Diese Reihe taucht tief in die komplexe Welt der gnostischen und manichäischen Studien ein und bietet den Lesern eine umfassende Erkundung dieser alten religiösen Traditionen. Sie enthält kritische Editionen, wissenschaftliche Studien und Monographien, die ihre philosophischen, theologischen und historischen Dimensionen untersuchen. Diese Sammlung ist eine unschätzbare Ressource für alle, die sich für das frühe Christentum, den Gnostizismus und die Entwicklung des religiösen Denkens interessieren.
This volume contains 22 papers from the Society of Biblical Literature's 1995 commemoration of the 50th anniversary of the discovery of the Nag Hammadi Library, with special focus on the Apocryphon of John, the Gospel of Thomas, and the Gospel of Philip.
This is the second volume of scholarly studies in Manichaeism which were originally presented before the Manichaean Studies Group of the Society of Biblical Literature from 1997 through 1999. Like its predecessor, Emerging from Studies in the Recovery of Manichaean Sources (Brill, 1997), this volume presents the latest international scholarship from leading researchers in the growing field of Manichaean studies. Here the researchers move from the continuing foundational work of recovering Manichaean sources to the necessary task of understanding the relationship of Manichaeans to the larger world in which they lived. That relationship took several distinct forms, and the contributions in this book analyze those forms, examining the relationship of Manichaeism with diverse cultural, social and religious traditions.
This volume consists of two sections, written by the two authors.The first section contains a study by Manfred Heuser on 'The Manichaean Myth According to Coptic Sources'. This is the first systematic presentation of the basic myth as reflected in Coptic material.The second part is a collection of essays on Manichaeism by Hans-Joachim Klimkeit. The essays are concerned, inter alia, with Manichaean art and symbolism, including newly found examples of Manichaean art from Central Asia.
Modern interpretation of the Manichaean religious tradition requires a firm foundation in the sober and meticulous reconstruction of highly fragmentary sources. The studies collected in this volume contribute to such a foundation by bringing new primary texts to the public for the first time, extracting new data from previously known sources, and defining and delimiting important but previously neglected sets of material. The studies are authored by an international group of leading scholars in the fields of ancient Mediterranean and Near Eastern studies, comparative religion, early Christianity, patristics, art history, Turkic studies and Coptology.The textual and art historical materials examined possess distinctive histories, character and significance representing the broad geographical range of Manichaeism from Algeria to China. By elucidating these essential remains of the Manichaean religion, the comprehensive treatments contained in Emerging from Darkness provide a provocative picture of Manichaeism as a diverse and productive tradition in a variety of settings and media. The volume will be foundational for future scholarly studies on the sources presented and for studies in Manichaeism and late antique religions in general.
This is the first comprehensive study on Mary Magdalene in those second and third century Gnostic texts in which Jesus' most famous female follower gains a prominent position.Special attention is paid to the way Mary is presented in relation to other disciples, and to how her portrait pertains to gender imagery used in the writings. Detailed text analyses, based on a careful philological study, show that no uniform picture and use of the figure of Mary can be traced. Contrary to a common supposition, the book also demonstrates that the positive view of Mary displayed in the texts does not automatically imply a positive attitude towards women in general.The work provides a basis for all further discussion of Mary Magdalene in the Nag Hammadi and related documents.