The Nag Hamamdi manuscripts were discovered in southern Egypt.

1945 an important discovery was made by an Egyptian peasant.

35 codices from the discovery from Nag Hamadi library

buried near a cliff

These manuscripts contained forbidden stories, condemned by orthodox sects of the early Christian communities.

Gnostic writings from a minority group of gospels (good tidings).

The heresy of knowledge as opposed to faith

Gospel of Thomas

Gospel of the Egyptians

Gospel of Nicodemus (3rd or 4th century)

Gospel of Phillip

Gospel of Peter

Gospel of Judas

Gospel of Mary Magdalen

Gospel of Truth

Gnostic beliefs:

The world was formed by an evil creator and only the light of knowledge from within--ascertainable solely by the mind-- that could save people and the word from perdition.

The descent of Jesus into hell, the place of the dead who await resurrection, because Christ is he who establishes justice in the world. This story is related in the Gospel of Nicodemus.

There is here a resemblance to the Orphic Tradition in Greek faith where the hero Orpheus goes into hell, the land of the dead or kingdom of Hades to retrieve his lover Eurydice from the mortal grip of underworld.

Third and fourth centuries (A.D.) are the periods of when the Gospel of Judas and the Nag Hamadi texts were transcribed. Along with about thirty other gospels these stories are depictions of what the many early christian communities across the eastern Mediterranean thought about Jesus' divine redemption of the creation.

Gospel of Judas was determined to be hretical by Irenaeus who compiled the canon of the three synoptic Gospels and one Gospel of John. Approximately 280 AD is the date ascribed to the papyrus on which the Gospel of Judas was written. It reveals that he alone among the disciples was given sacred and hermetical information by Jesus.

• Mark (60 AD) the oldest synoptic gospel no name is given to the betrayer.
• Mathew (70-72 AD) is the origin of the "kiss of betrayal," and the suicide stories. A star (12 BC Haley's comet transitted) appeared to foretell the birth of Christ & Herodian murder of the innocents.
• Luke (90 AD) suggests that Judas jumped to his death after the betrayal. Christ's birth is framed by a Roman census of 6 AD.
• John (latest written, 100 AD) portrays Judas (meaning Jew) as the incarnation of evil.

Gospel, meaning the good word, is a story to explain what happened, when in 70 AD the Romans destroyed Herod's reconstructed Temple of Solomon. This was done in retribution for the Jewish revolt of 66 AD against the Roman Empire. Christ is portrayed at times metaphorically as a child in the Judas Gospel. Jesus laughs at false piety. He is given up as a man by Judas so that his divinity may redeem the human race.

A celebration of the sacrifice that redeems the fallen world condemned under the sin of Adam and Eve. The story underscores the diversity of third and fourth century Christianity before Constantine established the church as a state religion.

Greek ideas | Faith | Sacredness | Nature | Myths