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Review Summary: Great Reference Books |
Date: 2008-12-07 |
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Details: Due to its superior numerical notational system, popularity, academic acceptance, and comprehensiveness "The Nag Hammadi Library" (NHL) by James M. Robinson is a must for every researcher of these texts. As one of the editors of the cross references for "The Comprehensive New Testament," I greatly appreciated the superior numerical notational system created by Robinson's team.
The NHL consists of complete and fragmentary parts of thirteen codices in Coptic. Originally composed prior to C.E. 400, the Nag Hammadi Library was discovered in 1945 buried in a large jar outside the Egyptian city of Nag Hammadi. The Nag Hammadi Library (NHL) is the single largest source of the writings of those Gnostics who are referred to in 1Timothy 6:20-21 and Irenaeus' "Against Heresies." In addition to such texts as the gospel of Thomas, the NHL also contains texts from other traditions including hermetic texts and portions of Plato's republic.
The works in the Nag Hammadi Library explore topics such as the Word or Logos, the Christ, Jesus, the Incarnation, the Son of God, and the Virgin Birth. A comparison of the portions of the NHL text concerning the Logos and the description of the Logos in the first chapter of the Gospel of John leads to the interesting question - which came first? Did John compose his description of the Logos as counter polemic to heretical Gnostic texts as some traditional sources seem to imply or is the opposite true?
The tracts that I found to be of the most interest for researching alternative opinions on orthodox gnosis were: A Valentinian Exposition, Gospel of Philip, Hypostasis of the Archons, Trimorphic Protennoia, Tripartite Tractate. These tracts gave good indication that while they didn't have the answer they at least knew what was being discussed and debated. Or to put it figuratively, while they didn't have the key they at least knew the location of the lock that they were trying to pick. From that standpoint, these tracts to some degree agree with the Pharisees, the Qumran Sect, and Christians concerning the location of the "lock." However their proposed method of opening the "lock" by using information that has been secretly handed down, rhetorical analysis, and/or without the need for the Holy Spirit is more akin to that advocated by the Pharisees. Whereas the Qumran Sect and Christianity maintain that the "lock" can't be opened by anyone who is not inspired by the Holy Spirit.
The NHL is not a book for the novice. It is helpful if a person first has a thorough understanding of the debate between the Pharisees and their oral Torah and the Qumran Sect and its hidden or nistar torah (see Exodus 34:33-35) and the implications of this debate in Christianity with regard to 1Corinthians 2:7-16, 2Corinthians 3:12-4:6, Hebrews 8:5, Luke 24:44-46, John 5:46. |
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Review Summary: A Definitive New Translation? The Three Sins of James M.Robinson |
Date: 2008-07-27 |
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Details:
"As with all the Aeons, the Aeon of Barbelo exists, also endowed with the types and forms of those who truly exist, the image of Kalyptos. And endowed with the intellectual Word of these, he bears the noetic male protophanes like an image, and he acts within the individuals either with craftor with skill or with partial instinct." Allogenes (XI,3)
A New Definitive Translation?
Not arguing that this work was "The Most Important book of many decades," and a significant event for Coptologists and experts in historians of early Christianity, this fascinating collection did not catalyze an additional zeal for understanding of the formative years of early Christianity, in Egypt and across the Mediterranean, with the exception of few including K. Rudolph and B. Pearson.
James M. Robinson, who made a heroic accomplishment used few Coptic academics and novice learners to produce a literal translation of the, probably, most complicated mixture of continuously developing thoughts of Alexandrine Gnostics from the second to the fourth century. Outside Egypt, such dogmas were not understood, that Valentinus was very close to be elected the Bishop of Rome, short of few votes!
The second step in exposing this fine speculative elitist thought, is to have a "Dynamic Equivalence," translation which could enrich newly initiated scholars, and an honest concise popular version, for the general reader that could confirm rather than distract their own beliefs.
The Coptic Gnostic Library:
The discovery of the Coptic Gnostic Library in ancient Chenoboskion, was a very sensational archeological discovery, embarked upon by mere accident, by roaming young shepherds in mid upper Egypt, raising scholars speculations on the Origins and development of early Christian thought, in Egypt and elsewhere. The codices, were hidden in an earthen jar buried in Hamra damm (blood red), in the Tarif hill side of the Western Egyptian desert. The big catch, a collection of 13 ancient codices (leather-bound books), were found in a remarkably preserved condition and constituted in total 45 texts, representing previously lost, or unknown apocryphal Christian writings, often described as 'Gnostic' in character, that were determined later to date probably since around 390 CE. The young men who found these priceless codices did not have the slightest idea of their value, that they burnt some to brew their black tea! The precious manuscripts came close to disappearing again, just vanishing on the international black market, through a Cypriot dealer.
Role of Coptic Scholarship:
Two distinguished Coptic scholars, Drs. Togo Mina and Pahor Labib, the consecutive devoted directors of the Coptic Museum, Old Cairo, Egypt, retrieved, bought, and protected this Coptic treasure against theft, political turmoil and lawsuits. Togo Mina, who according to Jean Doresse, 'knew his Christian Egypt well,' started in 1947 the identification of these Gnostic codices written in Sahidic Coptic, when the eminent Coptic scholar, Dr. G. Sobhy directed the dealer to the Coptic Museum. Mina granted Jean Doresse, of the French Archaeological in stitute, the permission to consult with two experts Drition and Puech, and invited them to Cairo. He also sought the competent aid of professor W. Till, of the German Academy, who was commissioned to publish two parallel texts of the Berlin Codex, but Togo Mina died unexpectedly, in 1949, at the young age of 43.
After a time of chaos in the Egyptian domestic scene in the early 1950's, Pahor Labib, as soon as he was assigned director of the Coptic Museum, set a new committee of Coptic and international experts, for the codices translation and publication, but only two of five European experts could participate, due to the outbreak of the Anglo-French hostilities over the nationalization of the Suez canal, in late October 1956.
American Coptic Scholarship:
Liberating American scholarship from the shadow of European thought giants, was to a great extent an outcome of J. Robinson's independent Scholarly enterprise. In his biography, S. Patterson qualifies the genius of James Robinson, thus "In 1965 Robinson visited Cairo to inquire about the apocalypse of Adam, a tractate from the as yet little known collection of texts from the referred to now as the Nag Hammadi library. When he found that access to the manuscripts was restricted to a small group of Europeans (very few American scholars hardly knew any Coptic), whose work to date had placed only a small fraction of the texts in the public domain, Robinson responded with a combination of espionage and diplomacy. With transcriptions based on photographs of a small number of texts supplied by the German Archaelogical Institute in Cairo, Robinson assembled a group of young American and European scholars willing to learn Coptic, and started The Coptic Gnostic Library Project."
The Sins of Robinson:
In spite of the great regard that elite Copts hold for James M. Robinson, and the Institute of antiquity and Christianity, they feel sour about his choice of 'Nag Hammadi,' a non related city of an Arabic, non Egyptian settlement, for a title to such fascinating speculating perspective on Jesus and his teachings. Although they were Coptic translations from Greek, they were most probably composed by Alexandrine Gnostics, in Alexandria's lingua Franca. Copts feel robbed of a part of their heritage by eliminating the Coptic name Chenoboskion, which Mina and Labib selected, and Doresse used for his classic book. Those writings provide, in Robinson's words, "an initial orientation into this newly emerging dimension of early Christianity for the open minded reader."
The second sin of American pseudo-scholarship, which Robinson criticized in the introduction to his book, "The Secrets of Judas". In his conclusion he wrote, "What of the national Geographic Society's 'calculated sensationalism' and the 'assorted scholars' involved in the 'scholarly complicity in it' ?"
The third common sin is spearheaded by Dr. Bart Ehrman of UNC, Chapel Hill who after founding his career on the writings of Didymus, the great blind dean of Alexandria's Catechetical Didaskalia, started to spread unbased or documented lies about 'How the Orthodox corrupted the scripture'. Many of the American scholars still follow outdated theories like Bauer's Early Egyptian Gnostic Christianity. Few including Birger Pearson and Norman Russell, could tell the true story.
The Emergence of the Christian Religion: Essays on Early Christianity
GNOSTICISM, JUDAISM, AND EGYPTIAN CHRISTIANITY
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Review Summary: I like a newer volume of these texts. |
Date: 2008-04-11 |
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Details: I've had this book for some years. I've enjoyed it.
I recently saw that a newer collection has come out. This older NHL came out in 1988/90, and perhaps it was as definitive as definitive gets back then, but when I saw that Marvin Meyer has editted "The Nag Hammadi Scriptures, The International Version" published in 2007, I decided to check it out.
I prefer Meyer's volume. I believe it shows that progress has been made in translating and interpreting these texts in the nearly 20 years between the dates of publication of these two books.
The texts in the Meyer volume are easier to read and understand. The Gospel of Judas is included. (It was still rotting away on the black market when this Robinson volume was published.) There are copious footnotes explaining translation issues and adding information on interpretation. The introductory essays are more informative. And it's a nice hardbound volume, on decent paper, with really nice layout of the texts.
The Nag Hammadi writings are not the easiest to get inside of. The newer volume makes it much easier to read and understand them.
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Review Summary: Good, but not "definitive" |
Date: 2008-04-09 |
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Details: This book is generally well done. The introduction to Gnosticism is not as thorough as the introduction by Bentley Layton in The Gnostic Scriptures: A New Translation with Annotations and Introductions by (The Anchor Bible Reference Library), though. And for what it is worth, the translation style tends to be more literal than Layton. When one is dealing with ancient texts, though, whether the Christian Bible or the Gnostic texts, multiple translations are helpful. A more literal translation helps one see the way in which ancient writers expressed themselves, however hard this may be for us to penetrate. A more interpretive translation, at least when it is done by one who is properly prepared to interpret, such as Layton, helps a reader who does not know the original language to see what the author might have really meant in the many places where a literal translation is not clear to the modern mind.
Thus, to anyone who wants to understand Gnostic writings without knowing Coptic, I would recommend reading both Layton and Robinson et al. side by side where their translations cover the same ground.
Finally, I must object to the line added by the publisher on the front cover: "The definitive translation of the Gnostic scriptures complete in one volume." The main reason this irks me is that there simply _is_ no such thing as a definitive translation, especially of ancient texts far removed from us in time and in intellectual milieu. For us to even have a hope of such a thing as a "definitive" translation, we would have to have (1) the complete texts (2) in their original language [usually Greek] and (3) a perfect understanding of what was in the authors' minds as they wrote. We possess none of these things. Therefore, a definitive translation is an impossibility, at both a theoretical and a practical level. Nonetheless, good translations are possible, and this book offers one set of these. |
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Review Summary: Nag Hammadi |
Date: 2008-03-27 |
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Details: This book is awesome. It has a lot of information that coincides with the bible but also other information that was left out. I strongly recommend it for anyone that is on a spiritual search and thirsts for more knowledge. |
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out of 69 Reviews
