0:00:05 > 0:00:07Egypt.
0:00:07 > 0:00:09The setting for a unique and historic quest.
0:00:09 > 0:00:11CAMELS BRAY
0:00:11 > 0:00:15The quest to find ancient scriptures in support of the largest
0:00:15 > 0:00:16religion in the world...
0:00:16 > 0:00:17BELLS RING
0:00:17 > 0:00:19..Christianity.
0:00:19 > 0:00:21RELIGIOUS CHANTING
0:00:23 > 0:00:28At stake - the faith of millions with the Bible at its heart.
0:00:28 > 0:00:31But there are deep divisions between those who consider the Bible
0:00:31 > 0:00:33to be the absolute word of God
0:00:33 > 0:00:36and those who take a less literal view of its teachings.
0:00:44 > 0:00:48200 years ago, for the first time, the historical story of Jesus
0:00:48 > 0:00:52and the reliability of New Testament Gospels came under attack.
0:00:54 > 0:00:56To defend the authority of the Bible,
0:00:56 > 0:00:59Bible hunters scoured the monasteries of Egypt
0:00:59 > 0:01:03in search of the world's oldest biblical manuscripts.
0:01:03 > 0:01:07What they found were challenging variations between ancient
0:01:07 > 0:01:09and current biblical texts.
0:01:10 > 0:01:13The threat that the Gospels
0:01:13 > 0:01:18may not be the pure Word of God was received like a bombshell.
0:01:20 > 0:01:23But what if it wasn't just variations between the biblical texts
0:01:23 > 0:01:26we have today and those they'd rediscovered?
0:01:27 > 0:01:30What if they found whole new texts and gospels?
0:01:30 > 0:01:34In effect, a lost alternative Christianity?
0:01:37 > 0:01:40I'm Jeff Rose, an archaeologist and historian.
0:01:40 > 0:01:43I want to explore what the Bible hunters discovered
0:01:43 > 0:01:48and ask just how this affects the very foundations of the Christian faith.
0:02:00 > 0:02:03This is the abandoned city of Oxyrhynchus,
0:02:03 > 0:02:05in the desert of Egypt, south of Cairo.
0:02:11 > 0:02:13A centre of early Christianity,
0:02:13 > 0:02:17the site was a magnet for 19th-century Bible hunters.
0:02:19 > 0:02:23In 1897, two British archaeologists, Bernard Grenfell
0:02:23 > 0:02:25and Arthur Hunt, came here to dig.
0:02:27 > 0:02:30They were looking for the world's oldest Bibles.
0:02:31 > 0:02:34In their own words, "Some day or another,
0:02:34 > 0:02:37"a New Testament of the 2nd century must turn up in Egypt."
0:02:42 > 0:02:45In an ancient rubbish pile, they found over a half million
0:02:45 > 0:02:47fragments of Greek papyri.
0:02:48 > 0:02:52One of them, a sensational text from the 2nd century AD...
0:02:54 > 0:02:57..with sayings attributed to Jesus.
0:02:59 > 0:03:03"Jesus said - 'My soul grieveth over the sons of men,
0:03:03 > 0:03:05"'because they are blind in their heart.'"
0:03:08 > 0:03:12Some of the Jesus sayings found at Oxyrhynchus were known
0:03:12 > 0:03:14and quoted in the Gospels of the New Testament.
0:03:16 > 0:03:19But other sayings were completely new to Bible readers.
0:03:20 > 0:03:24"If you do not fast from the world, you will not find
0:03:24 > 0:03:26"the Kingdom of God.
0:03:26 > 0:03:28"And if you do not keep the Sabbath a Sabbath,
0:03:28 > 0:03:30"you will not see the Father."
0:03:32 > 0:03:36If these new Sayings Of Jesus were genuine,
0:03:36 > 0:03:39they threatened the authority and reliability of the Bible text.
0:03:41 > 0:03:44Devout Christians believed that the Bible contains
0:03:44 > 0:03:46the absolute Word of God.
0:03:46 > 0:03:49Yet here was startling evidence of sayings attributed
0:03:49 > 0:03:52to Jesus which never even appear in the Bible as we know it.
0:04:00 > 0:04:03To understand the full importance of this discovery,
0:04:03 > 0:04:05we have to travel back in time.
0:04:07 > 0:04:10To the earliest centuries of Christianity - the time
0:04:10 > 0:04:14of Jesus' crucifixion in Jerusalem around 33 AD.
0:04:18 > 0:04:21It was shortly before the Jewish Passover that Jesus,
0:04:21 > 0:04:25a radical and controversial Jewish preacher, came to the city.
0:04:26 > 0:04:28Jesus arrives in Jerusalem
0:04:28 > 0:04:32and it's clear that his arrival has caused great excitement
0:04:32 > 0:04:35and the message is very clear that there is going
0:04:35 > 0:04:40to be some form of transformation, a new kingdom is at hand.
0:04:40 > 0:04:44But within a week, this movement is completely, apparently, snuffed out.
0:04:47 > 0:04:51There is no more humiliating way of destroying someone than to
0:04:51 > 0:04:52crucify them.
0:04:57 > 0:05:01But something happened in the 36 hours after the crucifixion
0:05:01 > 0:05:04that made the followers of Jesus believe that he was
0:05:04 > 0:05:07God's Messiah, God's divine saviour.
0:05:07 > 0:05:09And the bringer of a new world order.
0:05:11 > 0:05:15At some point, there is the idea that there is an
0:05:15 > 0:05:20empty tomb and that there is a possibility that, in some way, Jesus
0:05:20 > 0:05:25has survived, has become alive even, possibly even in a physical sense,
0:05:25 > 0:05:29that although he appears to be dead, he has triumphed in some way.
0:05:29 > 0:05:33The story of the resurrection of Jesus comes down to us
0:05:33 > 0:05:37through the four Gospels - Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, written several
0:05:37 > 0:05:41decades after the crucifixion, when Jesus' disciples were getting old.
0:05:44 > 0:05:47Those Gospels essentially arose
0:05:47 > 0:05:52at a time when Jesus' followers, the apostles,
0:05:52 > 0:05:57they were dying out, and therefore, it was felt
0:05:57 > 0:06:01that there needed to be something of Jesus' words, his teaching,
0:06:01 > 0:06:05his deeds that needed to be recorded for posterity, as it were.
0:06:06 > 0:06:09The four Gospels are a key part of the official
0:06:09 > 0:06:11text of the New Testament, the Canon.
0:06:13 > 0:06:17For almost 2,000 years, they had the monopoly on the story of Jesus.
0:06:17 > 0:06:22Until the discovery of the New Sayings Of Jesus in 1897.
0:06:26 > 0:06:30In Europe, the introduction of a new biblical text caused a storm.
0:06:30 > 0:06:33Scholars and believers were in the midst of an acrimonious
0:06:33 > 0:06:35debate about the Bible and the Christian faith.
0:06:38 > 0:06:40In the 19th century,
0:06:40 > 0:06:44there was the most febrile debate about religion.
0:06:44 > 0:06:47It was really the thing that fired everybody up.
0:06:47 > 0:06:50It was about your very self, your soul, it was the most
0:06:50 > 0:06:54violent disagreement about religion since the Reformation.
0:06:56 > 0:07:00Under scrutiny was the historical reliability of both
0:07:00 > 0:07:02the New Testament,
0:07:02 > 0:07:04and of the Old Testament,
0:07:04 > 0:07:07written by ancient Israelites long before the appearance of Jesus.
0:07:08 > 0:07:11Critical history really challenged
0:07:11 > 0:07:15the foundations of Christianity, by looking at the fundamental texts
0:07:15 > 0:07:20of Christianity, and wondering if they were original, true, authentic.
0:07:22 > 0:07:24But why was this debate about the truth of the Bible
0:07:24 > 0:07:26happening in Europe?
0:07:26 > 0:07:28And why were Bible hunters heading for Egypt?
0:07:32 > 0:07:35It had all started 100 years earlier because France had
0:07:35 > 0:07:38imperial ambitions in the eastern Mediterranean.
0:07:40 > 0:07:44In 1798, Napoleon Bonaparte arrived here with
0:07:44 > 0:07:46an army of 40,000 soldiers.
0:07:49 > 0:07:53Although he failed to establish a permanent foothold in Egypt,
0:07:53 > 0:07:56he opened this ancient and mysterious country
0:07:56 > 0:07:57to an army of Bible hunters.
0:08:01 > 0:08:03He's definitely here for political reasons,
0:08:03 > 0:08:07he's definitely here for military reasons, but any voyage into
0:08:07 > 0:08:12Egypt in the 19th century is going to be shrouded with romanticism.
0:08:12 > 0:08:14Egypt is seen very much as the birthplace of the
0:08:14 > 0:08:18arts and sciences, it's a land that hasn't been accessed freely
0:08:18 > 0:08:19since classical antiquity.
0:08:21 > 0:08:25Among Napoleon's army was the surveyor Vivant Denon.
0:08:25 > 0:08:28A trailblazer for the Bible hunters.
0:08:28 > 0:08:31His drawings alerted the world to the wonders of Egypt
0:08:31 > 0:08:33and challenged long-held views of history.
0:08:34 > 0:08:38The French, the British, and the Germans were obsessed with the idea
0:08:38 > 0:08:41that they were natural heirs to the great civilisations
0:08:41 > 0:08:43of Rome and Greece.
0:08:43 > 0:08:45But Denon's drawings revealed an older,
0:08:45 > 0:08:48more spectacular civilisation -
0:08:48 > 0:08:49Ancient Egypt.
0:08:58 > 0:09:01360 miles south of Cairo, Denon happened upon
0:09:01 > 0:09:03the ancient temple of Denderah.
0:09:06 > 0:09:10THEY SPEAK IN EGYPTIAN ARABIC
0:09:11 > 0:09:12He was awestruck.
0:09:18 > 0:09:20"This monument seemed to me
0:09:20 > 0:09:24"to have the primitive character of a temple in the most perfect state.
0:09:28 > 0:09:31"In the ruins of Denderah, the Egyptians appeared to me
0:09:31 > 0:09:33"like giants."
0:09:47 > 0:09:51Denderah was full of mysterious images and hieroglyphs,
0:09:51 > 0:09:53which Denon couldn't decipher.
0:09:56 > 0:09:59He had no idea that he was about to make one of
0:09:59 > 0:10:02the most controversial discoveries of the age,
0:10:02 > 0:10:05a direct challenge to the authority of the Bible.
0:10:10 > 0:10:12Deep within the main temple,
0:10:12 > 0:10:14something truly spectacular awaited him.
0:10:16 > 0:10:21A narrow stairwell leads upward. On top is a small room.
0:10:22 > 0:10:24On its ceiling - a sensation.
0:10:27 > 0:10:29A zodiac.
0:10:29 > 0:10:32A circle of animals representing the constellation of the stars
0:10:32 > 0:10:34at a specific date in history.
0:10:37 > 0:10:41Denon made a sketch of the zodiac so he could show it to French scholars.
0:10:43 > 0:10:45They were so impressed that a treasure hunter was
0:10:45 > 0:10:49dispatched to retrieve the zodiac for the French nation.
0:10:49 > 0:10:52What you see here isn't the original zodiac.
0:10:52 > 0:10:56That one was removed "oh, so carefully!" using explosives
0:10:56 > 0:10:57and then brought back to France.
0:10:59 > 0:11:01The zodiac ended up in the Louvre,
0:11:01 > 0:11:04where Denon became director after his return to France.
0:11:07 > 0:11:10Soon, he was embroiled in a heated controversy about the age of
0:11:10 > 0:11:14the zodiac, with huge implications for the authority of the Bible.
0:11:16 > 0:11:18In the 19th century,
0:11:18 > 0:11:22Christians believed the world was created in 4004 BC.
0:11:22 > 0:11:26This PRECISE date was proposed by the Irish Bishop Ussher
0:11:26 > 0:11:29after he meticulously calculated a timeline using
0:11:29 > 0:11:32all of the genealogies in the Bible.
0:11:32 > 0:11:36But if the Denderah zodiac was older than 4004 BC,
0:11:36 > 0:11:38this implied that the Bible was wrong.
0:11:38 > 0:11:41THUNDER PEALS
0:11:41 > 0:11:44French scholars read the zodiac as a clear
0:11:44 > 0:11:49representation of the night sky as seen at the time that it was carved.
0:11:49 > 0:11:52Through astronomy, they concluded that it was far older
0:11:52 > 0:11:54than 4004 years BC.
0:11:55 > 0:12:00The date that they give to this monument is about 15,000 BC,
0:12:00 > 0:12:04so long before the biblical creation.
0:12:04 > 0:12:06So this is really dangerous material for
0:12:06 > 0:12:09Bible-believing Christians and it causes a
0:12:09 > 0:12:13huge battle in France between the conservative Catholic Church, who
0:12:13 > 0:12:17want to argue that this is a much, much later monument,
0:12:17 > 0:12:20and the atheists and radicals in France,
0:12:20 > 0:12:24who are committed to this date of 15,000 BC.
0:12:25 > 0:12:30The controversy surrounding the zodiac raged for more than 20 years.
0:12:30 > 0:12:36Until the brilliant French scientist Jean-Francois Champollion got involved.
0:12:36 > 0:12:41So Champollion looks at these images of the Denderah ceiling
0:12:41 > 0:12:45and he finds there a word - autocrater.
0:12:45 > 0:12:48This is a Greek or Roman title,
0:12:48 > 0:12:53so Champollion argues that this has to be a Roman-age temple.
0:12:53 > 0:12:57He, Champollion, the great radical, ends up defending the Church
0:12:57 > 0:13:00and demonstrating this to be a much later monument.
0:13:04 > 0:13:08The Pope was so pleased, he offered to make him a cardinal.
0:13:08 > 0:13:11Which is a nice gesture, but Champollion was both married
0:13:11 > 0:13:12and an atheist.
0:13:12 > 0:13:14HYMN SINGING
0:13:14 > 0:13:16But the damage to the Bible's reputation had been done.
0:13:17 > 0:13:22Scholars had started to question if the stories of the Bible were true.
0:13:22 > 0:13:25Denderah challenges the Old Testament.
0:13:25 > 0:13:28The idea of taking this challenge to the Old Testament
0:13:28 > 0:13:32and moving it to the New Testament Gospels, that only comes with
0:13:32 > 0:13:35the German scholar David Friedrich Strauss in the 1830s.
0:13:38 > 0:13:42Strauss' book, The Life Of Jesus, shocked the faithful
0:13:42 > 0:13:44when it was published in 1835.
0:13:49 > 0:13:52Strauss' claim is that the Gospels are
0:13:52 > 0:13:54unreliable sources in two ways.
0:13:54 > 0:13:57Firstly, they're full of inconsistencies.
0:13:57 > 0:14:02Different Gospels say different things about the life of Jesus.
0:14:02 > 0:14:05Secondly, they're full of miracles
0:14:05 > 0:14:09and in making that argument, it helped Strauss to be able to
0:14:09 > 0:14:14claim that the Gospels were very late texts.
0:14:14 > 0:14:18The end product of a long period of myth making.
0:14:23 > 0:14:26He thinks that the events of the Gospels,
0:14:26 > 0:14:30especially those events that don't seem historically viable,
0:14:30 > 0:14:32like miracles,
0:14:32 > 0:14:35are myths and he's quite willing to use those words about them.
0:14:38 > 0:14:43Defenders of the Christian faith were stung by Strauss' criticism.
0:14:43 > 0:14:46Some set out to search for the oldest biblical manuscripts
0:14:46 > 0:14:50in the world, to prove the truth and historical accuracy of the Bible.
0:14:52 > 0:14:55The first of these was the young lord Robert Curzon.
0:15:00 > 0:15:02Robert Curzon had studied classics at Oxford,
0:15:02 > 0:15:04but failed to complete his degree.
0:15:06 > 0:15:09In many ways, he was very typical of his age.
0:15:09 > 0:15:14Young aristocrat, bored, er, couldn't find a role for himself.
0:15:14 > 0:15:18His family had no sense of what he should do,
0:15:18 > 0:15:23and so, he was clearly seeking some sort of purpose in his life.
0:15:25 > 0:15:28Disenchanted by the perpetual gloom of England, Curzon wrote,
0:15:28 > 0:15:32"The solitariness of my existence is unendurable.
0:15:32 > 0:15:34"It is like living in a madhouse."
0:15:34 > 0:15:35So he packed his bags
0:15:35 > 0:15:39and set off for an exotic land to resurrect his broken spirit.
0:15:43 > 0:15:47In 1833, Curzon went for a Grand Tour that took him
0:15:47 > 0:15:50through Europe, then across the Mediterranean all the way to
0:15:50 > 0:15:52Egypt and the majestic pyramids.
0:15:54 > 0:15:55CAMELS BRAY
0:15:57 > 0:16:00You can't not be amazed standing in the presence of these
0:16:00 > 0:16:02giant stone monsters.
0:16:02 > 0:16:05But Curzon wanted to do more than just
0:16:05 > 0:16:07marvel at the wonders of Ancient Egypt.
0:16:12 > 0:16:16Curzon had a special interest in ancient biblical texts and believed
0:16:16 > 0:16:19that the best way to preserve them was to bring them home to England.
0:16:21 > 0:16:24He hoped to find them at the country's Christian monasteries,
0:16:24 > 0:16:26some of the oldest in the world.
0:16:28 > 0:16:32Egypt was a key player in the formation of early Christianity
0:16:32 > 0:16:35and it's here that the monastic movement began.
0:16:35 > 0:16:38Monks who had gone out to the desert to live in solitude banded together
0:16:38 > 0:16:42in self-sufficient communities and those became the first monasteries.
0:16:47 > 0:16:51Curzon travelled west of Cairo, to the Syrian monastery,
0:16:51 > 0:16:54part of Egypt's 2,000-year-old Coptic Church.
0:16:56 > 0:16:59He'd heard that its library was in poor condition and wanted
0:16:59 > 0:17:03to preserve whatever texts he might find there for posterity.
0:17:07 > 0:17:09BELL RINGS
0:17:15 > 0:17:18When Curzon visited the library, he found the place in
0:17:18 > 0:17:21complete disarray with manuscripts just littering the floor.
0:17:21 > 0:17:25In his own words, he saw himself as a kind of biblical
0:17:25 > 0:17:28knight-errant, there to save the texts -
0:17:28 > 0:17:30"from the thraldom of ignorant monks,
0:17:30 > 0:17:32"kept in their dark monastic dungeons."
0:17:35 > 0:17:38The librarian of the monastery, Father Bigoul,
0:17:38 > 0:17:41knows of the chaos that Curzon encountered.
0:18:02 > 0:18:06During Curzon's visit, a blind monk showed him some of the library's
0:18:06 > 0:18:10collection, a scene illustrated in one of Curzon's books.
0:18:12 > 0:18:14According to Curzon,
0:18:14 > 0:18:17the young English lord plied the blind monk with sweet liqueur
0:18:17 > 0:18:21so he would lead him into the deepest recesses of the vaults.
0:18:31 > 0:18:34"Taking the candle from the hand of one of the brethren,
0:18:34 > 0:18:40"I discovered a narrow low door, and entered into a small closet
0:18:40 > 0:18:42"with the loose leaves of ancient manuscripts."
0:18:49 > 0:18:52Curzon bought dozens of rare Christian manuscripts
0:18:52 > 0:18:55from the monks, including a precious 9th-century Gospel fragment.
0:18:58 > 0:19:00The texts are now in the British Library,
0:19:00 > 0:19:03more than 2,000 miles from where they were found.
0:19:03 > 0:19:05How do you feel about that?
0:19:31 > 0:19:34Curzon's cache of manuscripts included a surprise.
0:19:36 > 0:19:39A Christian text no-one had seen before.
0:19:39 > 0:19:42The Acts of Peter and Paul.
0:19:42 > 0:19:44Although they are important characters in the New Testament,
0:19:44 > 0:19:47the Acts of Peter and Paul were never included in the Bible.
0:19:50 > 0:19:53The Acts of Peter and Paul have Peter
0:19:53 > 0:19:56and Paul in Rome as brothers, which is extraordinary
0:19:56 > 0:20:01because Peter, of course, is the original Jewish apostle who
0:20:01 > 0:20:07is given the order by Jesus to go and lead the Church after his death,
0:20:07 > 0:20:10Paul is representing something very different, he's representing
0:20:10 > 0:20:15the Gentile Christianity, they actually have a row together.
0:20:15 > 0:20:17Bringing these two together is absolutely
0:20:17 > 0:20:19essential for the unity of the Church.
0:20:22 > 0:20:26The question was why this important Christian text was not
0:20:26 > 0:20:29included in the Bible? And how many more texts not
0:20:29 > 0:20:33included in the Canon were out there, waiting to be discovered?
0:20:37 > 0:20:42Bible hunting now focused on the White Monastery near Sohag.
0:20:42 > 0:20:45It had its heyday between the 4th and 7th centuries AD,
0:20:45 > 0:20:48when Christianity was the dominant religion of Egypt.
0:20:51 > 0:20:54It's here that I meet Father Shenouda, a local monk,
0:20:54 > 0:20:56who provides a window back in time.
0:20:57 > 0:21:00Monastic life started
0:21:00 > 0:21:03here in Egypt, and then spread all over the world.
0:21:07 > 0:21:10Ah, yeah, you can see the old and then the new top of the church.
0:21:10 > 0:21:14'In the hills above the monastery, Father Shenouda takes me
0:21:14 > 0:21:18'to an old cave, cut into the rock thousands of years ago.'
0:21:18 > 0:21:22This is St Mark who tells us about Christianity when he came...
0:21:22 > 0:21:24This is unbelievable.
0:21:24 > 0:21:28'This cave became a centre for Christian worship when Christianity
0:21:28 > 0:21:31'became the state religion of Rome in the 4th century AD.'
0:21:33 > 0:21:35But this whole cave is carved
0:21:35 > 0:21:38- out by hand, by people.- Yes.
0:21:38 > 0:21:42This cave is very important for Christians here in Egypt.
0:21:44 > 0:21:50Egypt was full of monks, full of monasteries, you know, you can
0:21:50 > 0:21:55hear the bell of the churches from Alexandria to Aswan.
0:21:55 > 0:21:58Means 1,000 kilometres.
0:21:58 > 0:22:03It means that Christianity was very spread all over.
0:22:03 > 0:22:06Isn't it interesting that this cave here was
0:22:06 > 0:22:10- started by the Pharaohs? - Yes, still working, that's the thing,
0:22:10 > 0:22:16because when the era of the Pharaohs is being finished, the Christians,
0:22:16 > 0:22:20they complete this wonderful work and clever work.
0:22:20 > 0:22:24That means that we are the sons of the Pharaohs,
0:22:24 > 0:22:26we are the original of this land.
0:22:27 > 0:22:31In the valley below the cave, Lord Curzon visited the White Monastery
0:22:31 > 0:22:36in the 19th century, but failed to find any significant Christian manuscripts.
0:22:37 > 0:22:41But the French Egyptologist Emile Amelineau and his team
0:22:41 > 0:22:44refused to give up the search for biblical treasures.
0:22:45 > 0:22:49Look... Check out these hieroglyphs.
0:22:49 > 0:22:51It's like everything in Coptic Christianity.
0:22:51 > 0:22:54Built on the ruins of the ancient Pharaohs.
0:22:54 > 0:22:55Visiting the site,
0:22:55 > 0:22:59these Egyptologists came across the monastery's old church.
0:23:00 > 0:23:02COPTIC CHANTING
0:23:02 > 0:23:05It's still a place of worship for Coptic Christians.
0:23:12 > 0:23:14It once boasted a large library,
0:23:14 > 0:23:17until the collection was consumed by fire in 1798.
0:23:23 > 0:23:26But, following a trail of parchment leaves,
0:23:26 > 0:23:30the Egyptologists knew that some Christian texts had survived there.
0:23:31 > 0:23:36In 1885, Amelineau discovered a secret room.
0:23:36 > 0:23:38Inside, a large cache of manuscripts.
0:23:40 > 0:23:44It included an extraordinary text written in Coptic -
0:23:44 > 0:23:47the language of Egypt's Christians.
0:23:48 > 0:23:51The text was attributed to the disciple Bartholomew,
0:23:51 > 0:23:54but it was not included in the Bible.
0:23:55 > 0:23:59The Questions of Bartholomew, which have survived, are rather interesting documents
0:23:59 > 0:24:02because these are questions which Bartholomew is supposed to have made
0:24:02 > 0:24:05to Jesus after the Resurrection, very searching questions
0:24:05 > 0:24:10about the meaning of Jesus himself and what the Resurrection meant,
0:24:10 > 0:24:14but also has a lot of material about the descent into hell.
0:24:14 > 0:24:17The Bartholomew text includes the following passage -
0:24:17 > 0:24:20"Blessed are you, Bartholomew, my beloved,
0:24:20 > 0:24:23"for when I vanished from the cross then I went down into Hades
0:24:23 > 0:24:27"that I might bring up Adam and all those who are with him."
0:24:28 > 0:24:32The Bartholomew text was further evidence of early Christian manuscripts
0:24:32 > 0:24:34that had not been included in the Bible.
0:24:37 > 0:24:40It raised questions over the way that the Bible text,
0:24:40 > 0:24:42the Canon, was fixed.
0:24:44 > 0:24:48In Britain, in particular, religion was a hotly-debated topic.
0:24:49 > 0:24:52It's the one side of the 19th century that costume drama,
0:24:52 > 0:24:56popular images of the country, have tended to forget.
0:24:56 > 0:24:58Religion went right to the heart of who you were.
0:24:58 > 0:25:01It was the sort of subject that every student talked about,
0:25:01 > 0:25:05that there were articles in the paper about, people burnt books.
0:25:05 > 0:25:08There were riots in the streets after sermons.
0:25:08 > 0:25:11It was THE topic that defined who you were
0:25:11 > 0:25:12in 19th-century England.
0:25:12 > 0:25:16HYMN SINGING
0:25:16 > 0:25:18In the face of this acrimonious debate,
0:25:18 > 0:25:20the discovery of Christian texts that were
0:25:20 > 0:25:23not included in the Bible
0:25:23 > 0:25:26added further uncertainty to the Christian faith.
0:25:26 > 0:25:29This was a ticking time bomb that could further undermine
0:25:29 > 0:25:33the version of the Bible that was in most people's houses in those days.
0:25:35 > 0:25:38The discoveries of the White Monastery inspired
0:25:38 > 0:25:41French archaeologists in Egypt to find out more.
0:25:53 > 0:25:54In 1886,
0:25:54 > 0:25:58the French scholar Urbain Bouriant travelled south along the Nile.
0:26:02 > 0:26:05He could read Coptic and was an expert in the new
0:26:05 > 0:26:08science of palaeography - the study of ancient writing.
0:26:11 > 0:26:15His quest for ancient Christian texts brought him to Akhmim,
0:26:15 > 0:26:19a former centre of Christianity, 300 miles south of Cairo.
0:26:22 > 0:26:24I am curious to see the cemetery here, in Akhmim.
0:26:24 > 0:26:27Because even though they are Christians, the way they bury
0:26:27 > 0:26:30their dead is the same as they've been doing for 5,000 years.
0:26:46 > 0:26:49Bouriant's dig report recounts how he excavated
0:26:49 > 0:26:51a Christian tomb in the city.
0:26:53 > 0:26:55There's a good chance he was looking around here,
0:26:55 > 0:26:57the city's main cemetery.
0:26:58 > 0:27:03DISTANT CHANTING
0:27:10 > 0:27:12I check out one of the tombs.
0:27:12 > 0:27:16Apparently, this one contains the coffins of foreigners
0:27:16 > 0:27:17who died in the city.
0:27:21 > 0:27:23Searching through the tombs of Akhmim,
0:27:23 > 0:27:26Bouriant eventually made a major discovery.
0:27:27 > 0:27:29Beside the mummy of a Christian monk,
0:27:29 > 0:27:33he found an 8th-century papyrus with a 2nd-century text.
0:27:36 > 0:27:39He'd discovered the Gospel of Peter,
0:27:39 > 0:27:42another important text not included in the New Testament.
0:27:47 > 0:27:51The Gospel of Peter takes us back to a pivotal moment of Christianity.
0:27:51 > 0:27:53The crucifixion and Resurrection of Christ.
0:27:55 > 0:27:56Technically,
0:27:56 > 0:27:59none of the Gospels gives us an account of the Resurrection,
0:27:59 > 0:28:02the women go to the tomb and it's already happened.
0:28:02 > 0:28:04There is an angel who tells them it's happened,
0:28:04 > 0:28:06the tomb is empty, he's gone.
0:28:06 > 0:28:09In the Gospel of Peter, it purports to give you
0:28:09 > 0:28:13a kind of visual of the event, so Jesus is pictured as actually
0:28:13 > 0:28:16coming forth out of the tomb with angels accompanying him.
0:28:17 > 0:28:19And he does so in a very spectacular way.
0:28:19 > 0:28:23He comes out as a giant with two others beside him,
0:28:23 > 0:28:27and his head reaches above the sky, and then behind them
0:28:27 > 0:28:32comes a cross which proclaims Jesus, which actually speaks.
0:28:33 > 0:28:35"And they heard a voice out of the heaven saying,
0:28:35 > 0:28:38"'Have you preached unto them that sleep?'
0:28:38 > 0:28:42"The answer that was heard from the cross - 'Yes'."
0:28:42 > 0:28:45This story is so much more fantastical than
0:28:45 > 0:28:49any of the Resurrection stories you'd find in the modern Bible.
0:28:50 > 0:28:55The Gospel of Peter was published in 1891, not long after its discovery.
0:28:55 > 0:28:57It was the first Gospel to appear in print
0:28:57 > 0:29:00that was not in the New Testament.
0:29:00 > 0:29:03Now people were beginning to talk about new Christian texts
0:29:03 > 0:29:04that had never been seen before.
0:29:06 > 0:29:10Wealthy Christian donors, challenged by these new revelations,
0:29:10 > 0:29:13threw their energies and money into Britain's Egypt Exploration Fund,
0:29:13 > 0:29:16established in 1882.
0:29:18 > 0:29:19The Egypt Exploration Fund
0:29:19 > 0:29:25was set up precisely to prove the truth of the Bible, by finding
0:29:25 > 0:29:30material evidence that would justify the belief in the Bible.
0:29:30 > 0:29:33So, biblical archaeology, was established as an attempt to
0:29:33 > 0:29:37say, "No, look, there's a real world that will justify this belief."
0:29:37 > 0:29:41And they tried very hard to find such things.
0:29:41 > 0:29:44All the EEF needed was a leader in the field.
0:29:46 > 0:29:50So the search was on for a dynamic archaeologist who could spearhead
0:29:50 > 0:29:54their research, but also one who was sympathetic to a Christian agenda.
0:29:58 > 0:30:00They hired a rising star of archaeology,
0:30:00 > 0:30:02William Flinders Petrie.
0:30:03 > 0:30:06The British-born son of an electrical engineer,
0:30:06 > 0:30:09he'd been surveying ancient sites since he was a teenager.
0:30:11 > 0:30:16Flinders Petrie is often treated as the great originator of Egyptian
0:30:16 > 0:30:20archaeology, and is still revered as the first serious archaeologist.
0:30:20 > 0:30:23And he deserves that reputation,
0:30:23 > 0:30:26but it misreads a fundamental aspect of his work.
0:30:26 > 0:30:32For...for Flinders Petrie, was also a serious Christian
0:30:32 > 0:30:37intent on discovering the real roots of Christian
0:30:37 > 0:30:39and Jewish religion in the region.
0:30:46 > 0:30:48Petrie's search eventually led to Amarna,
0:30:48 > 0:30:51the capital of Egypt in the 14th century BC.
0:30:59 > 0:31:04Amarna was ruled by the Pharaoh Akhenaten and his queen Nefertiti.
0:31:15 > 0:31:18It's a lot more impressive up close than it is from down below.
0:31:24 > 0:31:27This is a boundary stela marking the edge of the city,
0:31:27 > 0:31:31on the left there is Nefertiti and on the right is Akhenaten himself.
0:31:39 > 0:31:41Once, this great city stretched for miles.
0:31:42 > 0:31:45Some of its foundations are still visible today.
0:31:51 > 0:31:56In 1891, Petrie got permission to excavate the royal palaces.
0:31:56 > 0:31:59It was here that he made a remarkable discovery.
0:32:02 > 0:32:05While he was excavating the library here, in the royal palace,
0:32:05 > 0:32:09Petrie found an archive of clay tablets called the Amarna Letters,
0:32:09 > 0:32:12they were diplomatic correspondences with foreign rulers.
0:32:13 > 0:32:16In the Amarna Letters was a reference to a group
0:32:16 > 0:32:17called the Habiru.
0:32:17 > 0:32:20Habiru sounded very much like Hebrew,
0:32:20 > 0:32:22the name sometimes given to the biblical Israelites.
0:32:25 > 0:32:29Petrie believed this was the proof he had been looking for -
0:32:29 > 0:32:32evidence supporting the Bible's story of the Exodus.
0:32:34 > 0:32:37How was Petrie's work received back in the UK?
0:32:37 > 0:32:39Well, with extraordinary enthusiasm.
0:32:39 > 0:32:41The demonstration of biblical accuracy that
0:32:41 > 0:32:44seems to come from the Tell el-Amarna Letters just
0:32:44 > 0:32:46works perfectly for, kind of,
0:32:46 > 0:32:48reinforcing the world view of those
0:32:48 > 0:32:51who believe in the literal truth of the Old Testament.
0:32:52 > 0:32:55In Britain, finds like the Amarna Letters
0:32:55 > 0:32:56were hailed as -
0:32:56 > 0:33:00"The most serious effort yet to stem the advancing
0:33:00 > 0:33:02"tide of Old Testament criticism."
0:33:02 > 0:33:05Encouraged by their success at Amarna,
0:33:05 > 0:33:09the Egypt Exploration Fund decided to search for biblical texts
0:33:09 > 0:33:11that would support the New Testament as well.
0:33:12 > 0:33:15In their own words, "Some day or another,
0:33:15 > 0:33:18"a New Testament of the 2nd century must turn up in Egypt."
0:33:20 > 0:33:23Flinders Petrie directed the EEF to a site
0:33:23 > 0:33:26he had briefly excavated south of the Faiyum Oasis.
0:33:32 > 0:33:34The abandoned city of Oxyrhynchus,
0:33:34 > 0:33:37a centre of early Christianity in Egypt.
0:33:39 > 0:33:41GOATS BLEAT
0:33:41 > 0:33:43Oxyrhynchus was a known Greco-Roman town,
0:33:43 > 0:33:46it was a regional capital, pretty big place.
0:33:46 > 0:33:51Oxyrhynchus had the largest number of churches in Egypt.
0:33:51 > 0:33:54More churches than any other city.
0:33:54 > 0:33:58The Fund dispatched two young archaeologists to Oxyrhynchus,
0:33:58 > 0:34:02Bernard Grenfell and Arthur Hunt to search for Christian manuscripts.
0:34:05 > 0:34:08Dr Dirk Obbink is an expert on the expedition.
0:34:11 > 0:34:14They were the, er, perfect collaborators.
0:34:14 > 0:34:17Hunt was silent and studious.
0:34:17 > 0:34:21Grenfell was, er, fiery and gregarious.
0:34:21 > 0:34:25But they always worked in concert and they discovered
0:34:25 > 0:34:29the principle that two pair of eyes are better than one.
0:34:32 > 0:34:35Grenfell and Hunt hired 100 men and started to dig.
0:34:36 > 0:34:39More than a century later, archaeologists are still
0:34:39 > 0:34:43excavating the site, using the same methods as in the 19th century.
0:34:47 > 0:34:49We've got all kinds of new toys and gadgets in archaeology
0:34:49 > 0:34:51and there is even people
0:34:51 > 0:34:53who can find sites from space using satellites,
0:34:53 > 0:34:56but ultimately, you are going to have to move the dirt
0:34:56 > 0:34:58and it comes down to shovels and buckets.
0:35:02 > 0:35:05I am told that this is the back-dirt pile, the rubble
0:35:05 > 0:35:08that was left behind by Petrie's excavations in the 1890s.
0:35:10 > 0:35:14It covers a recently-detected Greek building and has to be removed.
0:35:16 > 0:35:18It's a pretty neat feeling to be digging through
0:35:18 > 0:35:20Petrie's old back-dirt pile.
0:35:20 > 0:35:22For an archaeologist, it's pretty cool.
0:35:28 > 0:35:32At first, Grenfell and Hunt failed to find anything of interest,
0:35:32 > 0:35:33until they tried their luck
0:35:33 > 0:35:36in an oddly uneven stretch of desert nearby.
0:35:40 > 0:35:44So they went out to where the rubbish mounds were,
0:35:44 > 0:35:46some of them 30 feet tall.
0:35:46 > 0:35:50Like these over here, not sand dunes, they are actually
0:35:50 > 0:35:55layers of ancient rubbish, you can see the horizontal layering in them
0:35:55 > 0:36:00of what is called 'sabbac', which is the Arabic name for ancient garbage.
0:36:02 > 0:36:05Grenfell and Hunt ordered their workers to start digging.
0:36:05 > 0:36:09Within minutes, piles of papyri appeared out of the ground.
0:36:10 > 0:36:14The papyri came in torrents, that's how they describe it,
0:36:14 > 0:36:17torrents of papyri streaming from the mounds.
0:36:17 > 0:36:21They employed teams of up to 50 local workers,
0:36:21 > 0:36:26used them as diggers, to clear the mounds, move them 50 feet to
0:36:26 > 0:36:30one side and, in the process, sift out all of the papyrus fragments.
0:36:31 > 0:36:35The Oxyrhynchus dig would unearth treasures for years to come.
0:36:35 > 0:36:40One of the most revealing rubbish dumps in the history of archaeology.
0:36:40 > 0:36:43All the other materials that were thrown away were in with them.
0:36:43 > 0:36:48People's clothes, wood implements, shoes, tools.
0:36:48 > 0:36:52They found a Ptolemaic plough, a shield, weapons
0:36:52 > 0:36:55and, of course, 800 years of pottery fragment
0:36:55 > 0:36:57charting the chronology of the whole site.
0:36:59 > 0:37:02Hunt stayed up all night working on them in his tent
0:37:02 > 0:37:06and he wrote that during the first season, they found so many during
0:37:06 > 0:37:11the day that he couldn't sort them all out and catalogue them at night.
0:37:11 > 0:37:14They just had to start packing them up in boxes with sand
0:37:14 > 0:37:16and debris still clinging to them.
0:37:17 > 0:37:22The dig at Oxyrhynchus revealed well over 50,000 Greek manuscripts,
0:37:22 > 0:37:24many torn into fragments.
0:37:25 > 0:37:27They included tax records,
0:37:27 > 0:37:30ancient plays and religious texts.
0:37:34 > 0:37:36They sifted through this and moved it aside
0:37:36 > 0:37:40and picked out only the papyrus fragments, filled them up
0:37:40 > 0:37:45in tin boxes and shipped them by the hundreds back to Oxford to work on.
0:37:48 > 0:37:51The most important papyrus was found at the start of the dig -
0:37:51 > 0:37:53a sensational biblical manuscript.
0:37:55 > 0:37:58It contained sayings attributed to Jesus.
0:38:01 > 0:38:04"Jesus said, 'I stood in the midst of the world,
0:38:04 > 0:38:08"'and I found all men drunken, and my soul grieveth over
0:38:08 > 0:38:12"'the sons of men, because they are blind in their heart.'"
0:38:13 > 0:38:16It was a dream for any archaeologist -
0:38:16 > 0:38:19Greek papyri fragments with the Sayings Of Jesus.
0:38:19 > 0:38:22Some of the sayings were familiar to readers of the Bible
0:38:22 > 0:38:26at the time, but four other sayings weren't included in the Bible,
0:38:26 > 0:38:29and had never been seen before until that day.
0:38:31 > 0:38:34The text was dated to the late 2nd century.
0:38:35 > 0:38:39The new Sayings Of Jesus proved to be a sensation in Britain.
0:38:39 > 0:38:41As one writer commented,
0:38:41 > 0:38:44"The possibility of recovering forgotten sayings of Christ
0:38:44 > 0:38:47"strike the imaginations of even the man in the street."
0:38:48 > 0:38:50Of all the vast material found at Oxyrhynchus,
0:38:50 > 0:38:54this fragment would be designated as Papyrus Number One.
0:38:54 > 0:38:57The British press was ecstatic.
0:38:57 > 0:39:00"Here we have in the brief space of a few lines
0:39:00 > 0:39:03"a record of Jesus Christ which takes us
0:39:03 > 0:39:07"closer to his life than any manuscript at present in existence."
0:39:08 > 0:39:11BELLS RING
0:39:12 > 0:39:15But the discovery also worried many defenders of the Bible text.
0:39:16 > 0:39:19How would these new Sayings Of Jesus,
0:39:19 > 0:39:22not included in the Bible, affect the faithful?
0:39:23 > 0:39:26These texts weren't in the Canonical Gospels,
0:39:26 > 0:39:28so what was their status?
0:39:28 > 0:39:31Did this even mean that the Gospels themselves didn't transmit
0:39:31 > 0:39:33the whole of Jesus' teaching?
0:39:33 > 0:39:34So, once again,
0:39:34 > 0:39:38this was risky territory for Bible-believing Christians.
0:39:38 > 0:39:42"The whole religious world has been agitated by the publication
0:39:42 > 0:39:45"of the reputed 'Sayings' of our Lord."
0:39:49 > 0:39:51HORN TOOTS
0:39:52 > 0:39:55After the discoveries at Oxyrhynchus, the search
0:39:55 > 0:39:59for early Christian manuscripts continued with great fervour.
0:39:59 > 0:40:01Such was the demand that similar papyri were now
0:40:01 > 0:40:04sold on the open market by the dealers of Cairo's souks.
0:40:06 > 0:40:09But nothing as controversial as the Sayings Of Jesus
0:40:09 > 0:40:11would emerge for almost 60 years.
0:40:14 > 0:40:18Two world wars and a global depression put a significant
0:40:18 > 0:40:20dampener on the business of Bible hunting.
0:40:20 > 0:40:23Until a spectacular discovery surfaced in 1946.
0:40:27 > 0:40:31That year, an Egyptian dealer visited the Coptic Museum in Cairo.
0:40:32 > 0:40:35He had several ancient manuscripts for sale, many of them
0:40:35 > 0:40:37dating back to the 4th century.
0:40:38 > 0:40:42They were part of a larger collection of codices that had been discovered
0:40:42 > 0:40:45somewhere in the region of Nag Hammadi, in Upper Egypt.
0:40:47 > 0:40:51These manuscripts would be the focus of scholarly attention
0:40:51 > 0:40:53and controversy for decades to come.
0:40:55 > 0:40:56The Nag Hammadi discoveries have
0:40:56 > 0:40:59revolutionised our understanding of early Christianity.
0:40:59 > 0:41:02A fascinating collection of texts,
0:41:02 > 0:41:05most of which have never been known before.
0:41:05 > 0:41:06They were written in Coptic,
0:41:06 > 0:41:08which is Egyptian written in Greek letters,
0:41:08 > 0:41:10they are translations of the original Greek
0:41:10 > 0:41:13and so, we can go back and get a great deal out of them.
0:41:19 > 0:41:22One of the documents was titled the Gospel of Thomas,
0:41:22 > 0:41:24named after one of Jesus' disciples.
0:41:26 > 0:41:28A mystery was about to be solved.
0:41:35 > 0:41:39In the Gospel of Thomas, scholars discovered 114 Sayings Of Jesus,
0:41:39 > 0:41:43including the eight sayings that had been found 60 years earlier,
0:41:43 > 0:41:45at Oxyrhynchus.
0:41:47 > 0:41:49At last the author of the famous
0:41:49 > 0:41:52Sayings Of Jesus had a name - Thomas.
0:41:54 > 0:41:57The Gospel of Thomas begins with the following line -
0:41:57 > 0:42:01"These are the hidden words that the living Jesus spoke,
0:42:01 > 0:42:04"and Didymos Judas Thomas wrote them down."
0:42:04 > 0:42:08It suggests the possibility of an alternative version of Christianity.
0:42:08 > 0:42:11But where did the text come from?
0:42:11 > 0:42:14It would take another 30 years for the full story to emerge.
0:42:16 > 0:42:20Ever since the late 1940s, scholars searched for the place
0:42:20 > 0:42:23where the manuscripts had lain hidden for almost two millennia.
0:42:24 > 0:42:27But it wasn't until the 1970s, that the American Professor
0:42:27 > 0:42:31of Religion, James Robinson, made headway.
0:42:33 > 0:42:36He scoured the region surrounding the town of Nag Hammadi,
0:42:36 > 0:42:37in Upper Egypt.
0:42:38 > 0:42:42It's known for sectarian strife and feuds between rival clans.
0:42:51 > 0:42:54After years of hunting for the source of the manuscripts,
0:42:54 > 0:42:57Robinson's search brought him to the village of Fal Kibley.
0:42:57 > 0:42:59It's here that he met a priest,
0:42:59 > 0:43:02who tipped him off about a local farmer named Mohammed Ali.
0:43:05 > 0:43:08Mohammed Ali's account led the investigation to the
0:43:08 > 0:43:11edge of the Nile valley, to the cliffs that separate
0:43:11 > 0:43:13the fertile land from the desert,
0:43:13 > 0:43:15and it's here that the story began.
0:43:21 > 0:43:24Mohammed and his brothers were out looking for fertilizer.
0:43:24 > 0:43:28They made an amazing discovery. Underneath a boulder,
0:43:28 > 0:43:30they found a sealed clay pot.
0:43:30 > 0:43:33Now, the other guys, they didn't want to touch it
0:43:33 > 0:43:35because they were afraid there might be a genie inside.
0:43:35 > 0:43:37But Mohammed was more interested in money,
0:43:37 > 0:43:40so he picks up a rock, smashes the thing.
0:43:40 > 0:43:43You can imagine his surprise when he saw what was really inside.
0:43:46 > 0:43:47He found the manuscripts
0:43:47 > 0:43:50that would become the famous 13 Nag Hammadi codices.
0:43:54 > 0:43:56Mohammed took the documents home.
0:43:56 > 0:43:59But he and his family had had trouble with the local police
0:43:59 > 0:44:03and he was concerned that they might confiscate his valuable find.
0:44:05 > 0:44:07So, they decided to deposit
0:44:07 > 0:44:12the manuscripts into one of the local monks in the village,
0:44:12 > 0:44:16because he is the only person not going to be searched in the village.
0:44:16 > 0:44:21And that's how the codices were known from this family house
0:44:21 > 0:44:24to the other house, to another house.
0:44:24 > 0:44:27And so many hands got involved in that.
0:44:27 > 0:44:28And the codices travelled to Cairo.
0:44:31 > 0:44:34Mohammed Ali's testimony explained how the codices had
0:44:34 > 0:44:36found their way to the Coptic Museum.
0:44:38 > 0:44:40But a deeper mystery remained unsolved.
0:44:46 > 0:44:49The question was, why somebody decided to hide
0:44:49 > 0:44:52the codices in a clay pot at the edge of the desert?
0:44:52 > 0:44:54Could it be that these manuscripts were prized possessions
0:44:54 > 0:44:56that somebody wanted to protect?
0:44:57 > 0:45:01And if so, who did they want to protect the manuscripts from?
0:45:02 > 0:45:06To find clues, we have to revisit the early centuries of Christianity.
0:45:15 > 0:45:20In the late 4th century, Bishop Athanasius of Alexandria was
0:45:20 > 0:45:22one of the most powerful men in the Church.
0:45:24 > 0:45:27He saw that Christians would need a fixed canon
0:45:27 > 0:45:30as their guide to the faith and set about deciding which
0:45:30 > 0:45:33texts should be included and which should be excluded.
0:45:33 > 0:45:35CHANTING
0:45:35 > 0:45:37This was the time
0:45:37 > 0:45:40when Christianity was being moulded into the state religion
0:45:40 > 0:45:43of the Roman Empire, and when the first Bibles started to appear.
0:45:49 > 0:45:54In 367 AD, Athanasius sent a letter to all the churches and monasteries
0:45:54 > 0:45:58in Egypt that laid out the 27 books of the New Testament
0:45:58 > 0:46:01that are still in the Bible today.
0:46:01 > 0:46:05As a result of letters like the Festal Letter of 367,
0:46:05 > 0:46:10the other Christian texts, many of which were still being used,
0:46:10 > 0:46:12were condemned to oblivion.
0:46:12 > 0:46:15The classic case of this is the Nag Hammadi texts, because they
0:46:15 > 0:46:19are buried very much at the same time as Athanasius' Festal Letters.
0:46:19 > 0:46:23Quite clearly, the monasteries were pretty frightened
0:46:23 > 0:46:24of what he was trying to do
0:46:24 > 0:46:27and whether they would be rounded up and excommunicated
0:46:27 > 0:46:30if they went on using these texts, which is why they were hidden
0:46:30 > 0:46:33in a jar and buried not far from the monastery.
0:46:34 > 0:46:38But what was in the Nag Hammadi texts that might have upset the bishop?
0:46:38 > 0:46:41In the Gospel of Thomas, Jesus says -
0:46:41 > 0:46:44"I have cast fire upon the world, and see,
0:46:44 > 0:46:47"I am guarding it until it blazes."
0:46:47 > 0:46:50Essentially, what we have are a number of writings
0:46:50 > 0:46:52very often distinguishing themselves
0:46:52 > 0:46:55from more familiar versions of Christianity.
0:46:55 > 0:46:59Tends to have a kind of elitist outlook, in other words.
0:46:59 > 0:47:02"Jesus said, 'It is to those worthy of my secrets
0:47:02 > 0:47:05"'that I am telling my secrets.
0:47:05 > 0:47:07"'Do not let your left hand understand
0:47:07 > 0:47:09"'what your right hand is doing.'"
0:47:10 > 0:47:13Another reason why some of the texts may have caused offence
0:47:13 > 0:47:16was their pessimistic view of the world.
0:47:17 > 0:47:21In one of the sayings of Jesus in the Gospel of Thomas,
0:47:21 > 0:47:25he speaks of the world as being a corpse, as being a dead thing
0:47:25 > 0:47:29because it kind of reflects a view of materiality as in itself bad
0:47:29 > 0:47:32and is something to be escaped from.
0:47:33 > 0:47:34"Jesus said,
0:47:34 > 0:47:38"'Whoever has become acquainted with the world has found a corpse,
0:47:38 > 0:47:42"'and the world is not worthy of the one who has found the corpse.'"
0:47:44 > 0:47:48The Gospel of Phillip, also part of the Nag Hammadi find,
0:47:48 > 0:47:49might have seemed scandalous.
0:47:51 > 0:47:55It suggested that Jesus might have been close to Mary Magdalene
0:47:55 > 0:47:56and that he...
0:47:56 > 0:48:00"Loved Mary Magdalene more than the rest of the disciples
0:48:00 > 0:48:03"and used to kiss her, often on the mouth."
0:48:07 > 0:48:10The Nag Hammadi codices even contain a text attributed to
0:48:10 > 0:48:14Mary Magdalene - the Gospel of Mary.
0:48:14 > 0:48:19The Gospel of Mary is very unusual and very significant in the extent
0:48:19 > 0:48:24to which it gives prominence to a woman disciple of Jesus.
0:48:26 > 0:48:29Mary Magdalene is one of the most important women
0:48:29 > 0:48:30of the New Testament.
0:48:32 > 0:48:35She is still widely revered by many Christians.
0:48:36 > 0:48:40According to the New Testament, Mary Magdalene travelled with Jesus,
0:48:40 > 0:48:43she was present at the crucifixion,
0:48:43 > 0:48:46and she was the first to see him after the Resurrection.
0:48:50 > 0:48:53The Gospel of Mary describes a conversation between her
0:48:53 > 0:48:56and the disciples.
0:48:56 > 0:48:57And what's interesting
0:48:57 > 0:49:01is that she occupies the major role in this exchange.
0:49:01 > 0:49:03She's the one who has the revelation,
0:49:03 > 0:49:06she's the one who's speaking, she is the one who is
0:49:06 > 0:49:10being interrogated and that gives her a prominence that
0:49:10 > 0:49:13we don't find in any of the other Gospels.
0:49:13 > 0:49:15It's a fascinating document
0:49:15 > 0:49:18in a way because it shows that Jesus was having special knowledge
0:49:18 > 0:49:22that he was imparting to Mary, and therefore, not only can you talk
0:49:22 > 0:49:26about the relationship he had, but it also shows that women may have
0:49:26 > 0:49:30been seen in the early church as repositories of spiritual knowledge.
0:49:32 > 0:49:37So you do get the beginnings of the idea that there is
0:49:37 > 0:49:40possibly a suppression of women's voices
0:49:40 > 0:49:43because these documents suggest that women were, were perceived to
0:49:43 > 0:49:46have special roles within the church, which have now disappeared.
0:49:48 > 0:49:52The people associated with the Nag Hammadi texts were the Gnostics,
0:49:52 > 0:49:56an elite group of Christians who believed in salvation by knowledge.
0:49:58 > 0:50:03We often use the word Gnostic, gnosis is knowledge.
0:50:03 > 0:50:06In this context, it means secret knowledge, knowledge imparted
0:50:06 > 0:50:11to a few, and this is the Gnostic texts, one of their main
0:50:11 > 0:50:18themes runs all the way through, we are privileged to special ideas, but
0:50:18 > 0:50:22we live in an evil world and we are the ones who have the possibility
0:50:22 > 0:50:25of escape from that, because we have the special knowledge.
0:50:28 > 0:50:31"Jesus said, 'Know what is in front of your face,
0:50:31 > 0:50:35"'and what is hidden from you will be disclosed to you.
0:50:35 > 0:50:38"'For there is nothing hidden that will not be revealed.'"
0:50:39 > 0:50:44Gnosticism is all to do with secret knowledge.
0:50:44 > 0:50:47It was part of a philosophical,
0:50:47 > 0:50:51intellectual movement around the ancient Near East and many, many,
0:50:51 > 0:50:56many fathers in Egypt were Christians in their heart
0:50:56 > 0:51:00but also Gnostic in their mind and this is the conflict
0:51:00 > 0:51:06between orthodox Christianity versus the intellectual free thinkers.
0:51:06 > 0:51:10But as the Church consolidated its power in the Roman Empire,
0:51:10 > 0:51:12the Gnostics were increasingly under pressure.
0:51:14 > 0:51:16Their intellectual take on Christianity
0:51:16 > 0:51:18didn't tally with the official Church doctrine.
0:51:22 > 0:51:25By the 5th century, there was a fixed version of the Bible,
0:51:25 > 0:51:28Gnosticism had lost out to a dominant orthodoxy,
0:51:28 > 0:51:31and it was the orthodox who would shape
0:51:31 > 0:51:33the future of Christianity.
0:51:33 > 0:51:35So one of the reasons for the success
0:51:35 > 0:51:38of what became orthodox Christianity was its ability to, you might say,
0:51:38 > 0:51:43mass market a message that could be understood, that was meaningful.
0:51:43 > 0:51:48They weren't mystical, they weren't so esoteric, they were digestible.
0:51:48 > 0:51:51In a survival of the fittest sort of thing,
0:51:51 > 0:51:54the emerging orthodox Christianity won because they were simply
0:51:54 > 0:51:57more effective at the game than any other version of Christianity.
0:51:59 > 0:52:05In general, the Orthodox Church as it defined itself, won -
0:52:05 > 0:52:09and as such, it defined the Gnostics to the dustbin of history.
0:52:09 > 0:52:13And it did so often with intense violence.
0:52:13 > 0:52:16One thing one forgets about turning the other cheek,
0:52:16 > 0:52:19it doesn't necessarily stop you burning people to death.
0:52:21 > 0:52:23Under pressure from the Church,
0:52:23 > 0:52:26Gnostic texts were destroyed or hidden away.
0:52:26 > 0:52:29Gnostic ideas and the lost Christianities
0:52:29 > 0:52:31they represent were completely suppressed.
0:52:31 > 0:52:34But thanks to the discoveries of the Bible hunters,
0:52:34 > 0:52:36their voices can be heard again.
0:52:36 > 0:52:38We now know that, from the very beginning,
0:52:38 > 0:52:41there was never just one kind of Christianity.
0:52:41 > 0:52:43Before the 5th century,
0:52:43 > 0:52:45there wasn't even an authorised version of the Bible!
0:52:47 > 0:52:52Today, some 200 years after Napoleon first set foot in Egypt,
0:52:52 > 0:52:55modern-day Bible hunters still seek answers to
0:52:55 > 0:52:57fundamental questions about Christianity.
0:53:00 > 0:53:03At St Catherine's Monastery in the Sinai,
0:53:03 > 0:53:08monks and scientists are scrutinizing the monastery's palimpsests,
0:53:08 > 0:53:11ancient texts that lay hidden under more recent writing.
0:53:13 > 0:53:16We're using multispectral imaging
0:53:16 > 0:53:18to try to recover writing that was erased,
0:53:18 > 0:53:21sometimes 1,000 years ago, sometimes 1,500 years ago.
0:53:21 > 0:53:24And multispectral imaging involves illuminating
0:53:24 > 0:53:28an object, like this manuscript, a palimpsest with erased layers of
0:53:28 > 0:53:32writing, we illuminate with different wavelengths of light so as to see
0:53:32 > 0:53:35things that the human eye normally can't see on this manuscript.
0:53:35 > 0:53:37There is a language in these palimpsests called
0:53:37 > 0:53:40Christian Palestinian Aramaic, it was the language of the
0:53:40 > 0:53:42Christian churches in Palestine
0:53:42 > 0:53:44from about the 3rd to about the 8th century.
0:53:44 > 0:53:47So you are able to resurrect dead languages?
0:53:47 > 0:53:49Resurrect dead languages and not only that,
0:53:49 > 0:53:52but the people who spoke and used them, they had a literature,
0:53:52 > 0:53:56they had philosophy, they had art, they had ideas
0:53:56 > 0:53:58and they affected the communities that are still surviving today.
0:54:00 > 0:54:03More than 100 years after Grenfell and Hunt,
0:54:03 > 0:54:06the search for biblical manuscripts also continues in Oxford,
0:54:06 > 0:54:08where the Oxyrhynchus papyri are kept.
0:54:13 > 0:54:15We systematically sift through
0:54:15 > 0:54:19the unpublished part of the collection and, so far, out of
0:54:19 > 0:54:22a little more than a million fragments that we have,
0:54:22 > 0:54:24we've published 5,000,
0:54:24 > 0:54:27so it's really a drop in the bucket.
0:54:27 > 0:54:30We've now loaded them on to the internet in a interface
0:54:30 > 0:54:34where interested members of the public do a bit of transcription
0:54:34 > 0:54:38with an on-board keyboard. We've speeded up our process
0:54:38 > 0:54:42of identification by something like ten times and have already
0:54:42 > 0:54:46begun to identify new un-canonical versions of the Gospels.
0:54:46 > 0:54:50It's one of the largest unfinished archaeological projects
0:54:50 > 0:54:54in the world and there is still decades, if not centuries,
0:54:54 > 0:54:56to go on it.
0:54:56 > 0:54:58And Bible hunting with a trowel in the dirt
0:54:58 > 0:55:00is still uncovering new treasures.
0:55:06 > 0:55:10In 2005, a group of Polish archaeologists excavated
0:55:10 > 0:55:12the site of El Gurna, in Upper Egypt.
0:55:17 > 0:55:18It's an ancient burial site,
0:55:18 > 0:55:22home to Christian monks between the 6th and 8th centuries AD.
0:55:25 > 0:55:29The Polish archaeologists found some of the monks' scriptures,
0:55:29 > 0:55:31preserved just beneath the sand.
0:55:34 > 0:55:36They discovered a 4th-century codex with a text called
0:55:36 > 0:55:38The Acts of Peter,
0:55:38 > 0:55:41another Christian text not included in the Bible.
0:55:42 > 0:55:45The text was very similar to the Acts of Peter and Paul
0:55:45 > 0:55:50discovered in 1838 by the pioneer Bible hunter Lord Curzon.
0:55:54 > 0:55:57The Biblical texts and lost Gospels rediscovered by Curzon,
0:55:57 > 0:55:59and all the Bible hunters
0:55:59 > 0:56:01who set out to prove the validity of the Bible,
0:56:01 > 0:56:04may have actually done the opposite.
0:56:06 > 0:56:08From variations between ancient
0:56:08 > 0:56:12and modern Bibles to radical lost Gospels, their finds
0:56:12 > 0:56:17failed to prove that the Bible was the undisputed Word of God.
0:56:18 > 0:56:20After everything we've learned
0:56:20 > 0:56:23in the last 150 years or so of Bible hunting,
0:56:23 > 0:56:27is it even possible to defend the historical accuracy of the Bible?
0:56:27 > 0:56:29Yes and no.
0:56:29 > 0:56:33If you are content to say - "Can we know the basics?",
0:56:33 > 0:56:35That Jesus of Nazareth lived.
0:56:35 > 0:56:38That the apostles probably taught early Christian
0:56:38 > 0:56:41beliefs and developments. If you are content with that then, yeah.
0:56:41 > 0:56:46If however, your notion of historical accuracy is that
0:56:46 > 0:56:49every single incident as reported must have happened that way,
0:56:49 > 0:56:54you know, as if it is some sort of CCTV footage of an actual event,
0:56:54 > 0:56:56then you are going to be in big trouble.
0:56:58 > 0:57:02These textual variations and rediscovered Gospels paint
0:57:02 > 0:57:05a more fluid picture of the Bible in its early days
0:57:05 > 0:57:07than the Bible we have today.
0:57:07 > 0:57:10But could these discoveries have also played
0:57:10 > 0:57:14a part in some people's shift away from the Christian faith?
0:57:14 > 0:57:17In Christianity in Western Europe,
0:57:17 > 0:57:21we would see secularisation as one answer.
0:57:21 > 0:57:24In fact, across the world, that's not necessarily true.
0:57:24 > 0:57:27But for the people who experienced the shock of Sinaiticus and the
0:57:27 > 0:57:31other discoveries, secularisation has been one consequence.
0:57:39 > 0:57:42For over 2,000 years, the Bible has been a source of comfort,
0:57:42 > 0:57:45inspiration and guidance.
0:57:45 > 0:57:47It helped shape civilisation.
0:57:47 > 0:57:50It's been the cause of profound conflict and division.
0:57:50 > 0:57:54The discoveries of the Bible hunters began a controversial reassessment
0:57:54 > 0:57:59of Christianity's sacred scripture - hailed by some, dismissed by others.
0:57:59 > 0:58:03Certainly, the search for biblical truth continues to raise
0:58:03 > 0:58:05more questions than answers.
0:58:05 > 0:58:07There's a lot at stake as the controversy over
0:58:07 > 0:58:09the Bible as the Word of God rages on.