Talk:Nag Hammadi library

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This is the talk page for discussing improvements to the Nag Hammadi library article.
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[edit] Error

There seems to be an error loading the Gnostic Cross image. Sadly, I'm not sure how to fix this...

[edit] Renaming suggestion

The information on this page is excellent, however the subject matter in current popular culture seems to be far better known by the name of Gnostic Gospels than "Nag Hammadi library". Even looking at the references on the page, the books that are quoted tend to use the name Gnostic Gospels. I therefore propose moving this page to Gnostic Gospels (where I saw that someone had created a stub page, since they couldn't find this one, but I changed it into a redirect for now). Any opinions supporting or opposing the move? --Elonka 12:42, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

My only concern would be that there are other Gnostic Gospels that are not included in the Nag Hammadi Library, such as the Gospel of Mary. And so I would agree that popular culture is now refering to the Library as the Gnostic Gospels, but should not the encyclopedia retain some accuracy in its definitions? Perhaps the Gnostic Gospels page needs writing as another, separate, article? 22/6/06 19.43
I agree with the previous suggestion that there should be a separate page for the Gnostic Gospels and this page should retain its current name. Perhaps I am better informed than most members of 'current popular culture' but I was certainly looking under "Nag Hammadi library" for the information on this page. Although the Nag Hammadi library contains texts that are common to the Gnostic Gospels it does not, for example, contain the Pistis Sophia which is a foundation of Gnostic belief. The Gnostic Gospels should be dealt with separately in order to avoid the type of confusion that appears to be prevalent in 'current popular culture'. Surely, an important role of the encyclopeia is to redress such confusion. 2006-09-15. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 196.2.124.251 (talk • contribs)

[edit] Holy Blood, Holy grail

I've altered it from the blatently anti-HbHg statement "...which has been since proven to be unreliable, as much of that book's research and claims of "fact" were based on forged medieval documents which had been created for the Priory of Sion hoax." to "Much of that book's research was based on the hypothesis that allegedly forged medieval documents which had been created for the Priory of Sion hoax were in fact, what they claimed to be."

The reasons being that: 1) The research by the authors of HbHg was using the Priory documents to fill in spots already left blank by our history books. They weren't deliberitly pulling stuff out of their asses as the old line suggests, rather, they were analyzing if the Priory Docuement's attempts to fill the holes left by scholarly works are at all plausible. 2) They don't make claims of fact, that clearly lay out that their sections dealing with the Priory Documents are based off of Hypotheses and speculation, they make no effort to hide that and say "such and such did do this for sure!" 3) You can't prove speculation for which there is circumstantial evidence (and little or no evidence to the contrary) as "unreliable" 4) Yes, I just noticed some grammer errors, will fix.

I therefore concluded that the person who wrote that sentence in regards to Dan Brown's book and the Holy Blood, Holy Grail probably hasn't even read either one, and at best has only read the Da Vinci Code, and I've changed the text to be more neutral in it's assessment of self-proclaimed speculation, that makes up the HbHg. --xx-Mohammad Mufti-xx 07:50, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Biblical archaeology relevance

User:999 reverted my addition of Biblical archaeology to the "See also" section by saying "article doesn't even mention gnosticism". But the Nag Hammadi library is an archeological find which is relevant to the compilation of Biblical scriptures. This is my interest and I believe that others would be interested in more background of about Biblical archaeology in studying this subject, including both gnostic and non-gnostic scriptural writings. Also, I don't think that a reasonable link added in good faith should be reverted without discussion, as if it were vandalism. --Ben Best 16:55, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

Well, why not also add some mention of the archeology of Nag Hammadi to the Biblical archaeology article? Maybe b/c it wasn't an archeological find at all, but was rather serendipitously discovered? So the relevance is what, exactly, again? 999 (Talk) 03:06, 6 January 2007 (UTC)
Maybe you are right. I admit that I do not have special expertise in this field. The subjects seemed closely related to me in my "layman's research" and I thought that a link that would have made things easier for me could make things easier for others. Anyway, I have done as you suggested and added a paragraph to Milestones during 1945 - 1967. If it is all reverted by "experts" I won't fight it. --Ben Best 14:43, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Story of Library's Origin and Burial

The story of who copied or held the codices, and why they were buried, is in need of revision, and I would like to offer some rationale for my changes. Currently the problematic section of the article reads as follows:

The codices are believed to be a library hidden by monks from the nearby monastery of St Pachomius when the possession of such banned writings denounced as heresy was made an offense. The zeal of Athanasius in extirpating non-canonical writings and the Theodosian decrees of the 390s may have motivated the hiding of such dangerous literature.

For a start, this passage is inconsistent with Wikipedia guidelines on at least three counts: (1) No sources are cited; (2), There are weasel words such as "believed" and "may"; and (3), Words such as "zeal," "motivated," and "dangerous" might suggest a non-NPOV.

Indeed, there are long-standing objections in the academic literature. A link to nearby Pachomian monasteries was suggested in a provisional and posthumous report by John Barns published in 1975.[1] In an appendix to that report, E.G. Turner argued that Barns had taken his paleographic findings too far. Nonetheless, James Robinson accepted Barns' conclusions and popularized them via his "Introduction" to The Nag Hammadi Library in English.[2] Subsequent analyses also threw doubts on the proposed link,[3] but by this time the story was firmly welded to the Nag Hammadi legend. The following objections are summarized from a paper by Pachomian scholar, Armand Veilleux[4]:

  1. There is no positive paleographic evidence linking these codices to Pachomian monks
  2. Athanasius' letter in 367 focused on Arians, not the kind of Gnosticism represented in the Nag Hammadi codices
  3. There is no positive evidence in the body of Pachomian literature, especially circa 367, showing any self-conscious interest in Gnosticism

Of course it is possible that Robinson's version of the story is true. To that extent, the weasel words in the passage above are understandable, but misleading without further context. --Tm19 23:52, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] References

  1. ^ Barns, J.W.B. "Greek and Coptic Papyri from the Covers of the Nag Hammadi Codices." In Essays on the Nag Hammadi Library, ed. M. Krause. Leiden: Brill, 1975, pp. 9-18
  2. ^ Robinson, J.M. "Introduction," in The Nag Hammadi Library in English. San Francisco: Harper and Row, 1977, pp. 16ff.
  3. ^ See, especially, Shelton, J.C. "Introduction," in Nag Hammadi Codices: Greek and Coptic Papyri from the Cartonnage of the Covers, ed. J. W. Barnes, G. M. Browne, and J. C. Shelton. Leiden: Brill, 1981, pp. 1-11.
  4. ^ Veilleux, A. "Monasticism and Gnosis in Egypt." In Proceedings of the Conference on the Roots of Christianity in Egypt, Claremont-Santa Barbara, 1986.

[edit] Image caption

User:P4k recently changed the caption of the image (twice) from "The Nag Hammadi library is a collection of early Christian Gnostic texts discovered near the Egyptian town of Nag Hammadi in 1945." to "Codex IV". The edit summaries haven't been particularly civil, so I thought it might be better to discuss it here, rather than get in a lame edit war.

The former caption may not be ideal, but "Codex IV" goes against Wikipedia:Captions in that it's not a complete sentence. – Quadell (talk) (random) 18:44, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

Are you satisfied with it now?P4k (talk) 19:13, 7 January 2008 (UTC)
Actually, yes, thanks. – Quadell (talk) (random) 20:00, 7 January 2008 (UTC)
Also, fuck Wikipedia:Captions, the old caption was awful.P4k (talk) 19:14, 7 January 2008 (UTC)
If you can learn to be civil, you'll probably last a lot longer around here. – Quadell (talk) (random) 20:00, 7 January 2008 (UTC)
Why would I want that?P4k (talk) 20:00, 7 January 2008 (UTC)