the discovery at nag hammadi

if you journey up the nile past cairo, past beni suef and almost as far as luxor, you will come to a city named nag hammadi. nag hammadi is known primarily as a producer of sugar and aluminum and is called home by approximately thirty thousand people.

what is most extraordinary about nag hammadi though is the discovery over sixty years ago of what are now famously and collectively referred to as the nag hammadi codices or the nag hammadi library. the books were discovered in a large jar by farmers in december of 1945. originally there were thirteen books but unfortunately, the farmers actually used some of the books as fire starter. thus, there are now twelve books including one that is missing its cover.
this immensely important discovery includes a large number of primary gnostic scriptures -- texts once thought to have been entirely destroyed during the early christian struggle to define "orthodoxy" -- scriptures such as the gospel of thomas, the gospel of philip, and the gospel of truth. it is entirely conceivable that the course of history would have been changed, were these to have been included in the bible, but the picture that is painted of jesus and his followers as people and as theologians, and most especially of the church and its intended form and function, runs almost entirely contrary to what has been delivered and accepted by the mainstream churches.

the writings in these codices date back to approximately the second century and are believed to be a library hidden by monks from the nearby monastery of st. pachomius after possession of these items was declared heresy.

most famous of the texts is the gospel of thomas which i first read twenty two years ago. it is believed that the gospel of thomas was written between 60 a.d. and 140 a.d. making it an incredibly close-to-the-source document in terms of its chronological relation to christ’s life. the author of the book is named christ’s twin but this is intended in a spiritual sense and not in a genetic sense.
my reading of the gnostic gospels has always been a spiritual and enlightening experience. the thinking more closely parallels my knowledge and understanding of this world in its theological and cosmological presuppositions. i think too that it succeeds by not being saddled with the weight of the preceeding two millenia of interpretation.

consider the following writings that mark the beginning of the gospel of thomas:

“these are the secret sayings which the living Jesus spoke and which didymos judas thomas wrote down.

(1) and he said, "whoever finds the interpretation of these sayings will not experience death."
(2) Jesus said, "let him who seeks continue seeking until he finds. when he finds, he will become troubled. when he becomes troubled, he will be astonished, and he will rule over the all."
(3) Jesus said, "if those who lead you say to you, 'see, the kingdom is in the sky,' then the birds of the sky will precede you. if they say to you, 'it is in the sea,' then the fish will precede you. rather, the kingdom is inside of you, and it is outside of you. when you come to know yourselves, then you will become known, and you will realize that it is you who are the sons of the living father. but if you will not know yourselves, you dwell in poverty and it is you who are that poverty."

laced with metaphor and challenging the metaphors that must have already emerged in the orthodox church, the text also contains such beautiful words attributed to jesus as “recognize what is in your sight, and that which is hidden from you will become plain to you . for there is nothing hidden which will not become manifest."

if you would like to read more (and it isn’t a massive text at all) there are three translations of the gospel of thomas. the version i have in my collection is known as the lambdin translation and can be read online here. if you would like to take a deeper walk inside this writing, then a detailed analysis of the thomas text with rich audio, visual, and textual links (including much of thomas’ other writings) is available here.

the gnostic society library from which most things gnostic can be accessed is right here.