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The Nag Hammadi Library in English by James McConkey Robinson

The Nag Hammadi Library - James M. Robinson

bookshelves: history, dip-in-now-and-again, lifestyles-deathstyles, philosophy, books-about-books-and-book-shops, reference-book

Read from January 01, 1990 to June 11, 2010

 

'The Introduction' by James M. Robinson puts everything beautifully into perspective, and points out the very important fact that Gnosticism does not necessarily mean Christian Gnosticism. There were, and indeed are, Gnostics hiding out in many normative religions; there are even traces of Gnostic -Judaism, which would seem to be a contradiction in terms but think of the Essenes.

This is a must-read for not only those who study religion but history of philosophy adherents too.

Within this Introduction there is a detailed account of how the books were physically constructed and one can visit The Coptic Museum in Cairo to see the Nag Hammadi library.

For those not interested in the reading the tractates, the precision information before each one is enough to get the gist of content.

ETA :





Duration: 1 hour, 30 minutes

Documentary presented by Anglican priest Pete Owen Jones which explores the huge number of ancient Christian texts that didn't make it into the New Testament. Shocking and challenging, these were works in which Jesus didn't die, took revenge on his enemies and kissed Mary Magdalene on the mouth - a Jesus unrecognisable from that found in the traditional books of the New Testament.

Pete travels through Egypt and the former Roman Empire looking at the emerging evidence of a Christian world that's very different to the one we know, and discovers that aside from the gospels of Mark, Matthew, Luke and John, there were over seventy gospels, acts, letters and apocalypses, all circulating in the early Church.

Through these lost Gospels, Pete reconstructs the intense intellectual and political struggles for orthodoxy that was fought in the early centuries of Christianity, a battle involving different Christian sects, each convinced that their gospels were true and sacred.

The worldwide success of Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code sparked new interest, as well as wild and misguided speculation about the origins of the Christian faith. Owen Jones sets out the context in which heretical texts like the Gospel of Mary emerged. He also strikes a cautionary note - if these lost gospels had been allowed to flourish, Christianity may well have faced an uncertain future, or perhaps not survived at all.