The Nag Hammadi library, also called the Chenoboskion Manuscripts and the Gnostic Gospels, is a group of early Christian and Gnostic writings found near the town of Nag Hammadi in Upper Egypt in 1945.

In late 1945, an Egyptian farmer named Muhammed al-Samman and others discovered twelve leather-bound papyrus books (and a short text from a thirteenth) inside a sealed jar. These books contain 52 mostly Gnostic writings, as well as three texts from the Corpus Hermeticum and a partial version of Plato’s Republic. James Robinson, in his book The Nag Hammadi Library in English, suggests the books may have belonged to a nearby Pachomian monastery and were buried after Saint Athanasius banned non-canonical books in a letter written in 367 A.D. This idea has been supported by research from Lundhaug & Jenott (2015, 2018) and Linjamaa (2024). Linjamaa’s 2024 book argues that the library was used by a small group of educated monks at a Pachomian monastery and was part of a larger Christian collection.

The writings in the books were written in the Coptic language. One well-known text is the Gospel of Thomas, which the Nag Hammadi books contain in its complete form. After the discovery, scholars found that parts of this text had appeared in earlier manuscripts from Oxyrhynchus (P. Oxy. 1) and in other early Christian writings. Most experts believe the Gospel of Thomas was written in the 2nd century, but the buried manuscripts date to the 300s and 400s.

Today, the Nag Hammadi books are kept in the Coptic Museum in Cairo, Egypt.

Discovery

In 1946, scholars first learned about the Nag Hammadi library. Between 1947 and 1950, Jean Doresse found that a local farmer, who was a teenager at the time, had uncovered the texts from a graveyard in the desert near tombs from Egypt’s Sixth Dynasty. In the 1970s, James Robinson met the farmer, identified as Muhammad ‘Ali al-Samman. Al-Samman shared a detailed story about a mission linked to a family dispute, digging for soil to farm, and discovering the manuscripts in a buried jar. He hesitated to break the jar because of beliefs about supernatural beings called jinn. At the mission’s end, he claimed to have eaten the heart of the person targeted. His mother said she burned some manuscripts as fuel for the family oven, and Robinson linked these to Codex XII. Robinson described the discovery with varying numbers of people present, from two to eight. Jean Doresse’s account did not include these details.

Later research focused on al-Samman’s mention of a corpse and a "bed of charcoal" at the site, which his brother denied. Scholars have suggested the library may have been found during a grave robbery, and the more dramatic parts of the story might have been made up to hide the true reason. In early centuries AD, burying books was common in Egypt. If the Nag Hammadi library was a funerary deposit, it would contradict Robinson’s belief that the manuscripts were hidden to avoid persecution. Instead, Lewis & Blount (2014) proposed the books were privately commissioned by a wealthy non-monastic person and buried as prestige items. However, the "blood feud" story is widely accepted.

Most of the texts were acquired by Phokion J. Tanos, a Cypriot antiques dealer in Cairo. The Egyptian Department of Antiquities kept them to prevent their sale abroad. After Egypt’s 1952 revolution, the texts were transferred to the Coptic Museum in Cairo and declared national property. Pahor Labib, the museum’s director, wanted to keep the manuscripts in Egypt.

One codex was sold in Cairo to a Belgian dealer. Attempts to sell it in New York and Paris failed until 1951, when the Carl Gustav Jung Institute in Zurich bought it through Gilles Quispel. It was intended as a birthday gift for Jung, leading to its nickname, the Jung Codex (Codex I). After Jung’s death in 1961, a dispute over ownership delayed the codex’s return to Cairo until 1975, after its first publication. Today, the Coptic Museum holds 11 complete books and fragments of two others from the 1945 discovery, totaling over 1000 written pages.

Translation

The first version of a text discovered at Nag Hammadi came from the Jung Codex. A partial translation of this text was published in Cairo in 1956. A complete facsimile edition was planned, but progress was slow due to political challenges in Egypt. Over time, individual texts from the Cairo and Zurich collections were published, but only gradually.

This situation changed in 1966 with the Messina Congress in Italy. This meeting aimed to help scholars agree on a clear definition of Gnosticism. James M. Robinson gathered a group of editors and translators to create a bilingual edition of the Nag Hammadi codices in English. This work was done with the Institute for Antiquity and Christianity at Claremont Graduate University in California, where Robinson was a teacher.

Robinson was chosen as secretary of the International Committee for the Nag Hammadi Codices. This group was formed in 1970 by UNESCO and Egypt’s Ministry of Culture. In this role, Robinson managed the project. A facsimile edition in twelve volumes was published from 1972 to 1977. Additional volumes were added in 1979 and 1984 by Brill Publishers in Leiden, Netherlands. This edition, called The Facsimile Edition of the Nag Hammadi Codices, made all the texts available for study.

At the same time, in the German Democratic Republic, a group of scholars—including Alexander Böhlig, Martin Krause, and New Testament scholars Gesine Schenke, Hans-Martin Schenke, and Hans-Gebhard Bethge—worked on the first German translation of the Nag Hammadi texts. The last three scholars completed a full scholarly translation under the Berlin Humboldt University, which was published in 2001.

James M. Robinson’s English translation, titled The Nag Hammadi Library in English, was first published in 1977. It was produced by E.J. Brill and Harper & Row. Robinson described this single-volume edition as marking the end of one stage of Nag Hammadi scholarship and the beginning of another. Paperback editions followed in 1981 and 1984. A fully revised third edition was published in 1988. This edition made all the texts available worldwide in various languages. A reference system connecting Robinson’s translation to the Bible also exists.

Another English edition, published in 1987 by Yale scholar Bentley Layton, was titled The Gnostic Scriptures: A New Translation with Annotations. This book included new translations from the Nag Hammadi Library, along with writings from early Christian groups and other Gnostic materials. It remains one of the most accessible translations of the Nag Hammadi texts. The book includes historical introductions, translation notes, annotations, and organized texts into clear groups.

Not all scholars agree that all texts in the Nag Hammadi library should be classified as Gnostic. Paterson Brown argued that the three Gospels of Thomas, Philip, and Truth cannot be labeled as Gnostic. He believes these texts may describe the value of earthly life, which Gnosticism defines as false.

List of codices and tractates

The table below lists codices and tractates from the Nag Hammadi library, as described by Aleksandr Leonovich Khosroev [ru]. The abbreviations used are from The Coptic Gnostic Library.

The item called "Codex XIII" is not a book, but the text of Trimorphic Protennoia. This text was written on "eight leaves removed from a thirteenth book from late antiquity and tucked inside the front cover of the sixth." (Robinson, NHLE, p. 10) Only a few lines from the beginning of Origin of the World are visible on the bottom of the eighth leaf.

Dating

The manuscripts found at Nag Hammadi are usually thought to be from the 4th century, but some people disagree about when the texts were first written.

The Gospel of Thomas is believed by most scholars to be the earliest of the "gnostic" gospels. Most experts date this text to the early or mid-2nd century. Some say the Gospel of Thomas has certain gnostic ideas, but it does not include a complete gnostic belief system. However, the description of these ideas as "gnostic" is mainly based on the assumption that the text is a "gnostic" gospel, which itself is supported only by the fact that it was found with other gnostic texts at Nag Hammadi.

Some scholars, such as Nicholas Perrin, argue that the Gospel of Thomas was influenced by the Diatessaron, a text written around 172 AD by Tatian in Syria. Others believe it was written earlier, with a few suggesting it might be as old as 50 AD, possibly because it shares similarities with a hypothetical text called the Q document.

The Gospel of Truth and teachings from Pistis Sophia are usually dated to the early 2nd century because they were part of the Valentinian school. However, the Gospel of Truth itself is from the 3rd century.

Texts influenced by Sethian ideas, such as the Gospel of Judas or the Coptic Gospel of the Egyptians, were written between the 2nd century and possibly as early as the 1st century. Most scholars believe they date to the 2nd century, though some more conservative scholars suggest the early 3rd century.

Some gnostic gospels, like Trimorphic Protennoia, use ideas from Neoplatonism, which was developed in the 3rd century. Therefore, these texts must have been written after the time of Plotinus in the 3rd century.