Nag Hammadi Scriptures & Gnosticism

What It's All About

For centuries, most Christians believed that the New Testament, especially the familiar gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, was the only source of tradition regarding Jesus and his disciples.

It was the discovery of the Nag Hammadi Scriptures, which has changed our understanding of Christianity, the early Christian movement, and its enigmatic creator.

The Nag Hammadi Scriptures were discovered at the end of 1945. The Nag Hammadi Scriptures are a group of thirteen papyrus codices - bound books, rather than scrolls - discovered near Nag Hammadi in Upper Egypt.

The Nag Hammadi Scriptures have sparked a quest for the real historical Jesus and what he actually taught.

These texts also provided new insight into the Gnostics, a diverse group of individuals which thrived during the Roman Empire's second and third centuries A.D.

Despite the fact that the texts and the people who wrote them had a wide range of teachings and lifestyles, they all shared one thing in common, that is a passion for knowledge (gnōsis in Greek). The teachings of the first Gnostics and their desire for the knowledge of God are preserved in the Nag Hammadi writings.

Gnostics provided profound answers to humanity's deepest problems, including the issue of evil. They explained how the world was created by an ignorant lower god. The Gnostics believed that knowledge of a high God, who sent Jesus, could save one from ignorance, enslavement and suffering.

Since they use the Old Testament (Torah), the New Testament, and other Jewish and Christian scriptures, the majority of the discourses can be classified as Jewish or Christian. Included in the scriptures are books attributed to the apostles of Jesus and "gospels," which recount Jesus' ministry.

There are scriptures which feature biblical figures such as Adam and Eve, Jesus, and the apostles. Some discourses, on the other hand, are not Jewish or Christian in nature, which possibly emerged from religious and intellectual movements active during Greco-Roman periods and late ancient Egypt.

Apocalypses or revelations are popular themes in the writings. There are books which depict a holy person, as Jesus, communicating future occurrences, cosmic mysteries, or mystical messages to a chosen person or community.

Theological discourses, teachings, philosophical writings are among the other forms of literature preserved in the Nag Hammadi scriptures.

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Common Gnostic Concepts:

The corporeal cosmos in which we inhabit, according to Gnostics, is fundamentally defective.

A world like this can't possibly be a permanent home or a place to dwell in for the rest of eternity.

The deity, in the book of Genesis, who created the cosmos could not be the ultimate, perfect God. He must be a lesser deity.

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