Sunday, November 18, 2007

FROM THE BOOK DISPLAY:
Marvin Meyer (ed.), The Nag Hammadi Scriptures: The International Edition (New York: HarperCollins, 2007)
A new translation of the Nag Hammadi Library, along with The Gospel of Mary and The Act of Peter from the Berlin Codex (plus Greek fragments of the former from Oxyrhynchus) and The Gospel of Judas (Meyer's translation) and The Book of Allogenes (just a couple of small fragments) from the Tchacos Codex. The title of the volume is a little inaccurate on two counts: the book contains more than the Nag Hammadi Library and that library itself contains more than Gnostic scriptures (such as a fragment of a translation of Plato's Republic). But that's a very small point and I can see why they didn't produce a title with endless qualifications. The editors have sensibly chosen to translate the titles of the individual works in ways that are more informative than in the older Robinson edition, but less cool. For example the The Hypostasis of the Archons becomes The Nature of the Rulers and Trimorphic Protennoia becomes Three Forms of First Thought. I've only had the chance to page through the volume a little, but it has Robinson's imprimatur (he was on the advisory board and wrote the preface) and contributions from highly respected specialists (e.g., Elaine Pagels and Karen King) and it looks to be an important contribution to the field.