The mysterious origins of the Nag Hammadi Library

LARRY HURTADO: Recent Questions about the Nag Hammadi Codices.

The implications are considerable. If, for example, the Nag Hammadi codices weren’t composed by and for Pachomian monks, and weren’t hidden in the 4th century from “orthodox” bishops, and don’t, thus, reflect some variant-version of early Christianity, that’s quite a lot to take on board. If, as Denzey Lewis and Blount contend, instead, these texts (at least in the 4th century) circulated among somewhat elitist individuals of esoteric tastes and rather eclectic reading habits, then these codices can’t really be used as they often have been to “re-write” 4th century history of Egyptian Christianity. So, it will now be interesting to see how the scholarly discussion moves forward. But, to my mind, these articles, particularly the Denzey Lewis and Blount study, can’t rightly be ignored.

Those are big implications.