Ancient Biblical Texts, or Heresy and Frauds?

English: Gospel of Thomas or maybe gnostic Gospel of Peter (see talk page). (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The world is forever captivated by discoveries of ancient biblical texts. We are fascinated by what Jesus might have taught the apostles that never made its way into the Bible, hidden or ignored early church documents, what the apostles knew and taught their followers, and the teachings of Jesus Christ.

Never has there been a more controversial, yet ground shaking discovery than the Nag Hammadi ancient Gnostic texts. Religious scientists had presumed they existed for thousands of years, and fragments of the Gnostic texts had been randomly found.  Others believed only fragments of the texts existed as it was a well known fact the Catholic church had charged those with differing views as heretics and expelled them from the church, and had destroyed all literature associated with Gnosticism and its beliefs.

It was not until 1945 that the full manuscript of the texts were found buried in clay jars beneath the earth near the Jabil al Tarif Caves, near present day Hamra Dom that religious scientists and archeologist could study the past with clarity. They were found in the region of Nag Hammadi about three kilometers from the village of al-Qasr. The texts provided not only insight into the past, but revealed a rich, colorful and a much more diverse belief system in the early church than previously thought possible.

The story of the finding of the texts alone is a story laced in controversy and drama. According to interviews with Muhammad Ali al-Sammn, he and his brothers went out to dig for a soil they used for crops. Digging around a huge rock, they hit something hard, underneath the ground.. Muhammad thinking it might contain gold, smashed the jar. Inside were ancient papyrus books, bound in leather. He returned to his home and dumped the books and leaves on the straw piled on the ground next to the oven. Muhammad’s mother, ‘Umm-Ahmad, admits that she burned much of the papyrus in the oven along with the straw she used to kindle the fire.

Before finding the books, Muhammad’s father was murdered. A few weeks later, they repaid the murder, by taking the life of Ahmed Isma’il, the father’s killer. Fearing a police investigation would find the books, Muhammad asked a priest, al-Qummus Basiliyus Abd al-Masih, to save the books. The priest then showed them to a history teacher, who sent them to Cairo for an assessment.

They were then placed in the black market for sale. Officials in the Egyptian government bought one, studied it, and realized its worth, and then took by force ten and a half of the thirteen leather-bound books to the Coptic Museum in Cairo.

One of the codex’s had been smuggled out of the country, and was being offered for sale in the United States. This fact reached the desk of Professor Gills Quispel, a religious historian in the Netherlands. It was then purchased by the Jung Foundation in Zurich, but pages were missing. In the Spring of 1955 Quispel visited the Cairo Museum to find them.

After taking pictures he went back to his hotel room to study the texts and was beside himself when he read, “These are the secret words which the living Jesus spoke, and which the twin, Judas Thomas, wrote down.”

There had been fragments of this text found, “The book of Thomas,” some 100 years earlier, but this was the first complete text that was in existence in the world. The complete text raised not only questions surrounding Christianity, Gnosticism, the writer of the text, but also did Jesus have a twin brother, as the text suggested? Was this in fact a secret gospel never before known to the world? Why was it kept secret? Was this a secret text, or was it simply a mix of myths and tall tales of the day?

Well known to the study of Gnosticism was the fact that not all Gnostic texts were factual. Many copies of any one book were passed off as fact as different sects developed various beliefs, often mixed with other non-christian practices, such as mysticism, the occult, astrology and magic.

The Gnostic sects claimed to be Christian and also assured followers secret traditions given to the apostles by Jesus himself that no one else knew about. Jesus’ teachings were reformed to magically fit their own purposes.

Nag Hammadi texts (Photo credit: Wikipedia)it their own purposes, which in the end offered a religion that served as an alternative to Christianity, we well as a deeply conflicting theology.

The Nag Hammadi texts were never viewed as a contender in the biblical theology because they differed so greatly from

what the apostles had taught and testified to concerning the teachings of Jesus. Secret teachings were also not reflective of the type of religion Jesus taught the apostles. He had come to spread the word. Nothing had been done in secret.

For these, and other reasons, the Nag Hammadi texts were considered heresy by the early church. They were considered not God inspired, and to have been written by those who sought to disrupt and annhiliate the early Christian Church. This was especially true since some of the texts had gathered a following to include a growing number of Christian monks. Some theologies between the monks became so separated that monasteries who worshipped in a more Gnostic format had monasteries built separately, in efforts to quill argument and discord.

Finally, the Western and Eastern Churches made it clear to all within their quarters that the very possession of Gnostic or secret text materials was considered heresy. All such documents found by bishops were to be unquestionably destroyed. It is thought it was in this environment of heresy and tension that monks from one of the many Pachomian monasteries probably buried the Nag Hammadi texts near the year 367 AD thinking they would be later found. This did not happen for nearly 2,000 years.

It is interesting to consider that the same theologies that labeled some monks and bishops as heretics and excommunicated them from the church are the very same documents we study today with epic enthusiasm. In a modern

Coptic Museum (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

world rich with diversity it has never been more important to unearth our rich and colorful Christian past.

Since 1975 the complete Nag Hammadi texts have been available in their entirety at the Coptic Museum in Old Cairo. You can also read them online at the Gnostic Library.

Related articles

• Was Jesus a Gnostic? (neosocrates.wordpress.com)
• The Gnostic Gospels (gnosticwarrior.com)