shock waves were sent through the literary world after the finding of the Nag Hammadi library! It is one of the rare archaeologically discoveries which occur once in a century. It is a collection of different lost Christian scripts written in Coptic probably 4th century. The Coptic language is the most famous of the ancient Egyptian languages at the time. The Nag Hammadi codices contain a number of texts written in this language. One of these works is the Gospel of Thomas, which is only complete in its present form thanks to the discovery of these manuscripts. They are currently stored at the Coptic Museum in Cairo, Egypt.
How were the Nag Hammadi scripts discovered?
In December 1945, two Egyptian villagers were digging close to a riff looking for fertiliser near the town of Nag Hammadi, Egypt. What they found buried in the cliff was a series of jars and in these jars were 13 books. These books were hidden 1600 years ago by Christians. In these 13 books are 57 texts but some of them have double copies. What is really striking is that some of these scripts we have never heard before!
Why is this finding of Nag Hammadi so important?
These occasions provided us to see the immense diversity of Christian texts and belief systems of the ancient world. We received a better understanding of the development and evolution of the Christian faith. In short, we have more data to work with. We can compare and find differences between various Christian groups and how they compare to the New Testament scripts. Some of the text found at Nag Hammadi date a bit later back than the Canon text. The Nag Hammadi’s writings are mainly aesthetical and theoretical.
The discovery of the Nag Hammadi Library was an amazing discovery. It was a great addition to our knowledge of early Christianity and the diversity of beliefs within that faith.
Who were the people who buried the jars?
We don’t know much about these folks but scholars think they were some sort of school or monastic readers who dwelled there. They were probably Christian monks who have hidden the text in jars. The fact that the texts were hidden signifies that these monks and Christians did not want to be found guilty of heresy. The Christian community was facing a new threat and they needed to hide their sacred text from the orthodox church.
We have different kinds of evidence that the group who put the scripts away were monks.
- Near Pochomian monastery, this monastery is only 5 km away from where we found the jars
- The Nag Hammadi literature was found near tombs we know Christian monks have used based on Christian graffiti on the walls of these tombs.
- Text is written in Coptic instead of Greek. The language of most monks in Egypt during these times.
- The fragments of papyrus which covered the book covers were correspondences between monks.
Why are the scripts buried in the sands of Egypt in the first place? We suspect that the documents of the Nag Hammadi were hidden possibly by monks to escape the destruction of these valuable scripts by heresy hunters of the orthodoxy. In 367 the bishop of Alexandria, Aphenisus published a letter blasting people for reading heretical text. He published his own list of sanctions book with the exception of the same 27 books which makes the New Testament canon today.
We know that the Nag Hammadi text dates to the same time as Aphenisus was around, scholars know that because the interior of the leather cover of Codex 5 was enforced with a layer of papyrus and we could carbon date it.
The fact that the texts were hidden signifies that these monks and Christians did not want to be found guilty of heresy. The Christian community was facing a new threat and they needed to hide their sacred text from the orthodox church. This is why we think it was done by a monastic order or maybe even some sort of school for readers, as suggested above.
Critics of this theory argue:
How powerful was Aphenisus really? Bishops at a time were less authoritative than their counterparts in the middle ages. Was Aphenisus the reason? We will possibly never know.
When was the Nag Hammadi text composed?
Scholars think that these documents were originally translated into Greek and later translated into Coptic. The current estimate is that they were composed between the 2nd and 3rd century AD.
What books have we found at Nag Hammadi?
I will list all the scripts and break them down into sections as the scholars have done. The scripts listed here, we had no clue that they existed before or we had no copies of them. The scale of this finding is outstanding and mind-boggling!
When I write never heard before – I mean – before this discovery we were relying on the writings of the Christian Church like Irenaeus or Origen, who spoke very badly of other Christianities and called them heretics.
Book (Codex) 1
- The Prayer of Paul (never heard before)
- The Secret book of James (never heard before)
- The Gospel of Truth (we knew from Irenaeus but we haven’t had a chance to read it before)
- Treatise on Resurrection (never heard before)
- Tripartite Tractate (never heard before)
If you think that was amazing, wait it will get even better…
Book (Codex) 2
- The Secret Book of John (Apocrypha of John)
- The Gospel of Thomas (I have written a comprehensive blog post about it here)
- The Gospel of Philipp
- The Nature of the Rulers (never heard before)
- Origen of the World (this is not the original title – scholars gave it this name now)
- Exegesis of the soul
- Book of Thomas (the contender)
Book (Codex) 3
- Again, the Secret Book of John (the book of Gnostic Christians)
- The holy book of the Great Invisible Spirit (the Egyptian Gospel)
- Eugnostus the Blessed
- Wisdom of Jesus Christ
- The Dialog of the Saviour
Book (Codex) 4
- The Secret Book of John (this is the second time the book was included)
- The second copy of The holy book of the Great Invisible Spirit
Book (Codex) 5
- Eugnostus the Blessed (the second time)
- Apocalypse of Paul (never heard before)
- First Apocalypse of James
- Second Apocalypse of James
- Apocalypse of Adam
Book (Codex) 6
- The Acts of Peter and the Twelve Apostles (previously unknown to us)
- Thunder (never heard before)
- Authoritative Discourse (never heard before)
- Concept of our Great Power (never heard before)
- Excerpt of Plato’s Republic (we knew about that but we didn’t know it was excerpted)
- Discourse on the Eighth and Ninth (an unknown hermetic text)
- The Prayer of Thanksgiving (a previous known hermetic text)
- Excerpt from Perfect Discourse (we had that before in a Latin translation)
- Asclepius
Book (Codex) 7
- Paraphrase of Shem (never heard before)
- Second Treatise of Great Seth (a masterpiece we haven’t heard before)
- Apocalypse of Peter (never heard before)
- Teachings of Silvanus
- Three Steles of Seth
Book (Codex) 8
- Zostrianos
- Letter of Peter to Philip
Book (Codex) 9
- Melchizedek
- Thought of Norea (a female matriarch)
- Testimony of Truth
Book (Codex) 10
- book 10 contains only Marsanes and badly damaged
Book (Codex) 11
- Interpretation of Knowledge
- Valentinian Exposition
- On Anointing
- on Baptism
- On the Eucharist
- Allogenes
- Hypsiphrone (another female entity)
Book (Codex) 12
- Sentences of Sextus
- Gospel of Truth (second copy)
- Fragments
Book (Codex) 13
- Three Forms of First Thought (Trimorphic Protennoia)
- On the Origin of the World
Summary of The Nag Hammadi Library
The Nag Hammadi finding is a unique finding of many different Christian theologies written over at least two centuries before Nag Hammadi. The Gnostic gospels, considered heretofore only found in Coptic translations, have been found in their original Greek and Aramaic. Along with these texts are teachings of other female Gnostics, previously unknown writings on baptism and the Eucharist, a tripartite work on the origins of the world and many other scripts which differ from each other greatly.
FAQ:
It revolutionised our understanding of Christianity in the first couple of centuries of its beginning and let us view deep into the variety of theological thinking of different Christian nominations.
A simple answer is not possible as the Nag Hammadi text contains 13 books with different theological views.
It is kept at the Coptic Museum in Cairo, Egypt.
Yes, it is part of the Book (Codex) 2
Nothing is wrong with it, it is just a different take on Christianity that developed over time.
Nothing is wrong with it, it is just a different take on Christianity that developed over time.
