The book also includes a thorough notes section as well as an index. The discoveries of Coptic books containing Gnostic scriptures in Upper Egypt in 1945 and of the Dead Sea Scrolls near Khirbet Qumran in 1946 are commonly reckoned as the most important archaeological finds of the twentieth century for the study of early Christianity and ancient Judaism. Chapters include such topics as Saintly Rebels: The People of the Scrolls, The Dancing Savior: The Myth of the Gnostic Christ and The Secret Sayings of Jesus: The Gospel of Thomas. Hoeller goes on in his preface, His sympathetic insight into the myths, symbols, and metaphors of the Gnostics, whom by his own admission he regarded as long-lost friends, continues as the brightest beacon of our day. For this reason he called for a renewed appreciation of this ancient tradition, and particularly for a return to the Gnostic sense of God as an inner directing and transforming presence. Hoeller states, Jung knew that the one and only tradition associated with Christianity that regarded the human psyche as the container of the divine-human encounter was that of the Gnostics of the the first three centuries of our era. Indeed, the Dead Sea Scrolls and Nag Hammadi Library both contradict and complement accepted tenets of the Old and New Testaments. Hoeller shows, they rightly feared the documents would reveal information that might detract from unique claims of Christianity. The first team of analysts were mostly Christian clergy, who weren't anxious to share material that frightened church leaders. Hidden for sixteen centuries, the Nag Hammadi library, the most prodigious collection of sacred gnostic texts, was discovered in the late 1940s in Egypt and. The Dead Sea Scrolls, discovered in clay jars in Palestine by a goat herder in 1947, weathered similar storms. These did not appear in English for 32 years, because the right to publish was contended by scholars, politicians, and antique dealers. The Dead Sea Scrolls consist of papyrus and parchment scrolls, and thousands of fragments, found (beginning in 1947) in 11 caves around the upper west side of the Dead Sea. The Nag Hammadi Library consists of writings found by two peasants who unearthed clay jars in 1945 in upper Egypt. The Nag Hammadi Library, a collection of Gnostic texts that were discovered in 1945, near the Upper Egyptian town of Nag Hammadi. The recently discovered (published by National Geographic in 2006) Gospel of Judas seems to belong to a similar category of literature as the Nag Hammadi documents. The Lost Gospels refer to the Dead Sea Scrolls and the Nag Hammadi Library, both discovered in the 1940s.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |