Papyrus fragment from the Gospel of Mary in Greek

Early Christians debated which texts should and should not be included in what was to become the New Testament. The Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, giving an account of the life and sayings of Jesus, were accepted. Others were not and later became forbidden reading.

This fragment
 was discovered in the rubbish heaps of the city Oxyrhynchus. Following Jesus’ discourse with
his followers, Peter asks Mary, probably Mary Magdalene, to share her secret knowledge (gnosis) with the disciples. As in some other so-called gnostic texts, a woman is shown 
in a role of spiritual leadership. The Gospel of Mary was probably composed in Greek in the 2nd century, although the best surviving copy is in Coptic, the latest stage of the Egyptian language.