THE SOURCE

"If someone found 'the source,' 'the Quelle'? It would tell the truth about the New Testament and revolutionize Christianity." - Monsignor Brahaney, p. 25

The original gospels and epistles were written decades after Jesus' crucifixion and are long lost. What we have are copies of copies (etc.) of that first scripture, inked hundreds of years after his death, and like other ancient documents, they've been altered in the act of copying, sometimes with selfish intent.

He Can See Heaven imagines that a specific set of the earliest scripture still exists, a collection of eyewitness accounts about Jesus, scripture older than any we have, uncorrupted by copying errors and mischievious editing. The novel is fiction but the collection was real, called The Logia by its creator, Papias of Hieropolis, an early Christian bishop who sought out and recorded the stories of John the apostle and many other first Christians. If discovered, Papias' writings would differ substantially from the modern New Testament, a text which has been repeatedly miscopied, mistranslated, and edited with varied motives. The monsignor is well aware of those alterations and believes that such a find would result in a Christian maelstrom.

What do you think? Could Papias' collection still exist? Would its discovery change Christianity?