Re: Nag Hammadi

From: Nichael Lynn Cramer (nichael@sover.net)
Date: Sat Jul 13 1996 - 20:55:21 EDT


At 6:58 AM 7/13/96, Carl W. Conrad wrote:
>At 12:39 AM -0400 7/13/96, Denny A Diehl wrote:
>>Is there a Web Site that contains the Nag Hammadi (Gnostic)
>>writings?
>
>You'll find versions of them directly at this Norwegian site:
>http://www.oslonett.no/~noetic/libe.htm

Just a brief note: While the listing of the NH texts is quite extensive,
there are a number of features about this site there that suggest that the
versions listed there should be approached with caution by anyone
attempting to do serious study of these texts.

For example while most of the translations are taken from James M.
Robinson's edition of _The Nag Hammadi Library_, all notes, etc, appear to
have been removed from the text. Likewise all conjectural emendations in
the "original" translation have been included directly into the on-line
versions with no notification that the given wording represents an
emendation. Furthermore many ellipses or lacunae have been removed or --as
in some cases-- replaced with with new text, again with no indication that
that is what has happened. Finally, paragraph breaks and other formatting
issues do not follow that given in the source translations and appear
random and haphazard.

As a single example, in the Robinson edition the following passage occurs
in the opening of "The Gospel of Philip":

  "But a proselyte does not | make another proselyte. [...] | just
   as they [...] | and make others like themselves, <52> while
   [others] simply exist."
                                -Translation by Wesley W. Isenberg

(In the above the "|" represent line breaks and "<52>" the page numbers in
the Coptic text.)

However on the web page, this appears simply as:

  "But a proselyte does not make another proselyte. Some both exist
   just as they are and make others like themselves, while others
   simply exist."

Perhaps more seriously, some of the (copyrighted) translations appear
without no --or with inaccurate-- attributions. For example, the
translation of "The Hypostatis of the Archon" is that of Bentley Layton
that appears in the Robinson Volume. However, the _only_ attribution given
is the following that appears at the bottom of the transcription:

 "Transcribed August the 6th 1995 with permission of Phillip Medhurst
  for the readers of the Gnostic Society Library ."

In short, while this net.page and the versions that it contains may be
convienent and easily accessible for some, it in no way replaces the
standard references/sources (such as Robinson's volume) as tools for
serious study of these texts.

Nichael
nichael@sover.net __
http://www.sover.net/~nichael Be as passersby -- IC



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