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NAG HAMMADI

A modern city in Upper Egypt, 556 km. (345 mi.) S of Cairo and 118 km. (74 mi.) N of Luxor on the west bank of the Nile River. The name of the city has been applied to a collection of papyrus manuscripts that shed light on religious and philosophical issues during the early Christian period.

Discovery of the Codices

According to James M. Robinson, the Nag Hammadi codices (NHC) were discovered by Egyptian fellahin, including Muhammad Ali of the al-Samman clan, ca. December 1945 in a large storage jar buried at the base of the Jebel el-Tarif, the cliff that flanks the Nile River near the village of Hamra Dum and across from the city of Nag Hammadi. Although portions may have been burned, the rest of the collection is now conserved and stored in the library of the Coptic Museum in Old Cairo.

Contents

The Nag Hammadi codices constitute a collection of 12 papyrus books (called codices, from Latin) and eight leaves from a 13th. They represent some of the earliest examples of bound books, as opposed to scrolls. These codices and extra leaves contain more than 50 separate texts and 48 separate titles (less the duplicate texts, according to one means of enumeration). The texts are preserved in Coptic, though most scholars conclude that they were originally composed in Greek. Dated material from the cartonnage, or scrap papyrus lining the leather covers of the codices, indicates that at least some of the codices may have been assembled ca. the mid-4th century. The evidence from the cartonnage and other circumstantial evidence, including archaeological data, may link the manufacture of the covers and codices to a nearby site such as Pabau (modern Faw Qibli) and the Pachomian monastic movement, but the evidence is not conclusive. Some scholars guess that the occasion for the burial of the codices may be the promulgation of the Easter letter of Athanasius of Alexandria in 367 with its condemnation of heretics and their books, but that also remains uncertain.

The texts exhibit a wide range of religious and philosophical perspectives. Christian, esoteric, and ascetic tendencies predominate, but the codices also contain non-Christian and marginally or secondarily christianized texts, Jewish gnostic texts, and even a fragment from Plato’s Republic. Among the numerous gnostic texts are Sethian and Valentinian texts, as well as Hermetic texts. Still, the variety of supposedly gnostic and nongnostic perspectives among Nag Hammadi texts has raised fundamental questions about the nature of Gnosticism and the ways in which scholars define and classify Gnosticism and gnostic schools of thought.

The texts also exhibit a range of genres of literature. Like the NT canon, the Nag Hammadi codices contain texts that may be termed gospels, acts, letters, and apocalypses. Among the gospels are the Gospel of Truth (NHC I,3; XII,2), the Gospel of Thomas (II,2), the Gospel of Philip (II,3), and the Gospel of the Egyptians (III,2; IV,2). (The fragmentary Gospel of Mary is in a related codex, Berolinensis Gnosticus [BG]8502,1.) These gospels, however, are quite different from the NT narrative gospels, which focus upon the salvific death and resurrection of Jesus as the occasion for interpreting the life of Jesus. The gospels from the Nag Hammadi codices are more concerned with interpreting sayings and offering revelatory discourses of Jesus, and meditating upon the deeper meaning of Jesus. The Acts of Peter and the Twelve Apostles (VI,I) and the Letter of Peter to Philip (VIII,2) include materials similar to that found in the NT and apocryphal acts. (The Act of Peter, from the apocryphal Acts of Peter, is preserved within the same codex from Berlin, BG 8502,4.) The Letter of Peter to Philip (also identified, according to reports, in another unpublished papyrus codex) opens with a letter, and other Nag Hammadi texts also are cast in the form of letters. Several Nag Hammadi texts are described as revelations or apocalypses (one of Paul, two of James, one of Adam). These are located in Codex V.

Other genres are also attested. Several contain revelatory discourses of Jesus or dialogues between the resurrected Christ and his disciples, such as those in the Apocryphon (Secret Book) of James (I,2) and the Apocryphon of John (II,1; III,1; IV,1; BG 8502,2). The Apocryphon of John, a Jewish gnostic text that has been secondarily christianized, includes a revolutionary interpretation of the opening chapters of Genesis that gives a mythological vision of the devolution and restoration of the divine and all who manifest the spirit of the divine. Four copies of this text exist (in two recensions), and heresiologists likewise wrote about materials similar to this text. The Apocryphon of John thus seems to offer a classic gnostic presentation of the origin, fall, and salvation of humankind.

Significance for Ancient
Religion and Philosophy

The publication of the Nag Hammadi codices has disclosed remarkable new possibilities for exploring religion and philosophy during the first centuries c.e., particularly as these issues come to expression in early Christianity. The discovery of the codices has highlighted the importance of the Nag Hammadi region as a center of early Christian life and thought, particularly when this discovery is considered along with the renewed study of the Dishna papers (sometimes called the Bodmer Papyri), which derive from the same general area in Upper Egypt, and the archaeological work undertaken at monastic sites and other Christian locales in the region.

The Nag Hammadi texts illumine varieties of Judaism, Christianity, and Gnosticism previously understood in a much more limited way. For example, esoteric Jewish traditions, reminiscent of what is to be read in other Jewish apocryphal and pseudepigraphical documents, are reflected in such texts as the Apocryphon of John, the Apocalypse of Adam (V,5), the Three Stelas of Seth (VII,5), Zostrianos (VIII,1), the Thought of Norea (IX,2), Marsanes (X,1), and Allogenes (XI,3). The Teachings of Silvanus (VII,4) is essentially a work of Jewish wisdom that has been Christianized to a degree. Several of these sorts of Nag Hammadi texts also show clear familiarity with Neoplatonic thought and demonstrate the development of Gnosticism in a Neoplatonic thought-world.

The study of Gnosticism itself has been fundamentally transformed by the discovery and publication of the Nag Hammadi codices. These texts carry the study of Gnosticism far beyond the heresiologists and the church fathers, whose polemical portrayals of gnostic life and thought often provide only a caricature of Gnosticism. The gnostic texts within the codices disclose a rich diversity of mystical, mythological, syncretistic expressions in Gnosticism. They suggest that some gnostic traditions were deeply rooted in Judaism: in Jewish wisdom, in apocalyptic Jewish groups, in alienated types of Jewish piety that raised troubling questions about the divine, in concerns for Seth as the enlightened son of Adam and eventually a gnostic redeemer. The appearance of Seth, Derdekeas, and other gnostic redeemers in Nag Hammadi texts gives evidence of a developed redeemer myth apart from early Christianity. This evidence contributes to the ongoing discussion of whether Gnosticism should be viewed merely as a Christian heresy or rather as a religion in its own right, with non-Christian and perhaps pre-Christian manifestations. After the publication of the Nag Hammadi texts, the latter position seems tenable to many scholars, and gnostic religion is emerging as a highly reflective and self-consciously provocative form of spirituality.

Significance for the NT and
Early Christian Literature

The Gospel of Thomas (II,2) has attracted more attention than any other Nag Hammadi text on account of its significance for NT and early Christian studies. Thomas is a gospel of wisdom that presents “the living Jesus” uttering a series of sayings (conventionally considered to be 114 in number); and although the sayings cannot be classified as gnostic without qualification, they all are said to be capable of being interpreted in such a way as to bring readers to a state in which they will not “taste death.” As a collection of sayings of Jesus, the Gospel of Thomas resembles other Jewish, Greco-Roman, and Christian collections of sayings, especially the synoptic sayings source Q. Debate continues about whether the Gospel of Thomas is essentially dependent upon or independent of the original NT Gospels, but a good case can be made for it as an independent source for the Jesus tradition. Some sayings in the Gospel of Thomas are presented in a form that is earlier than that of the sayings in the NT, e.g., parables of Jesus that are given without allegorical embellishment in Thomas. Other sayings that are without parallel in the NT and early Christian literature may be helpful in the quest of the historical Jesus and the sayings of the historical Jesus, e.g., the parable of the jar of meal (saying 97) and the parable of the assassin (saying 98). A form of saying 17 (“I shall give you what no eye has seen . . .”) may be alluded to in 1 Cor. 2:9. The Gospel of Thomas could have been originally composed in the 1st century, and it should take its place alongside Q as a primary source for sayings of Jesus and an early example of Christianity with an orientation toward wisdom.

In addition, the Nag Hammadi codices contribute substantially to the study of the Gospel of John and Johannine literature. It has been claimed by some scholars that the author of John uses terms, motifs, and styles familiar from gnostic literature, and writes within the context of a gnostic world of ideas. Nag Hammadi texts support this claim by providing examples of revelatory discourses, “I am” aretalogical statements, and reflections upon the divine Logos (Word). The Trimorphic Protennoia (XIII,1) features the divine Word revealing itself in an aretalogical manner and describing its descent to the world, its appearance in human likeness, and its work of restoring to the light those who belong to the Word, all in a way much like the Gospel of John. Further, the Johannine tradition about “doubting Thomas” may now be interpreted, in the light of the Gospel of Thomas and the Book of Thomas (the Contender) (II,7), as a part of the controversy about the place and role of Thomas in early Christianity.

The Nag Hammadi codices also contribute to the study of traditions about the Resurrection and resurrection appearances within early Christianity. The Letter of Peter to Philip (VIII,2), like other Christian gnostic texts from the Nag Hammadi codices, portrays the risen Christ appearing as “a great light” on the Mount of Olives and revealing himself through a voice calling out from the light, in the form of an “I am” statement, “I am Jesus Christ who is with you forever.” While such a presentation of an appearance of the risen Christ may be contrasted with NT passages that stress the physical reality of the body of the risen Christ, this gnostic description recalls the appearance of Christ to Paul as a light and voice on the Damascus road according to Acts 9, 22, 26; ; the discussion of Paul on the glorious, spiritual nature of the Resurrection in 1 Cor. 15; ; and the brilliant apocalyptic vision of the risen Christ in Rev. 1. There is a Nag Hammadi text, the Treatise on Resurrection (I,4), that is devoted entirely to an evaluation of the Resurrection, and this text concludes that the spiritual resurrection is something that has already happened. Although this is precisely what is condemned in 2 Tim. 2:17-18 as the ungodly teaching of Hymenaeus and Philetus, the author of the Treatise substantiates the argument on the Resurrection given in this text with a citation of the Apostle Paul himself.

Bibliography. M. Meyer, The Gospel of Thomas (San Francisco, 1992); J. M. Robinson, ed., The Nag Hammadi Library in English, 3rd ed. (San Francisco, 1988); D. M. Scholer, Nag Hammadi Bibliography, 1948-1969. Nag Hammadi Studies 1 (Leiden, 1971); Nag Hammadi Bibliography, 1970-1994. Nag Hammadi and Manichaean Studies 32 (Leiden, 1997).

Marvin Meyer

Prayer Tents Bible References - Prayer Tents

NAG HAMMADI

Eerdmans Dictionary of the Bible (2000)