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Tyndale Open Bible Dictionary

NAG HAMMADI MANUSCRIPTS*

A collection of 12 Coptic codices containing 52 tractates, or Gnostic documents.

In 1947 the area of Jabal al-Tariff (near Chenoboskion and Nag Hammadi in Egypt) yielded a magnificent collection of 12 Coptic codices containing 52 tractates, or documents, 6 of which are duplicates. One volume was smuggled out of Egypt and was finally purchased in 1952 by the Jung Institute in Zurich. (Gnosticism is important to the study of the psychology of religious experience.) After publication, the owners agreed to return the pirated manuscript to Egypt, and together with the remainder of the Nag Hammadi documents, it is now housed in the small but very significant Coptic Museum in Cairo. The documents in the Nag Hammadi library can be divided into several categories.

Gnostic Texts with Christian Orientation

In this category, those documents that have received considerable attention are The Gospel of Thomas, which is a series of sayings and is thought by some scholars to be a sayings-source for the canonical Gospels of Matthew and Luke; The Gospel of Truth, which some scholars have thought came from the pen of the well-known heretic Valentinus; The Gospel of Philip, which contains a unique series of logia related to Gnostic sacraments; and the Apocryphon of John, which has close affinities to the theories of the Ophites and Sethians as described by the heresiologs and provides a full-scale primary source for the Syrian Gnostic reinterpretation of the Garden of Eden story. Some of the other documents in this category that show indisputable signs of Christian influence on Gnosticism are The Treatise on the Resurrection, the several apocalypses of Peter and James, The Book of Thomas the Contender, and Melchizedek.

Gnostic Texts with Less Than Clear Christian Orientation

Some scholars have considered that these texts suggest a pre-Christian Gnosticism, but such a conclusion does not seem to be fully substantiated. Eugnostos is the document usually cited in this matter and is frequently viewed as an undeveloped stage of the more Christianized form of the text known for some time as The Sophia of Jesus Christ. Even the so-called pre-Christian Eugnostos, however, seems to bear unmistakable signs of being related to the Alexandrian school of Christian writings and has been found to contain some allusions to the NT. The Paraphrase of Shem is another document frequently assigned to this category. Its references to baptism and the Redeemer, however, may be the result of a reinterpretation of Christian views and may reflect the conflict between the church and the Gnostics. Other documents in the library usually assigned to this category are The Apocalypse of Adam, The Three Stelaes of Seth, and The Thunder.

Non-Gnostic, Christian Documents

There are also in the library several non-Gnostic, Christian documents, which include The Acts of Peter and the Twelve, The Sentences of Sextus, and The Teachings of Silvanus.

Miscellaneous Documents

There are several documents that are neither Christian nor technically Gnostic but that were probably read with great interest by the Gnostic scribes. Of particular note are the hermetic treatises that are Egyptian in orientation but contain a less radical dualism than is evident in typical Gnostic literature. Hermetic literature has long been known by scholars through the publication of a hermetic library known as the Corpus Hermeticum (English translation, Thrice-Greatest Hermes). The first tractate, “Poimandres,” is probably of the greatest interest to biblical students because of its rather positive view of creation and its interesting parallels with some of the theological ideas, such as “light” and “life,” in the fourth Gospel.