After reading the Gospel of Mary, I went off on a tangent. I ordered most, if not all, the other books on the gospels included in the Nag Hammadi texts, at least those we know about today. The Gospel of Judas, the Gospel of Philip, the Gospel of Thomas, the Gospel According to Mark, along with Elaine Pagels the Gnostic Gospels.
The Nag Hammadi texts were fragments of papyrus found in December of 1945. The famer who discovered them sold the tattered remains to a black-market antiquities dealer who sealed them in a baggy and put them in his freezer. They remained there for several years. The 52 texts were written on papyrus and because of the lack of care they received after being unearthed, the papyrus was reduced to small fragments. Experts worked for years to separate the scraps and put remnants together in groups which resulted in the gospels.
The Gospel of Mary Magdalene is laid out with the actual text, supported by commentary from several Biblical experts as well as the translator. In this case, the translator was Jean-Yves Leloup, an expert in the ancient Sahidic Coptic language. This is just my opinion, but it seems like Mr. Leloup created bridges across missing words, or words which could only be partially translated. These bridges were his opinions of what he thought was missing and he filled in the blanks with elevated rhetoric.
Much can be gleaned from the actual text even if it is in fragmented sentences. The second commentator referred to an ancient story, versions of which are found in many oral traditions. I am taking the liberty of quoting here because it describes the search for truth many of us have experienced:
A woman who was looking for her lost jewels in the village square called to her friends to come help her in the search. Others joined her trying to help her find her treasure in the area in and around the square. They had been searching fruitlessly for some time, when someone asked her “Where exactly did you lose this treasure?”
“I lost it in my home,” the woman answered.
“Are you crazy? If you lost it in your home, why are you having us help you search out here in the square?”
“And you my friend”, she replied, “is this not what you are always doing, searching for your treasure in the streets, in the square, when it is really in your own home that you lost what you most want? Don’t you go everywhere in vain search of peace and happiness, your greatest treasure, which you have lost in your own home? In your own heart—that is where you must search. It is there that your treasure has always been waiting to be found.
The commentaries do contain nuggets of wisdom, sometime hidden in expansive rhetoric. But with the courage and commitment to wade through these ancient writings an expanded version of the life of a man we call Jesus can be discovered.
www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/article/gnostic-gospels/
www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/religion/maps/primary/mary.html
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