I just finished reading this novel, "The Last Templar" by Raymond Khoury.  I don’t suppose I have to explain who the Templars were, nor the common legend that they left some kind of secret behind, carefully guarded down the centuries.  In this novel, however, their "Holy Grail" turns out to be a journal kept by Jesus of Nazareth in which (allegedly) he somes out and says he’s just a man and not the son of God.  The various characters in the novel jump to the conclusion that if this were generally known, it would be a disaster, and Christianity would just shrivel up and disappear!  The Catholic church realizes this and dispatches a deadly assassin to prevent anyone from finding the journal.

I reminded me of a Christian novel I had seen years ago, with the opposite theme.  Someone had discovered a scroll supposedly written by the Roman centurion who witnessed Jesus’ crucifixion and resurrection.  And of course there is a cabal of evil atheists out to destroy the "Truth".

Does anybody think a discovery like this would really make much difference?  And if it would, is that any excuse for suppressing it?

There wouldn’t be any excuse for suppressing it, but as we all know, the mere fact that something is written onto parchment doesn’t make it true. So even if something like that was found, I expect people would discount it.

(As we would discount a parchment that claimed Jesus rose from the dead.  :wink: ).

Exactly.  There actually is a document called the “Testament of Pontius Pilate” or something like that, which Christians claim is absolute PROOF that the gospel stories are true, but I don’t know of any atheist who takes it seriously.

As far as suppression is concerned, the whole idea is incomprehensible to me.  It seems to assume that if there is an uncomfortable fact hanging around, instead of rationalizing it, just ignore it and it will go away!