I revised first sentence to reflect the simple truth that sophia means wisdom in any form of Greek; perhaps more tendentious (though obviously *I* think it's true) is that in a Gnostic context it means 'esoteric wisdom'. I also removed the strange italics on the paragraph at the bottom of the page and qualified the dating of the Gnostic texts. Many, if not most scholars believe that the Gnostic texts are significantly later than the late first century. None of the Nag Hammadi manuscripts are earlier than the 3rd century, so they are not exactly great evidence of earliness. They are in Coptic, which implies (to some scholars) that if they were written in Greek there must have been some lag time, but no mainstream scholar of New Testament text studies puts the first 2 gospels later than 90 (that is, late 1st century). Some actually put them earlier than that. Elaine Pagels is FAR from the only or first specialist in Early Christianity. --MichaelTinkler |
Not sure. It was on a gnostic web site without any clear indications. btw, I have read this book it comes from, so it may be a prob, but it also may not because the source for the translation comes from scrolls dated in the 2nd and 3rd centuries A.D. To put a picture of the scrolls is no different than to show the translation. I'm not exactly sure how this works, but it's definitely, and upgrade for New Age, as Larry Sanger asked. I've only just begun to show the depth of knowledge and the sources they come from on that topic, contrary to my earlier revelations, which were based on years of study in many key slanted areas revised into meaningless drivel by scared people who think they really have a clue what New Age is about =)
The translation can be found on http://www.gnosis.org/naghamm/sjc.html and there is no reference any place on the site about copyrights. James Robinson and Elaine Pagels are some of the many translators of the Nag Hammadi scrolls, they did not write them. Since they are as old as the New Testament, isn't this like saying we can't quote any scripture here ? ~BF
Fine, then we can compromise with a small article reviewing the Sophia, with a link to the web site. ~BF
I am having a look into the provenance of this; The Nag Hammadi scrolls, I seem to recall, are a subject of debate in some historical circles. sjc
I've got some email from a person who quotes liberally from the Nag Hammadi scrolls on a web site. The email basically says the same thing as wiki on fair use. Is wiki for educational purposes ? If so, how much copyrighted material can we include here under the fair use provision of US Copyright Law ?
I still have no idea how The Gnostic Society posts their translations of the Nag Hammadi on their website, placing a fine print copyright underneath each. Maybe, the translators gave them permission to post on the web site. Putting a full translation of one gnostic gospel here might encourage malicious editing, as Michael infers. I need to expand the article more without bias to encourage those who may be searching for information in that "lost period" of history called Early Christianity, in which Elaine Pagels now has a doctorate degree.