Unknown Berlin Gospel
Encyclopedia
The Unknown Berlin Gospel is a fragmentary Coptic
Coptic language
Coptic or Coptic Egyptian is the current stage of the Egyptian language, a northern Afro-Asiatic language spoken in Egypt until at least the 17th century. Egyptian began to be written using the Greek alphabet in the 1st century...

 text from an otherwise unknown gospel that has joined the New Testament apocrypha
New Testament apocrypha
The New Testament apocrypha are a number of writings by early Christians that claim to be 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 books regarded as "canonical"...

 under the title Gospel of the Saviour. It consists of a fragmentary fire-damaged parchment
Parchment
Parchment is a thin material made from calfskin, sheepskin or goatskin, often split. Its most common use was as a material for writing on, for documents, notes, or the pages of a book, codex or manuscript. It is distinct from leather in that parchment is limed but not tanned; therefore, it is very...

 codex
Codex
A codex is a book in the format used for modern books, with multiple quires or gatherings typically bound together and given a cover.Developed by the Romans from wooden writing tablets, its gradual replacement...

 that was acquired by the Egyptian Museum of Berlin
Egyptian Museum of Berlin
The Egyptian Museum of Berlin is home to one of the world's most important collections of Ancient Egyptian artifacts.The collection is part of the Neues Museum.-History:...

 in 1961 (accessioned as Papyrus Berolinensis 22220). Its nature was only discovered in 1991, when it came round to being conserved (the sheer number of similar manuscripts being conserved causing the 30-year delay), and was revealed in a 1996 lecture by Charles W. Hedrick. It has been edited and translated into English by Hedrick and Paul Mirecki
Paul Mirecki
Paul Mirecki is Bible scholar and associate professor of religious studies at the University of Kansas and the faculty advisor for the Society of Open-Minded Atheists and Agnostics student organization. He was chairman of the department until he stepped aside on December 7, 2005.Mirecki earned a Th.D...

 (Hedrick and Mirecki 1999) and by Bart D. Ehrman
Bart D. Ehrman
Bart D. Ehrman is an American New Testament scholar, currently the James A. Gray Distinguished Professor of Religious Studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill....

 (Ehrman 2003). The fragmentary nature of the text admits of more than one sequential ordering of the contents, giving rise to more than one useful translation, and some public discussion (vide References).

The manuscript appears to date from the 6th century; Hellenisms in the vocabulary and grammar suggest that it was translated from a lost Greek original. The hypothetic original Greek text on which it is based is thought to have been composed somewhere in the late second or early third century, judging from the theology and style. The Gospel is not a narrative but a dialogue
Dialogue
Dialogue is a literary and theatrical form consisting of a written or spoken conversational exchange between two or more people....

, a form often chosen in Antiquity for didactic material.

The content is heavily gnostic in that salvation is available only to those who understand the secret knowledge (gnosis
Gnosis
Gnosis is the common Greek noun for knowledge . In the context of the English language gnosis generally refers to the word's meaning within the spheres of Christian mysticism, Mystery religions and Gnosticism where it signifies 'spiritual knowledge' in the sense of mystical enlightenment.-Related...

), and also shows parallels with the Gospel of Peter
Gospel of Peter
The Gospel According to Peter , commonly called the Gospel of Peter, is one of the non-Canonical gospels which were rejected by the Church Fathers and the Catholic Church's synods of Carthage and Rome, which established the New Testament canon, as apocryphal...

, in that the significance of the Crucifixion
Crucifixion
Crucifixion is an ancient method of painful execution in which the condemned person is tied or nailed to a large wooden cross and left to hang until dead...

is somewhat watered down, being considered a part of a heavenly journey, an idea much more in keeping with a gnostic world-view. The unnamed Saviour (assumed to be Jesus) engages in a dialogue with his apostles that is somewhat more personal than is found elsewhere. And at one point, the cross itself is addressed, as if it is a living creature, a companion rather than a device for death.

External links

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