James M Robinson Coptic Gnostic Library Project

The Nag Hammadi library (also known as the Chenoboskion Manuscripts and the Gnostic Gospels) is a collection of early Christian and Gnostic texts discovered near the Upper Egyptian town of Nag Hammadi in 1945. Twelve leather-bound papyrus codices (and a tractate from a thirteenth) buried in a sealed jar were found by an Egyptian farmer named Muhammed al-Samman and others in late 1945. The writings in these codices comprise 52 mostly Gnostic treatises, but also three works belonging to the Corpus…