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how do you feel about the nag hammadi scriptures? do you think they could be true?

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  • 4 years ago
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    The Nag Hammadi library is a collection of 13 codes containing 50 different texts. They were discover in upper Egypt in 1945. The texts are "gnostic" in their teachings, meaning that the offer a different theology then that of the traditional church build around the idea of "personal revelation" rather then on the teachings of Jesus and canonized apostolic letters of the New Testament.

    The library is found in codex. That means that the texts are in "book' form rather than in scrolls. The codex did not appear until around the 3rd century and did not become common in Egypt until the late 4th and 5th century. That would indicate that this collection of texts dated from 300 to 600 years after the writings of the texts found in the New Testament. (That does NOT mean that the texts themselves can not be older than that - just that the codex dates from that time period.)

    The codex comes from a time when the Christian church was actively weeding out Gnostic writings. These may have been an attempt by someone who held that faith to hide and preserve these writings.

    If you read through the writings of the early church fathers, you will find references to the appears of most of the texts found in the codec. And that the early church fathers rejects them, stating that they were later writings (they were around when they were authored so they would know) and that they were not authentic.

    Usually it makes sense to accept the words of the contemporaries who state when the books were written and that they were fakes over the opinions of scholars centuries later who try to determine if the texts are real or not.

  • 4 years ago

    What about the Harry Potter scriptures? Is magic real?

  • 4 years ago

    The same way I do about all the Gnostic gospels... garbage.

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