Word: hammadi
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Dates: during 1963-1963
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...Dead Sea Scrolls got all the publicity. But more useful to students of early Christian history is a cache of Coptic papyri unearthed near Nag Hammadi in northern Egypt in 1945, the remnants of a library used by a community of Gnostics in the 5th century. The texts are copies of sacred writings from earlier centuries, when the church was struggling to disentangle itself from the early heresy of Gnosticism, which blended Christian ideas with mystical elements from pagan religions of the East. Published last week was the first English translation of one of the most important Nag Hammadi documents...
...stead, following a custom of the early Christian era, it was written by some unknown author who sought to give his own writings the ring of authority by purporting to speak in some measure for the Apostle. Unlike the already translated Gospel of Thomas, from the same Nag Hammadi collection, Philip contains no sayings of Jesus that scholars are tempted to consider genuine. Nonetheless, the author knew his New Testament; the Gospel is larded with references to the four Evangelists and to a number of the epistles of Paul...