Book of sophia nag hammidi library3/13/2023 In December of that year, two Egyptian brothers found several papyri in a large earthernware vessel while digging for fertilizer around limestone caves near present-day Habra Dom in Upper Egypt. 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). To read about their significance to modern scholarship into early Christianity, refer to works on Gnosticism. The Nag Hammadi codices are housed in the Coptic Museum in Cairo, Egypt. ![]() The once buried manuscripts themselves date from the 3rd and 4th centuries. Subsequently, a 1st or 2nd century date of composition circa 80 AD for the lost Greek originals of the Gospel of Thomas has been proposed, though this is disputed by many if not the majority of biblical matter researchers. After the discovery it was recognized that fragments of these sayings of Jesus appeared in manuscripts discovered at Oxyrhynchus in 1898, and matching quotations were recognized in other early Christian sources. ![]() The best-known of these works is probably the “Gospel of Thomas”, of which the “Nag Hammadi Codices” contain the only complete text. The contents of the codices were written in Coptic, though the works were probably all translations from Greek. 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-canonical books in his Festal Letter of 367 AD. The writings in these codices comprised fifty-two mostly Gnostic tractates (treatises), but they also include three works belonging to the Corpus Hermeticum and a partial translation / alteration of Plato’s “Republic”. ![]() That year, twelve leather-bound papyrus codices buried in a sealed jar were found by a local peasant named Mohammed Ali. The Nag Hammadi library (popularly known as The Gnostic Gospels) is a collection of early Christian Gnostic texts discovered near the town of Nag Hammâdi in 1945. The “Nag Hammadi Library” is a collection of early Christian Gnostic texts discovered near the Egyptian town of Nag Hammadi, in 1945.
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