The
Nag Hammadi library (popularly known as
The Gnostic GospelsThe term gnostic gospels refers to gnostic collections of writings about the teachings of Jesus, written from the 2nd - 4th century AD. These gospels are not accepted by most mainstream Christians as part of the standard Biblical canon. Rather, they are part of what is called the New Testament...
) is a collection of
early ChristianEarly Christianity is commonly known as the Christianity of the roughly three centuries between the Crucifixion of Jesus and the First Council of Nicaea in 325....
GnosticGnosticism refers to diverse, syncretistic religious movements in antiquity consisting of various belief systems generally united in the teaching that humans are divine souls trapped in a material world created by an imperfect god, the demiurge; this being is frequently identified with the...
textsGnosticism used a number of religious texts that are preserved, in part or whole, in ancient manuscripts or are lost but mentioned critically in Patristic writings.-Full or fragmentary:These texts exist in surviving manuscripts.*Acts of John**The Hymn of Jesus...
discovered near the
Upper EgyptianUpper Egypt is the strip of land, on both sides of the Nile valley, that extends from the cataract boundaries of modern-day Aswan north to the area between El-Ayait and Zawyet Dahshur . The northern section of Upper Egypt, between El-Ayait and Sohag is sometimes known as Middle Egypt...
town of
Nag HammadiNag Hammadi , is a city in Upper Egypt. Nag Hammadi was known as Chenoboskion in classical antiquity, meaning "geese grazing grounds". It is located on the west bank of the Nile in the Qena Governorate, about 80 kilometres north-west of Luxor.It has a population of about 30,000, who are mostly...
in 1945. That year, twelve leather-bound
papyrusPapyrus is a thick paper-like material produced from the pith of the papyrus plant, Cyperus papyrus, a wetland sedge that was once abundant in the Nile Delta of Egypt....
codicesA codex is a book in the format used for modern books, with separate pages normally bound together and given a cover...
buried in a sealed jar were found by a local peasant named
Mohammed Ali SammanMohammed Ali Samman is the person who discovered the Gnostic Gospels of the Nag Hammadi library in December 1945. While digging for fertiliser at the base of the Jabal al-Tarif cliff near the town of Hamrah Dawm, Egypt, he unearthed several papyri in a large earthernware vessel. Unaware of how...
. The writings in these codices comprised fifty-two mostly Gnostic tractates (
treatiseA treatise is a formal and systematic exposition in writing of the principles of a subject, generally longer and more detailed than an essay...
s), but they also include three works belonging to the
Corpus HermeticumHermetica is a category of literature dating from Late Antiquity that purports to contain secret wisdom, generally attributed to Hermes Trismegistus, "thrice-great Hermes", who is a syncretism of the Greek god Hermes and the Egyptian deity Thoth...
and a partial translation / alteration of
PlatoPlato , was a Classical Greek philosopher, mathematician, writer of philosophical dialogues, and founder of the Academy in Athens, the first institution of higher learning in the Western world...
's
Republic. In his "Introduction" to
The Nag Hammadi Library in English, James Robinson suggests that these codices may have belonged to a nearby Pachomian monastery, and were buried after Bishop Athanasius condemned the uncritical use of
non-canonicalA Biblical canon or canon of scripture is a list or set of Biblical books considered to be authoritative as scripture by a particular religious community, generally in Judaism or Christianity. The term itself was first coined by Christians, but the idea is found in Jewish sources...
books in his
Festal Letter of 367 AD.
The contents of the codices were written in
CopticCoptic or Coptic Egyptian is the final stage of the Egyptian language, a northern Afro-Asiatic language spoken in Egypt until at least the seventeenth century. Egyptian began to be written using the Greek alphabet in the first century...
, though the works were probably all translations from
GreekGreek , an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages, is the language of the Greeks. Native to the southern Balkans, it has the longest documented history of any Indo-European language, spanning 34 centuries of written records. In its ancient form, it is the language of classical...
. The best-known of these works is probably the
Gospel of ThomasThe Gospel According to Thomas , also known as The Gospel of Thomas, is a New Testament apocryphon, nearly completely preserved in a Coptic papyrus manuscript discovered in 1945 at Nag Hammadi, Egypt...
, of which the Nag Hammadi codices contain the only complete text. After the discovery it was recognized that fragments of these sayings attributed to Jesus appeared in manuscripts discovered at
OxyrhynchusOxyrhynchus is a city in Upper Egypt, located about 160 km south-southwest of Cairo, in the governorate of Al Minya. It is also an archaeological site, considered one of the most important ever discovered...
in 1898, and matching quotations were recognized in other early Christian sources. Subsequently, a 1st or 2nd century date of composition circa 80 AD for the lost Greek originals of the
Gospel of ThomasThe Gospel According to Thomas , also known as The Gospel of Thomas, is a New Testament apocryphon, nearly completely preserved in a Coptic papyrus manuscript discovered in 1945 at Nag Hammadi, Egypt...
has been proposed, though this is disputed by many if not the majority of biblical matter researchers. The once buried manuscripts themselves date from the 3rd and 4th centuries.
The Nag Hammadi codices are housed in the
Coptic MuseumThe Coptic Museum is a museum in Coptic Cairo, Egypt with the largest collection of Egyptian Christian artifacts in the world. It was founded by Marcus Simaika Pasha in 1910 to house Coptic antiquities. The museum traces the history of Christianity in Egypt from its beginnings to the present day...
in
CairoCairo is the capital of Egypt and the largest city in the Arab World. Nicknamed "The City of a Thousand Minarets" for its preponderance of Islamic architecture, Cairo has long been a center of the region's political and cultural life...
,
EgyptEgypt , officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a country mainly in North Africa, with the Sinai Peninsula forming a land bridge in Western Asia...
. To read about their significance to modern scholarship into early
ChristianityChristianity is a monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth as presented by the revelations in the New Testament....
, see the Gnosticism article.
Discovery at Nag Hammadi
The story of the discovery of the Nag Hammadi library in 1945 has been described as 'exciting as the contents of the find itself' (Markschies,
Gnosis: An Introduction, 48). In December of that year, two Egyptian brothers found several papyri in a large earthernware vessel while digging for fertilizer around
limestoneLimestone is a sedimentary rock composed largely of the mineral calcite . The deposition of limestone strata is often a by-product and indicator of biological activity in the geologic record...
caves near present-day Hamra Dom in Upper Egypt. The find was not initially reported by either of the brothers, who sought to make money from the manuscripts by selling them individually at intervals. It is also reported that the brothers' mother burned several of the manuscripts, worried, apparently, that the papers might have 'dangerous effects' (Markschies,
Gnosis, 48). As a result, what came to be known as the Nag Hammadi library (owing to the proximity of the find to Nag Hammadi, the nearest major settlement) appeared only gradually, and its significance went unacknowledged until some time after its initial uncovering.
In 1946, the brothers became involved in a feud, and left the manuscripts with a
CopticCoptic or Coptic Egyptian is the final stage of the Egyptian language, a northern Afro-Asiatic language spoken in Egypt until at least the seventeenth century. Egyptian began to be written using the Greek alphabet in the first century...
priestA priest or priestess is a person having the authority or power to administer religious rites; in particular, rites of sacrifice to, and propitiation of, a deity or deities. Their office or position is the priesthood, a term which may also apply to such persons collectively.Priests and priestesses...
, whose brother-in-law in October that year sold a
codexA codex is a book in the format used for modern books, with separate pages normally bound together and given a cover...
to the Coptic Museum in Old Cairo (this tract is today numbered Codex III in the collection). The resident Coptologist and religious historian Jean Dorese, realizing the significance of the artifact, published the first reference to it in 1948. Over the years, most of the tracts were passed by the priest to a Cypriot antiques dealer in Cairo, thereafter being retained by the Department of Antiquities, for fear that they would be sold out of the country. After the revolution in 1956, these texts were handed to the Coptic Museum in Cairo, and declared national property. Dr Pahor Labib, the director of the Coptic Museum at that time, was keen to keep these manuscripts in their country of origin.
Meanwhile, a single codex had been sold in Cairo to a
BelgianThe Kingdom of Belgium is a country in northwest Europe. It is a founding member of the European Union and hosts its headquarters, as well as those of other major international organizations, including NATO...
antique dealerAn antique is an old collectible item. It is collected or desirable because of its age, rarity, condition, utility, or other unique features. It is an object that represents a previous era in human society....
. After an attempt was made to sell the codex in both
New YorkNew York is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Northeastern regions of the United States and is the nation's third most populous. The state is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
and
ParisParis is the capital of France and the country's most populous city. It is situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
, it was acquired by the
Carl Gustav Jung InstituteCarl Gustav Jung was a Swiss psychiatrist, an influential thinker and the founder of analytical psychology known as Jungian psychology. Jung's approach to psychology has been influential in the field of depth psychology and in countercultural movements across the globe...
in
ZurichZürich or Zurich is the largest city in Switzerland and the capital of the canton of Zürich. The city is Switzerland's main commercial and cultural centre and sometimes called the Cultural Capital of Switzerland, the political capital of Switzerland being Berne...
in 1951, through the mediation of
Gilles QuispelGilles Quispel was a Dutch theologian, and historian of Christianity and Gnosticism. He became professor emeritus of early Christian history at Utrecht University....
. There it was intended as a birthday present to the famous
psychologistA psychologist is someone who studies the human mind and behavior. Research psychologists study human perception, cognition, attention, emotion, motivation, personality, behavior and interpersonal relationships...
; for this reason, this codex is typically known as the
Jung CodexThe Jung Codex was found at Nag Hammadi. It slipped through the hands of the Egyptian authorities and was sold to private collectors in the United States...
, being Codex I in the collection.
Jung's death in 1961 caused a quarrel over the ownership of the Jung Codex, with the result that the pages were not given to the Coptic Museum in Cairo until 1975, after a first edition of the text had been published. Thus the papyri were finally brought together in Cairo: of the 1945 find, eleven complete books and fragments of two others, 'amounting to well over 1000 written pages' (Markschies,
Gnosis: An Introduction, 49) are preserved there.
Translation
The first edition of a text found at Nag Hammadi was from the Jung Codex, a partial translation of which appeared in Cairo in 1956, and a single extensive facsimile edition was planned. Due to the difficult political circumstances in Egypt, individual tracts followed from the Cairo and Zurich collections only slowly.
This state of affairs changed only in 1966, with the holding of the Messina Congress in
ItalyItaly , officially the Italian Republic , is a country located on the Italian Peninsula in Southern Europe and on the two largest islands in the Mediterranean Sea, Sicily and Sardinia. Italy shares its northern, Alpine boundary with France, Switzerland, Austria and Slovenia...
. At this conference, intended to allow scholars to arrive at a group consensus concerning the definition of gnosticism,
James M. RobinsonJames M. Robinson is Professor Emeritus of Religion, Claremont Graduate University, Claremont, California. He is a member of the Jesus Seminar and arguably the most prominent Q and Nag Hammadi library scholar of the 20th century. He is also a major contributor to The International Q Project,...
, an expert on religion, assembled a group of editors and translators whose express task was to publish a bilingual edition of the Nag Hammadi codices in
EnglishEnglish is a West Germanic language that developed in England during the Anglo-Saxon era. As a result of the military, economic, scientific, political, and cultural influence of the British Empire during the 18th, 19th, and early 20th centuries, and of the United States since the mid 20th century,...
, in collaboration with the
Institute for Antiquity and Christianity at the
Claremont Graduate UniversityClaremont Graduate University is a private graduate-only university. CGU is a member of the Claremont Colleges.- History :Founded in 1925, CGU was the second of the Claremont Colleges to form, following Pomona College and preceding Scripps College. Claremont Graduate University is the oldest...
in
ClaremontClaremont is a college town in eastern Los Angeles County, California, USA, about 30 miles east of downtown Los Angeles at the base of the San Gabriel Mountains. The population as of 2008 is 37,242. Claremont is known for its seven higher-education institutions, its tree-lined streets, and its...
,
CaliforniaCalifornia is the most populous state in the United States, and the third largest by area. California is the second most populous sub-national entity in the Americas, behind only São Paulo, Brazil...
. Robinson had been elected secretary of the International Committee for the Nag Hammadi Codices, which had been formed in 1970 by
UNESCOThe United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization is a specialized agency of the United Nations established on 16 November 1945...
and the Egyptian Ministry of Culture; it was in this capacity that he oversaw the project. In the meantime, a facsimile edition in twelve volumes did appear between 1972 and 1977, with subsequent additions in 1979 and 1984 from publisher E.J. Brill in
LeidenLeiden is a city and municipality in the province of South Holland in the Netherlands and has 118,000 inhabitants. It forms a single urban area with Oegstgeest, Leiderdorp, Voorschoten, Valkenburg, Rijnsburg and Katwijk, with 254,000 inhabitants. It is located on the Old Rhine, close to the cities...
, called
The Facsimile Edition of the Nag Hammadi Codices, making the whole find available for all interested parties to study in some form.
At the same time, in the
German Democratic RepublicThe German Democratic Republic was a Communist state that originated from the Soviet Zone of occupied Germany and the Soviet sector of occupied Berlin...
a group of scholars - including Alexander Bohlig,
Martin KrauseMartin Krause, who was born in Lobstädt on 17 June 1853, was a German concert pianist, piano teacher and writer on music.- Career :Martin Krause was born in 1853 as the youngest son of the choirmaster and church schoolmaster Johann Carl Friedrich Krause in Lobstädt...
and
New TestamentThe New Testament is the name given to the second major division of the Christian Bible, the first such division being the much longer Old Testament, both terms being associated with Supersessionism...
scholars Gesine Schenke, Hans-Martin Schenke and Hans-Gebhard Bethge - were preparing the first
GermanGerman is a West Germanic language, thus related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. It is one of the world's major languages and the most widely spoken first language in the European Union. Around the world, German is spoken by approximately 105 million native speakers and also by...
translation of the find. The last three scholars prepared a complete scholarly translation under the auspices of the
BerlinBerlin is the capital city and one of sixteen states of Germany. With a population of 3.4 million within its city limits, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city and the eighth most populous urban area in the European Union...
Humboldt University, which was published in 2001.
The James M. Robinson translation was first published in 1977, with the name
The Nag Hammadi Library in English, in collaboration between E.J. Brill and
Harper & RowHarper & Row was a publishing company based in New York City. It was formed through the 1962 merger of Harper & Brothers with Row, Peterson & Company. It was acquired by News Corporation in 1987 and combined with the publisher William Collins, Sons & Co, a British company, in 1990 to form...
. The single-volume publication, according to Robinson, 'marked the end of one stage of Nag Hammadi scholarship and the beginning of another' (from the
PrefaceA preface is an introduction to a book written by the author of the book. An introductory essay written by a different person is a foreword and precedes an author's preface...
to the third revised edition). Paperback editions followed in 1981 and 1984, from E.J. Brill and Harper respectively. A third, completely revised edition was published in 1988. This marks the final stage in the gradual dispersal of gnostic texts into the wider public arena - the full complement of codices was finally available in unadulterated form to people around the world, in a variety of languages.
A further English edition was published in 1987, by
YaleRapidMiner is an environment for machine learning and data mining experiments. It allows experiments to be made up of a large number of arbitrarily nestable operators, described in XML files which are created with RapidMiner's graphical user interface...
scholar
Bentley LaytonBentley Layton , is Professor of Religious Studies and Professor of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations at Yale University...
, called
The Gnostic Scriptures: A New Translation with Annotations (Garden City: Doubleday & Co., 1987). The volume unified new translations from the Nag Hammadi Library with extracts from the heresiological writers, and other gnostic material. It remains, along with
The Nag Hammadi Library in English one of the more accessible volumes translating the Nag Hammadi find, with extensive historical introductions to individual gnostic groups, notes on translation, annotations to the text and the organisation of tracts into clearly defined movements.
Complete list of codices found in Nag Hammadi
- Codex I (also known as The Jung Foundation Codex):
- The Prayer of the Apostle Paul
The Prayer of the Apostle Paul was the first manuscript from the Jung Codex of the Nag Hammadi Library. It seems to have been added to the codex after the longer tractates had been copied. Although the text, like the rest of the codices, is written in Coptic, the title is written in Greek, which...
- The Apocryphon of James
The Apocryphon of James, also known by the translation of its title - the Secret Book of James, is a pseudonymous text amongst the New Testament apocrypha. It describes the secret teachings of Jesus to Peter and James, given after the Resurrection but before the Ascension.A major theme is that one...
(also known as the Secret Book of James)
- The Gospel of Truth
The Gospel of Truth is one of the Gnostic texts from the New Testament apocrypha found in the Nag Hammadi codices . It exists in two Coptic translations, a Subachmimic rendition surviving almost in full in the first codex and a Sahidic in fragments in the twelfth.-History:The Gospel of Truth was...
- The Treatise on the Resurrection
- The Tripartite Tractate
The Tripartite Tractate is a third or mid-fourth century Gnostic work found in the Nag Hammadi library. It is the fifth tractate of the first codex, known as the Jung Codex. It deals primarily with the relationship between the Aeons and the Son...
- Codex II:
- The Apocryphon of John
The Secret Book of John is a second-century AD Sethian Gnostic text of secret teachings. It describes Jesus Christ reappearing after his Ascension and giving secret knowledge to the apostle John...
- The Gospel of Thomas
The Gospel According to Thomas , also known as The Gospel of Thomas, is a New Testament apocryphon, nearly completely preserved in a Coptic papyrus manuscript discovered in 1945 at Nag Hammadi, Egypt...
a sayings gospel
- The Gospel of Philip
The Gospel of Philip is one of the Gnostic Gospels, a text of New Testament apocrypha, dating back to around the third century but lost to modern researchers until it was rediscovered by accident in the mid-20th century...
a sayings gospel
- The Hypostasis of the Archons
The Hypostasis of the Archons or The Reality of the Rulers is an exegesis on the Book of Genesis 1-6 and expresses Gnostic mythology of the creations of the cosmos and humanity. The text was found among those included in The Nag Hammadi Library in 1945...
- On the Origin of the World
On the Origin of the World is a Gnostic work dealing with creation and end times. It was found amongst the texts in the Nag Hammadi library, in Codex II, immediately following the Reality of the Rulers, with many parallels between the two texts In particular, it rethinks the entire story of...
- The Exegesis on the Soul
- The Book of Thomas the Contender
The Book of Thomas the Contender, also known more simply as the Book of Thomas , is one of the books of the New Testament apocrypha represented in the Nag Hammadi library, a cache of Gnostic gospels secreted in the Egyptian desert...
- Codex III:
- The Apocryphon of John
The Secret Book of John is a second-century AD Sethian Gnostic text of secret teachings. It describes Jesus Christ reappearing after his Ascension and giving secret knowledge to the apostle John...
- The Gospel of the Egyptians
Two versions of the formerly lost Coptic Gospel of the Egyptians , were among the codices in the Nag Hammadi library, discovered in 1945....
- Eugnostos the Blessed
The Epistle of Eugnostos is one of many Gnostic tractates from the Nag Hammadi library, discovered in Egypt in 1945. The Nag Hammadi codices contain two full copies of this tractate...
- The Sophia of Jesus Christ
The Sophia of Jesus Christ is one of many Gnostic tractates from the Nag Hammadi codices, discovered in Egypt in 1945. The title is somewhat coded, since although Sophia is Greek for wisdom, in a gnostic context, Sophia is the syzygy of Christ....
- The Dialogue of the Saviour
The Dialogue of the Saviour is one of the New Testament apocrypha texts that was found within the Nag Hammadi library of predominantly gnostic texts. The text appears only once in a single Coptic codex, and is heavily damaged...
- Codex IV:
- The Apocryphon of John
The Secret Book of John is a second-century AD Sethian Gnostic text of secret teachings. It describes Jesus Christ reappearing after his Ascension and giving secret knowledge to the apostle John...
- The Gospel of the Egyptians
Two versions of the formerly lost Coptic Gospel of the Egyptians , were among the codices in the Nag Hammadi library, discovered in 1945....
- Codex V:
- Eugnostos the Blessed
The Epistle of Eugnostos is one of many Gnostic tractates from the Nag Hammadi library, discovered in Egypt in 1945. The Nag Hammadi codices contain two full copies of this tractate...
- The Apocalypse of Paul
The Coptic Apocalypse of Paul is one of the texts of the New Testament apocrypha found amongst the Nag Hammadi library. The text is not to be confused with the Apocalypse of Paul, which is unlikely to be related....
- The First Apocalypse of James
The First Apocalypse of James, part of the New Testament apocrypha also called the Revelation of Jacob, was first discovered amongst 52 other Gnostic Christian texts spread over 13 codices by an Arab peasant, Mohammad Ali al-Samman, in the Egyptian town of Nag Hammadi late in December 1945...
- The Second Apocalypse of James
The Second Apocalypse of James is one of the Gnostic Gospels, part of the New Testament apocrypha...
- The Apocalypse of Adam
The Apocalypse of Adam discovered in 1945 as part of the Nag Hammadi library is a Gnostic work written in Coptic. It has no necessary references to Christianity and it is accordingly debated whether it is a Christian Gnostic work or an example of Jewish Gnosticism...
- Codex VI:
- The Acts of Peter and the Twelve
The Acts of Peter and the Twelve is one of the texts from the New Testament apocrypha which was found in the Nag Hammadi library.The text contains two parts, an initial allegory, and a subsequent gnostic exposition of its meaning...
Apostles
- The Thunder, Perfect Mind
The Thunder, Perfect Mind is a poem discovered among the Gnostic manuscripts at Nag Hammadi in 1945.Thunder Perfect Mind , takes the form of an extended, riddling monologue, in which an immanent saviour speaks a series of paradoxical statements concerning the divine feminine nature...
- Authoritative Teaching
- The Concept of Our Great Power
- Republic by Plato
Plato , was a Classical Greek philosopher, mathematician, writer of philosophical dialogues, and founder of the Academy in Athens, the first institution of higher learning in the Western world...
- The original is not gnostic, but the Nag Hammadi library version is heavily modified with then-current gnostic concepts.
- The Discourse on the Eighth and Ninth - a Hermetic
Hermetica is a category of literature dating from Late Antiquity that purports to contain secret wisdom, generally attributed to Hermes Trismegistus, "thrice-great Hermes", who is a syncretism of the Greek god Hermes and the Egyptian deity Thoth...
treatise
- The Prayer of Thanksgiving (with a hand-written note) - a Hermetic
Hermetica is a category of literature dating from Late Antiquity that purports to contain secret wisdom, generally attributed to Hermes Trismegistus, "thrice-great Hermes", who is a syncretism of the Greek god Hermes and the Egyptian deity Thoth...
prayer
- Asclepius 21-29 - another Hermetic
Hermetica is a category of literature dating from Late Antiquity that purports to contain secret wisdom, generally attributed to Hermes Trismegistus, "thrice-great Hermes", who is a syncretism of the Greek god Hermes and the Egyptian deity Thoth...
treatise
- Codex VII:
- The Paraphrase of Shem
The Paraphrase of Shem is an apocryphal Gnostic writing discovered in the Codex VII of the Nag Hammadi Codices. It starts off saying that it is "[The] paraphrase which was about the unbegotten Spirit." It's an apocalyptic writing that talks of Shem's ascension and recension to Earth...
- The Second Treatise of the Great Seth
Second Treatise of the Great Seth is an apocryphal Gnostic writing discovered in the Codex VII of the Nag Hammadi Codices. This writing sticks out among Early Christian writings in that it depicts a Jesus who did not die on the cross...
- Gnostic Apocalypse of Peter
The Gnostic Apocalypse of Peter, not to be confused with the Apocalypse of Peter, is a text found amongst the Nag Hammadi library, and part of the New Testament apocrypha. Like the vast majority of texts in the Nag Hammadi collection, it is heavily gnostic. It was probably written around 100-200 A.D...
- The Teachings of Silvanus
The Teachings of Silvanus is one of the books found in the Nag Hammadi library. It is generally dated around 150. Two of the more interesting verses are 99.13, which states Christ has a single hypostasis and 102.3, which states Christ is incomprehensible with respect to his hypostasis.The word...
- The Three Steles of Seth
The Three Steles of Seth is a Sethian Gnostic text from the New Testament apocrypha. The main surviving copies come from the Nag Hammadi library, and were translated and explained by professor Paul-Jean Claude , member of the Nag Hammadi Research Group of the Faculty of Theology and Religious...
- Codex VIII:
- Zostrianos
Zostrianos is a Sethian Gnostic text from the New Testament apocrypha. The main surviving copies come from the Nag Hammadi library, but it is heavily damaged ....
- The Letter of Peter to Philip
The Letter of Peter to Philip, found in the cache of texts at Nag Hammadi , contains a brief letter purporting to be from Saint Peter to Saint Philip, followed by a narrative and gnostic discourse upon the nature of Christ...
- Codex IX:
- Melchizedek
- The Thought of Norea
The Thought of Norea is a brief Sethian Gnostic text. The main surviving copies come from the Nag Hammadi library. The Thought of Norea is sometimes wrongly considered to be a New Testament apocrypha.-Norea:...
- The Testimony of truth
The Testimony of Truth is the third manuscript from Codex IX of the Nag Hammadi Library. The copy of the manuscript from the Nag Hammadi Codices is in horrible condition, and almost too fragmentary to actually read and begin to comprehend...
- Codex X:
- Marsanes
Marsanes is a Sethian Gnostic text from the New Testament apocrypha. The main surviving copies come from the Nag Hammadi library, albeit with four pages missing, and several lines damaged beyond recovery, including the first ten of the fifth page....
- Codex XI:
- The Interpretation of Knowledge
- A Valentinian Exposition, On the Anointing, On Baptism (A and B) and On the Eucharist (A and B)
- Allogenes
Allogenes is a Sethian Gnostic text from the New Testament apocrypha. The main surviving copies come from the Nag Hammadi library, though there are many missing lines. A small fragment also survives in the more recently discovered Codex Tchacos, which may prove mildly useful in filling the gaps.The...
- Hypsiphrone
- Codex XII
- The Sentences of Sextus
The Sentences of Sextus is a Hellenistic Pythagorean text which was also popular among Gnostic and non-Gnostic Christians. While previously known from other versions, a partial Coptic translation appears in one of the books of the New Testament apocrypha recovered in the Nag Hammadi library...
- The Gospel of Truth
The Gospel of Truth is one of the Gnostic texts from the New Testament apocrypha found in the Nag Hammadi codices . It exists in two Coptic translations, a Subachmimic rendition surviving almost in full in the first codex and a Sahidic in fragments in the twelfth.-History:The Gospel of Truth was...
- Fragments
- Codex XIII:
- Trimorphic Protennoia
The Trimorphic Protennoia is a Sethian Gnostic text from the New Testament apocrypha. The only surviving copy comes from the Nag Hammadi library....
- On the Origin of the World
The so-called "Codex XIII" is in fact not a codex, but rather the text of
Trimorphic Protennoia, written on "... eight leaves removed from a thirteenth book in late antiquity and tucked inside the front cover of the sixth." (Robinson, NHLE, p.10) Only a few lines from the beginning of
Origin of the World are discernible on the bottom of the eighth leaf.
See also
- Biblical archaeology
For the movement associated with William F. Albright and also known as biblical archaeology, see Biblical archaeology school. For the interpretation of biblical archaeology in relation to biblical historicity, see The Bible and history....
- Gospel of Mary Magdalene
- List of Gospels
- Acts of the Apostles (genre)
The Acts of the Apostles is a genre of Early Christian literature, recounting the lives and works of the apostles of Jesus. The Acts are important for many reasons, one of them being the concept of apostolic succession...
- Agrapha
Agrapha are sayings of Jesus that are not found in the canonical Gospels. The term was used for the first time by J.G...
- Apocalyptic literature
Apocalyptic literature is a genre of prophetical writing that developed in post-Exilic Jewish culture and was popular among millennialist early Christians....
- Epistles
- Gnosticism
Gnosticism refers to diverse, syncretistic religious movements in antiquity consisting of various belief systems generally united in the teaching that humans are divine souls trapped in a material world created by an imperfect god, the demiurge; this being is frequently identified with the...
- Development of the New Testament canon
The Biblical canon is the set of books Christians regard as divinely inspired and thus constituting the Christian Bible. Although the Early Church primarily used the Greek translation of the Jewish Scriptures, the Septuagint or LXX, or the Targums among Aramaic speakers, the Apostles did not...
- List of New Testament papyri
- New Testament apocrypha
The New Testament apocrypha are a number of writings by early Christians that give accounts of Jesus and his teachings, the nature of God, or the teachings of his apostles and of their lives. These writings often have links with those books which are regarded as "canonical"...
- Pseudepigraphy
Pseudepigrapha are falsely attributed works, texts whose claimed authorship is unfounded; a work, simply, "whose real author attributed it to a figure of the past." The word "pseudepigrapha" is the plural of "pseudepigraphon" ; the Anglicized forms...
- Textual criticism
Textual criticism is a branch of literary criticism that is concerned with the identification and removal of transcription errors in the texts of manuscripts...
Further reading
(526 pages) (145 pages) (182 pages) (549 pages)
- Robinson, James M., 1979 "The discovery of the Nag Hammadi codices," in Biblical Archaeology vol. 42, pp206–224.
External links