Telling Nag Hammadi's Egyptian Stories

Abstract

Recent publications by Mark Goodacre and Nicola Denzey Lewis and Ariel Blount, raise the question of how we should tell the story of the discovery of the Nag Hammadi Codices, and to what extent the work of James M. Robinson remains useful for us in telling this story. This article addresses the issue of the wilder elements of the story as related by Robinson as well as the problem of its orientalist implications, concluding with meditations on how to read the Codices within their late ancient Egyptian context.