[Update Note: The story comes from “World News Daily” which seems to spoof “World Net Daily.” It’s a hoax site.]
Hat tip to Brian Godawa for alerting me to this story. The article leads as follows:
An Italian expert studying a first century document written by the Roman historian Marcus Velleius Paterculus that was recently discovered in the archives of the Vatican, found what is presumed to be the first eyewitness account ever recorded of a miracle of Jesus Christ. The author describes a scene that he allegedly witnessed, in which a prophet and teacher that he names Iēsous de Nazarenus, resuscitated a stillborn boy and handed him back to his mother.
I’m not familiar with the “historian and archivist” who made the discovery, Ignazio Perucci. The article notes he was hired by the Vatican “to sort, analyze and classify some 6,000 ancient documents that had been uncovered in the gigantic archive vaults.” It’s about time — and good luck!
The article notes:
This new text from an author known for his reliability, brings a brand new perspective on the life of the historical character that is Jesus of Nazareth. It comes to confirm the Gospels on the facts that he was known for accomplishing miracles and that his sheer presence in a town was enough to attract crowds of people.
If this is legit, it would be a stunning find. Hopefully the text will receive wide attention and peer review so that a consensus can be reached. Proper investigation needs to follow, just as was the case with the bogus “Jesus’ wife” fragment.
I’d like to get excited bout this but I just read the disclaimer on the site it originated from and it reads:
“World News Daily Report is a news and political satire web publication, which may or may not use real names, often in semi-real or mostly fictitious ways. All news articles contained within worldnewsdailyreport.com are fiction, and presumably fake news. Any resemblance to the truth is purely coincidental, except for all references to politicians and/or celebrities, in which case they are based on real people, but still based almost entirely in fiction. – See more at: http://worldnewsdailyreport.com/disclaimer/#sthash.RemargZ8.dpuf”
So this isn’t real, then? Where you aware Dr. Heiser that this was satire? Sorry, I know I can be fooled by these sites at times and wanted to be sure.
yep – page was updated.
This news website produces believable stories in the name of satire and tries to get them to disseminate online. I found this out a couple of days ago when a friend showed me an article with a bunch of Israeli scholars quoted that it turns out don’t exist. Apparently, this is supposed to be funny. Here’s the website’s disclaimer: http://worldnewsdailyreport.com/disclaimer/
yep – see the page and the board.
Michael, WorldNewsDailyReport publishes only hoaxes! Just have a look at what they publish under ‘archaeology’: http://worldnewsdailyreport.com/category/archeology/
yep; thanks – others noted that as well.
Fascinating! What if it’s authentic!?
But for me it’s particularly enticing because this story of a resuscitation of a stillborn baby is not recorded in any canonical (indeed any) gospel. How true the ending of the Gospel of St John is, that the world would not contain all the books that could be written about the Lord Jesus Christ.
May our imaginations be set alight by the Spirit!
looks bogus due to the source – I updated the page about two hrs later after I couldn’t find anything on the “scholar” and several folks noted “world news daily” was a spoof site.
Of course, I *just now* found out about this through your article, so I still haven’t really processed or made heads If it’s a hoax, then it shouldn’t be counted as a loss, just something to move on from.
But honestly, it’s sad that some people today have nothing better to do than sit on their asses and run or read a spoof site.
looks like a hoax
Unfortunately, this article is a hoax… That archivist that is mentioned here doesn’t exist, the image of the supposed “manuscript” is taken from another place (first brittain written documents, the “Vindolanda tablets”).
I’m a Christian, and by no means I need this kind of lies to believe in The Lord.
People like the author of this kind of scams take fun from the ignorance of people, they believe that people with Faith in God are fools for believing in something not material. You are wrong, whoever you are, by doing this kind of things you may think you are a great joker or a smart ass, but you are really a dumb ass, playing with the hopes of people is an really miserable act and you are gonna pay for it.
Our Faith has been attacked many times before in different ways, the first attack was led by the jewish religious system, then were the romans an their lions, then the inquisition, now capitalism, the system has always tried to extinguish our hopes, but we have always prevailed, our enemy has taken many shapes along history, in modern era you can find liberalism, materialism, hedonism, communism, capitalism, atheism and many other shapes from the same foe. Our enemy has always been the same under diferent names, but with only one objetive, lead humanity to desperation and desolation, to take away our dreams and hopes…
Crap. Sorry about that. I should have looked closer. My bad.
I updated it a couple hours into looking for verification; not to worry.
I was put on notice about this “story” by a Facebook acquaintance who eats up this sort of thing. A couple of people let him know this was a parody site, but he keeps saying it must be real. This particular guy is also is convinced, even now, that the so-called “James Ossuary” is “proof” that Jesus existed.
I’m sure this particular “story” was fodder for this morning’s church services in evangelical churches around the country. Either by pastors bringing it up in their sermons or by congregants mentioning/showing it to each other.
sad, but not a surprise.