The Nag Hammadi Scriptures: The Revised and Updated Translation of Sacred Gnostic Texts Complete in One Volume by Marvin W. Meyer (PDF)

Description

The Nag Hammadi Scriptures, edited by Marvin Meyer, is the most complete, up-to-date, one-volume, English-language edition of the renowned library of Gnostic manuscripts discovered in Egypt in 1945, which rivaled the Dead Sea Scrolls find in significance. It includes the Gospel of Thomas, the Gospel of Mary, and the recently discovered Gospel of Judas, as well as other Gnostic gospels and sacred texts. This volume also includes introductory essays, notes, tables, glossary, index, etc. to help the reader understand the context and contemporary significance of these texts which have shed new light on early Christianity and ancient thought. The compilation of ancient manuscripts that constitute The Nag Hammadi Scriptures is a discovery that challenges everything we thought we knew about the early Christian church, ancient Judaism, and Greco-Roman religions.

User’s Reviews

Reviews from Amazon users which were colected at the time this book was published on the website:

⭐I began reading the Nag Hammadi scriptures in the early 80’s when the James Robinson

⭐was first published. It was a hard read, mostly because there was so much missing (lacunae). This version makes it much more understandable but not without a price (see the excellent review by John Aaron regarding a little too much translation). Oh well, nobody is/was perfect except one.When I began reading this version, I imagined a round table of scholars who picked apart the essense of these ms’s with the metaphorical microscope as a team and debated each and every translation problem. For how could only a few decide what the texts were saying with so many missing fragments and even whole pages/chapters? They used correlations with all available manuscripts to extract the essence of each manuscript and “fill in the blanks” to make it readable to the average person like me. Yes, it must have been like that.In some cases like The Gospel of Mary (of Magdala), we may not know all of what the High Priest said after he returned from death with just this manuscript because the first three chapters are missing. Maybe they wound up as fire-starter material for some poor people in Egypt? I don’t blame them; we all need light/heat/food to dispel the darkness. A perfect solution. There are other works that are said to be the teaching of The Christ after he returned like

⭐.Yet, even the remnants of the Gospel of Mary are so profoundly beautiful; it is the single most beautiful thing I’ve read in my life. I need to find an older version to see where they deviate but, again, the essence must be there and only made clearer in this version. For anyone unfamiliar with the Gospel of Mary, imagine the scene given in Luke 24:10-11…”10 It was Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary the mother of James, and the others with them who told this to the apostles. 11 But they did not believe the women, because their words seemed to them like nonsense.”Why did their words seem like nonsense? Perhaps because they were so profound as to be not believable? Or perhaps for a more “practical” reason; the editors of the Bible did not want these more in depth details to be known. Teachings like this…”Peter Asks Mary to Teach: Peter said to Mary, “Sister, we know that the Savior loved you more than all other women. Tell us the words of the Savior that you remember, the things you know that we don’t because we haven’t heard them.” Mary responded, “I will teach you about what is hidden from you.” And she began to speak these words to them….”Mary Discusses Vision and Mind: She said, “I saw the Lord in a vision and I said to him, ‘Lord, I saw you today in a vision.’ “He answered me, ‘Blessed are you for not wavering at seeing me. For where the mind is, there is the treasure.’ ~ The Nag Hammadi Scriptures (p. 743)I’d like to say more about the Gospel of Mary but it’s hard without giving examples and Amazon would probably say it’s copyright infringement and not put up my review.For another good example of how the NH not only clarifies but expands and elucidates, see Mark 8:27-30 – Jesus asked them, “who do people say I am?” In the Bible, Peter (and others) respond “You are the Messiah” “one of the prophets” etc. But is that all of it? There were some other replies like that of Thomas…”Jesus said to his disciples, “Compare me to something and tell me what I am like.” Simon Peter said to him, “You are like a just messenger.” Matthew said to him, “You are like a wise philosopher.” Thomas said to him, “Teacher, my mouth is utterly unable to say what you are like.” Jesus said, “I am not your teacher. Because you have drunk, you have become intoxicated from the bubbling spring that I have tended.” And he took him, and withdrew, and spoke three sayings to him. When Thomas came back to his friends, they asked him, “What did Jesus say to you?” Thomas said to them, “If I tell you one of the sayings he spoke to me, you will pick up rocks and stone me, and fire will come from the rocks and consume you.” ~ The Gospel of Thomas, 13So did Jesus say “who do the people say I am?” He already knew what people said before they said or thought it. Isn’t it more plausible that Jesus asked his desciples, who were closest to him, who they thought he was?There is so much more in the NHS especially regarding the Old Testament. That the word “Elohim” is both singular and plural is a clue. El is really the singular of Elohim. The names of God in the OT have been reduced to meaningless interchangable words. Yahweh, Jehovah, Elohim; do these names all mean the same thing? Are they interchangable like a car, a vehicle, an automobile? I think not. The belief of early Christian Gnostics was that the “God” of the OT was not the one true God. The one that Jesus called “Father.” This is the key to understanding the OT. The “demigurge” or archon(s) are themselves temporary and subordinate to God the Father and Christ. If only Christians would put aside what they were TOLD by their Mystery Babylon occult rulers and read/research for themselves.”For what goes into your mouth will not defile you; rather, it is what comes out of your mouth that will defile you.” ~ The Gospel of Thomas 14, Matthew 15:11″Jesus did many other things as well. If every one of them were written down, I suppose that even the whole world would not have room for the books that would be written.” ~ John 21:25I suppose He said many other things as well.

⭐I have two copies of James Robinson’s Nag Hammadi translation. It’s my favorite and the most accurate or should I say literal translation and yet it flows really well. If I were to compare that translation of the words to this one, that one wins. But the Robinson translation is laid out like an old King James bible with all the verses smashed together and absolutely no white space. If you’re sitting and reading complete chapters at one time, that’s tedious to read. Plus there are absolutely no footnotes.By contrast the Meyer translation has a lot of white space and is very easy to read and easy to find the scriptures you’re looking for. It is heavily footnoted and the information in those footnotes is priceless.I’ve uploaded two photos from both translations so you can compare for yourself. One is from the Gospel of Thomas and the other from the Gospel of Philip. When you compare the translations side by side you can see how much easier to read the Meyer translation is. But I would also recommend getting a copy of James Robinson’s translation for those passages that aren’t translated well in Meyer’s book. (You’ll know because they’re confusing.)

⭐So, very interesting. A great read for Christians trying to understand the history and background of the earliest of our Christian brothers and sisters. Eye opening look at foundations of faith, this should make every Christian want to understand the way the church has evolved, even, (and perhaps especially so much?) as to possibly manipulate the masses to adherence to specific religious dogma? Why? See for yourself, challenge yourself, try to understand why several of the different church councils opted to leave these ecclesiastical writings out of the canonized Bible(s). Look at these and ask questions, try to understand the reasoning through the lens of cultural history. Theological and historical introductions by prominent theologians and historians precede each of the writings and offer insight into the texts. In my non-authoritative opinion, these should be required reading of EVERY Christian. As one of my most respected mission-minded friends told me, “In the end, God wins!”, so why not look at how our current Bible came to exclude these Apocryphal writings? Again, so very, very interesting…

⭐I only just bought this copy, and, based on a cursory skim and scan of some of the texts I can see why this collection of books didn’t make it into the canon of the 27 texts that we know as the Christian Bible today. Maybe it is just the translation, but they are hard going, and, quite often undecipherable on a comprehensive and literary level. I am not saying that they are useless and a waste of time (heck, I don’t mind paying £16 for any religious-based work that ends at page 844 – that’s worth something!) But, I fail to see how they shed any major light on Christianity between the 2-4th centuries, other than that they reveal a host of tangential ideas that veer off into the downright esoteric. (It seems to me that if I want to find out about Christianity at this time then the Church Fathers are the way to go!)Further, though the “Nag Hammadi” were discovered in 1945, around the same time as the Dead Sea Scrolls, they are not in the same league, and do not have the same historical weight, in my personal view. I would also be reluctant to call them “Scriptures” as found in the title of this collection, but no doubt many will disagree.To me Jesus did not present the bulk of his teachings so that they would not make sense to his hearers. He spoke in parables, largely, had a preferential option for the downtrodden peasants of his era and those in debt (hence all his talk of wealth and its snares) and was very down to earth. You can deduce from this comment that I don’t buy into the “Jesus-sage” idea as one of the main keys for defining the person of Jesus and I get the sense that this is an over-arching idea that pervades Gnosticism generally, though I may be wrong here. It has to be said too, I think, that gnosticism itself is also an interpretation of the Jesus phenomenon, just as the Four Gospels are. But to collect in one place, a whole bunch of specific esoteric texts, as the “Nag Hammadi” does, is bordering on the cultic. To conclude: I am glad I bought this book as a reference tool, great value print wise etc, but it is certainly not a book to be read from cover to cover.

⭐If you want to learn of Gnosticism this is a good place to start. The compilation of scrolls are an interesting read but be warned it will challenge your concept of belief in many ways. You can clearly see the Greek influence in some of the works along with handfuls of other ancient beliefs all rolled into the wonderful mixing pot of an ancient superstitious societal sect. Some of the writings follow along the lines of Universal truths which often were the teachings of Yeshua, whilst others go off on a wonderful adventure. The thing to bear in mind whilst using this for study purposes is you will have to take time to digest the theories and reject what you think is nonsense by using your intelligence and further cross referencing from superior minds on the net. Some of the” lost books” of the writings of the time are interesting to read and leads one to understand why certain writings were better off left out of the bible (A decision taken by a group of men from way back when) but that’s another study all together. As is often the way with biblical studies, you will have more questions after reading this than answers.

⭐Anyone who is seriously researching our ancient history just has to have a copy of this, it is essential reading whether you are coming from the angle of pure religion or Graham Hancock or Zecharia Sitchin. . . you must read it is as simple as that. It contains the mysterious gospel of Thomas and so it goes: These are the hidden words that the living Jesus spoke, and that Didymos Judas Thomas wrote down. And He said: “Whoever finds the meaning of these words will not taste death.”This, I believe is the best version.

⭐It is an effort to plough through this; you need to be sure of your own reason for reading this; but I am glad I persevered to the end. I am retired with time available and it took me 2 months. I have learned a lot. I now understand why heresy is seen as such, and why documents like these are excluded from the mainstream canon. I found the introduction chapters before each tractate to be more enlightening than the tractates themselves. There are some exceptions to that statement, but they are few and far between. I agree with one of the other reviewers that ‘politically correct’ language distracts in places from the flow of the translations. I would have liked clearer guidance from the authors on the categorisation of the individual texts, perhaps in the Table of Tractates at the end or in the Contents list at the beginning. Now I have finished reading the book, I have only six tractates that I think I may want to read again. I was very grateful for the Epilogue at the end of the book on Schools of thought, which has helped to put everything I have read into context. But I would have liked that categorisation stated up front for ALL of the tractates, even if it only reflects current opinions in existing scholarship that will be subject to change.

⭐Is exactly as described. Part of a study I’m doing to compare religious beliefs/practices based on the Pentateuch, i.e. Judaism, Islam and Christianity. This volume fills in the gaps deliberately omitted from the accepted Canon of the Holy Bible. Fascinating reading.

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