Are three scraps of papyrus long mouldering in an Oxford college the most sensational evidence of Christ on earth since the Turin Shourd.

The Jesus papyrus

Matthew D'Ancona

Weidenfeld&Nicolson

London can be as pitiless as it is bountiful. No one knows that better than Mia Taylor. From a gilded life of privilege to a shabby alternative health centre in London's East End in the space of weeks. The violent tragedy that propels Mia east also pitches her unwittingly into a bigger history, a modern legend of migration and change.Mia's new life brings her into contact both with a kaleidoscope of characters who inhabit the extraordinary city of London and the burning issues that will mould its future. Politics and racism, corruption and betrayal, poverty and decadence, all smoulder side by side as the capital blazes into the new millennium.Out of the ashes emerges Mia: a troubled, questing woman who hopes to find herself by going east.

GOING EAST: A Novel.

New York: Doubleday, 2004

Christmas Eve 1994 would have come and gone like any other, had it not been for three tiny papyrus fragments discussed in The Times of London's sensational front-page story. The avalanche of letters to the editor jarred the world into realizing that Matthew d'Ancona's story was as big as the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls. The flood of calls received by Dr. Carsten Peter Thiede, the scholar behind the story, and the international controversy that spread like wildfire, give us an inkling as to why the Magdalen Papyrus has embroiled Christianity in a high-stakes tug-of-war over the Bible. Thiede and d'Ancona boldly tell the story of two scholars a century apart who stumbled on the oldest known remains of the New Testament--hard evidence confirming that St. Matthew's Gospel is the account of an eyewitness to Jesus. It starts in 1901 when the Reverend Charles B. Huleatt acquires three pieces of a manuscript on the murky antiquities market of Luxor, Egypt. He donates the papyrus fragments to his alma mater, Magdalen College in Oxford, England, where they are kept in a butterfly display case, along with Oscar Wilde's ring. For nearly a century, visitors hardly notice the Matthew fragments, initially dated to a.d.180-200; but after Dr. Thiede redates them to roughly a.d. 60, people flock to the library wanting to behold a first-century copy of the Gospel. But what is all the fuss about? How can three ancient papyrus fragments be so significant? How did Thiede arrive at this radical early dating? And what does it mean to the average Christian? Now we have authoritative answers to these pivotal questions. Indeed, the Magdalen Papyrus corroborates the tradition that St. Matthew actually wrote the Gospel bearing his name, that he wrote it within a generation of Jesus' death, and that the Gospel stories about Jesus are true. Some will vehemently deny Thiede's claims, others will embrace them, but nobody can ignore Eyewitness to Jesus.

Eyewitness to Jesus

Carston Thiede

Religion & Spirituality

DOUBLEDAY

The Cross is the most potent and recognisable symbol of civilized society, but what are its historical origins? What is the evidence for its actual, physical existence? In a small church in Rome, a tiny neglected artefact, hidden for hundreds of years, may hold the answer to these questions.

The Quest for the True Cross

Carsten Peter

D'Ancona Thiede

Phoenix

Now Matthew d'Anacona, the TIMES man who exposed the story, and Carsten Thiede, the papyrologist, reveal the full story - and the impact this theory has had on the history of Christianity and of Christian belief today.

The Jesus Papyrus: The Most Sensational Evidence on the Origins

Carsten Peter Thiede

Phoenix House