HE healed the sick, walked on water, turned water into wine and, according to a newly-deciphered ancient text, Jesus was also a shapeshifter.

Roelof van den Broek, a researcher from the Utrecht University in the Netherlands recently completed deciphering a 1200-year-old Egyptian text which deals with the crucifixion of Jesus.

The text has revealed some pretty unbelievable stuff. Namely, that Jesus could shapeshift.

For those unfamiliar with the original story, Judas received a pile of coins before betraying Jesus, and then kissed him.

According to van den Broek that kiss, far from a sign of affection or guilt, was Judas's way of preventing any shapeshifting trickery.

The translation reads:

"Then the Jews said to Judas: How shall we arrest him [Jesus], for he does not have a single shape but his appearance changes. Sometimes he is ruddy, sometimes he is white, sometimes he is red, sometimes he is wheat coloured, sometimes he is pallid like ascetics, sometimes he is a youth, sometimes an old man…"

The plot thickens. According to van den Broek, Jesus was not only a shapeshifter. He was also invisible.

The night before the crucifixion Pontius Pilate offered to send his own son to the cross in the place of Jesus but Jesus declined, saying that he could escape if he wanted to.

The text read: "Pilate, then, looked at Jesus and, behold, he became incorporeal: He did not see him for a long time," implying that perhaps Jesus demonstrated his super power to Pontius.

Later that night Pilate and his wife reported having visions of an eagle which represented that Jesus had died.

If these versions of events are true, it gives a whole new meaning to Jesus's resurrection. Perhaps all of the drama was just for show. Perhaps Jesus shapeshifted into an eagle which flew away, only to arrive in his "true form" in a cave three days later.

Now before you start losing your minds, van der Broek was quick to point out that the newly-translated text could just be a reflection of the kinds of things people believed at the time, he told LiveScience.

"Some details, for instance the meal with Jesus, he may have believed to have really happened," van den Broek said.

But if people believe Jesus was resurrected after three days, there's no reason they can't believe he shapeshifted into an eagle.

"Miracles were quite possible, and why should an old story not be true?," Van Den Broek said.

And if a shapeshifting, invisible Jesus wasn't enough to blow your mind, you might need to adjust your calendar slightly. Easter didn't happen when you think it did. According to the text Jesus was arrested on a Tuesday, not a Thursday.

The Egyptian text was reportedly written by fourth-century saint, Cyril of Jerusalem and was stored in the library of the Monestary of St Michael.

US money bags financier JP Morgan bought the text in 1911 and later gave it as a gift to the Morgan Library and Museum in New York, which is where it van den Broek came across it.



Van de Broek has published the translation in the book The Pseudo-Cyril of Jerusalem of the Life and the Passion of Christ.

