kena'an (Canaan) south of Tsur (Tyre), in that area that would become the tribe of Asher. But before Alexander of Macedon renamed the town Oxyrhynchou Polis, it was known as Per-Medjed, and the tributary canal of the Nile on which it sits was known as Bahr Yussef, the Canal of Joseph, adding weight to the suggestion that Yoseph was a native Egyptian (or a scion of the conquering Hyksos) and not a son of Ya'akov at all, any more than was his brother Ben-Oni, also known as Bin-Yamin.

Bronze amulet of the Medjed fish. 664-30 BCE

It was the capital of the 19th Egyptian "nome", or administrative district, and in Hellenic times it was the third city of Egypt. It became a Christian town, but was effectively abandoned after the Arab invasion in 641, after which the canal system failed, and the place was turned into a garbage dump for the next thousand years; but a relatively dry garbage dump, because the Nile does not flood there, so what was trashed remained accessible to archaeologists.

Christian texts found there include fragments of early non-Canonical Gospels; Oxyrhynchus 840 from the 3rd century CE; Oxyrhynchus 1224 from the 4th; parts of Matthew 1 in a 3rd century rendering, as well as chapter 11:12 and 11:19 from the same period; the whole of Mark 10–11 from the 5th and 6th centuries; John 1 and 20 from the 3rd; Romans 1 from the 4th; the First Epistle of John from the 4th; chapters 12–14 of the Jewish apocryphal "Apocalypse of Baruch" written down in the 4th or 5th century CE; "The Gospel of the Hebrews"; a work known as "The Shepherd of Hermas" from the 3rd or 4th century; and some of the writings of Irenaeus. I wish I could remember which of these it was that I used to show students, in the school library at Clifton College; and I wish I knew how the school came to be in possession of it.

Oxyrhynchus 840 

The fragment of Oxyrhynchus 840 that has survived begins with a moral sermon on the subject of planning ahead, reminding the reader of the need to think "afterlife" and not "carpe diem".

It then recounts a confrontation between Jesus and his disciples and a senior Pharisaic priest, who instructs them to leave the Temple as they are ritually unclean. The Jesuitic response - that ritual cleanliness, achieved by mikveh, is equivalent to a harlot bathing in water used by dogs and pigs - shows a remarkable lack of understanding of Judaism by the author, or by Jesus if the piece is genuine; the whole point of the mikveh being that it cannot be standing water, but must be natural and flowing, so that its source is pure; indeed, exactly what Jesus in this tale then describes as "the life-giving water that flows down from Heaven in baptism".

Jesus is called "Saviour" (the Greek word used is σωτήρ - pronounced "sotèr), which is rare in the Christian Bible; but, and more importantly, the Greek word really means "protector" (it was one of Zeus' epithets for precisely that reason) or "preserver", which is an entirely different concept of "saving" from either the political Mashiyach or the priestly Moshi'a, which are the two Yehudit words from which English takes its somewhat confused concept of a Messiah.

There are some suggestions (by historians, interpreting the text) that the author belonged to a sect that followed John the Baptist, and may have been based in Syria. I am unable to identify the sources that support this hypothesis.

The Oxyrhynchus Hymn

Oxyrhynchus 1224

Two small papyrus fragments have survived, carbon dated to the late 3rd or early 4th century; six pieces of writing that are not long enough to call passages, each more or less a single sentence. Two of the longer ones are probably misquotations from Mark 2:17 and Luke 9:50. Faith-committed Christians have attempted to date the composition as early as 50 CE (AD in their calendar), but it is highly unlikely; 150 CE is the estimation of the scholars. 

The Irish scholar John Dominic Crossan, who knows as much as anybody on this subject, and a good deal more than most, is convinced that the text "does not seem to be dependent on the New Testament gospels.... As an independent gospel, it belongs, insofar as its fragmentary state allows us to see, not with discourse gospels involving the risen Jesus (e.g., the Secret Book of James and the Gospel of Mary), but with sayings gospels involving the earthly Jesus (e.g., Q document and the Gospel of Thomas)."

Copyright © 2020 David Prashker

All rights reserved

The Argaman Press