If you like the North African magic that appeared in the “Book of Mary’s Repose” and the “Lefāfa Ṣedeḳ“, you’re going to love this. I recently obtained an English translation of the text known as “The Prayer of Mary At Bartos.” The booklet I received is just the text with no commentary or history, thus …
Tag Archives: gnostic
Irenaeus on Simon of Samaria
I haven’t done a Simon Magus post in awhile (check out my other posts via the “tag” at the bottom of this post), so I figured this would be a good one to share. I was browsing through the MASSIVE Ante-Nicene Fathers collection and came upon the Against Heresies section that is attributed to Irenaeus. …
Sayings of John the Baptist from the Ginza Rabba
Sorry for the lack of updates in the past two months. Real life gets in the way sometimes. With this post, I am bringing forth a collection of sayings from John the Baptist (Yuhana) from the Mandaean holy book, the “Ginza Rabba”. These are taken from the English translated version by Prof. Dr. Qais Mughashghash …
Continue reading “Sayings of John the Baptist from the Ginza Rabba”
An alternate version of the Gospel of John
This is going to be my last “John” entry for awhile but this is a really interesting story. Some years back, an English translation of the “Evangelikon”, which accompanied a text titled the “Levitikon”, was published. What is this you ask? It is an alternate version of the Gospel of John. The manuscript was reportedly …
Continue reading “An alternate version of the Gospel of John”
Martha in the Pistis Sophia
Martha, sister of Mary (of Bethany) and Lazarus, is a well known secondary character in the Gospels of Luke and John. But has she appeared elsewhere in non-canonical sources? There are some Latin medieval tales (particular of the “Golden Legend” lore) but there are much earlier stories, those being from the Gnostic tradition! I have …
Mary Magdalene: Baptism of water and fire
In a post awhile back I mentioned some newly translated fragments from the oxyrhynchus dig that had been released to the public. These are fragments 5575, 5576 and 5577. 5575 is a Jesus sayings fragment that has similarities to Matthew, Luke and Thomas. 5576 is a gnostic style fragment. 5577 is a dialogue between Mary …
Continue reading “Mary Magdalene: Baptism of water and fire”
Talking baby Jesus
The past month or so I have been doing a deep dive into the Quran and really enjoy comparing the aspects of various figures in there with their Christian / Jewish counterparts, particularly that of Jesus / Isa. I had a previous blog post (link HERE) that mentions the crucifixion body swap that appears in …
Comparing translations of Thomas sayings
I mentioned in previous blog posts on how important it is to check out various translations of texts. Sometimes it is not possible but when there are multiple translations you should definitely do so! Unless you can read the source manuscript (Coptic, Greek, etc…), you are forced to go by modern (or somewhat modern, i.e. …
Jesus sayings in the “Sentences of Sextus”…?
A previous entry on my blog was a sample from the “Sentences of Sextus”, a fragmented wisdom collection that was in the Nag Hammadi library, but also survives complete in other manuscripts. If you only read the NHL version, I highly suggest obtaining a copy of the complete work. Not too long ago I picked up a …
Continue reading “Jesus sayings in the “Sentences of Sextus”…?”
(Greek) Gospel of the Egyptians
In the Nag Hammadi library, there is a text identified as the “Gospel of the Egyptians”, but did you know there is another text that goes by the same name? This other text has the name of the “Greek” Gospel of the Egyptians and only survives in fragmented / quotation form, as the Nag Hammadi version …
Culmination of Wisdom 