Date of composition

• Early 100s

Biography of Jesus?

• It appears to tell the life of Jesus.

Type of Apocrypha (heretical or in error (made up))

• Nothing heretical or in error in the fragment.

Length

• Unknown. All that was discovered in Oxyrhynchus, Egypt, was a single sheet that contained 45 lines.

Summary

• Jesus warned his Apostles about deception and debated in the Temple with a Pharisee named Levi over purification rites.

Noteworthy from the book

1. The scribe used red ink in some places, such as the first letters of sentences.

This is what was discovered:

• ". . . earlier, before doing wrong, he slyly reasons everything out. Be careful that you do not end up suffering the same fate as them. For the evil-doers of humanity receive retribution not only among the living, but they will also undergo punishment and much torture later."
• Taking them along, he went into the place of purification itself and wandered around in the temple. Then a certain high priest of the Pharisees named Levi came toward them and said to the savior, "Who permitted you to wander in this place of purification and to see these holy vessels, even though you have not bathed and the feet of your disciples have not been washed? And now that you have defiled it, you walk around in this pure area of the temple where only a person who has bathed and changed his clothes can walk, and even such a person does not dare to look upon these holy vessels."
• Standing nearby with his disciples, the savior replied, "Since you are here in the temple too, are you clean?"
• The Pharisee said to him, "I am clean. For I bathed in the pool of David. I went down into the pool by one set of stairs and came back out by another. Then I put on white clothes and they were clean. And then I came and looked at these holy vessels."
• Replying to him, the savior said, "Woe to blind people who do not see! You have washed in the gushing waters that dogs and pigs are thrown into day and night. And when you washed yourself, you scrubbed the outer layer of skin, the layer of skin that prostitutes and flute-girls anoint and wash and scrub when they put on make up to become the desire of the men. But inside they are filled with scorpions and all unrighteousness. But my disciples and I, whom you say have not washed, we have washed in waters of eternal life that come from the God of heaven. But woe to those . . . "
• Source: here