Mailbag: Archeology of the Gnostic Bible
Posted by Kushana Torumekia at 8/27/2007 3:51 PM 
Categories: Gnosticism, Gnostic Gospels, Books That Didn't Make It Into the Bible, mailbag
Categories: Gnosticism, Gnostic Gospels, Books That Didn't Make It Into the Bible, mailbag
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I just been able to look up from preparing for the new semester and I asked my helper if there was anything I needed to know about this page during my absence. Their reply was: the same small gremlins as ever, and one reader who found this page by asking "Archaeology Gnostic Bible".Again, I'd like to turn this internet search query into a question no one asked
— "What is the archaeology of the Gnostic Bible?"This is a good and intriguing question, and its part of the larger question: What footprint does any religion leave in the archaeological record?
- shrines and buildings
- cultic objects
- written amulets and prayers
- symbols and jewelery
- written documents of any kind (letters by believers that indicate adherence, scriptures, polemics, treatises)
With the exception of the Mandaeans, in Gnosticism's case we have:
- one temple and some desert ruins
- some religious art
- a bowl
- amulets that are likely not Gnostic
- an amulet with a few lines from the Gospel of Thomas (subject to debate)
- a few esoteric symbols
- letters, scriptures, polemics, and treatises
Our best resources for the extinct forms of Gnosticism are written: the books and letters for and against the religion. Gnosticism was nearly always one religion among many and usually did not have the civic acceptance, organizational structure, length of survival, or wealth to make the sort of archaeological footprint that Christianity has in Europe or Buddhism has in Asia (think gravestones, pilgrimage items, statues, buildings, prayer books and sutras in precious materials, etc.)
Also, Gnosticism did not have a Bible. Some Gnostics read the books holy to Christianity and Judaism (although in a very different way), many Gnostic teachers wrote their own books — the closest thing we have to a Gnostic Bible is the set of books Mani wrote as scriptures for his new religion (many of them are now lost.) Unlike the Jewish and Christian Bibles, most Gnostic writing make little reference to places or contemporary events (and there are very few Gnostic histories ... all the examples I can think of are Manichaean.) This makes them infamously difficult to date and very difficult to do history with. (Every passing mention of a ruler or contemporary event in the Bible is tremendously helpful to historians; both are very rare in Gnostic texts.) So there is very little archaeology of the Gnostic Bible — there was no Gnostic Bible, most Gnostic writings survive in only one ancient manuscript (scholars feel fortunate when they have two, which was part of the reason for the excitement around the Tchacos codex), and there are few things in Gnostic writings that could be found by digging: few earthly events or places are mentioned.
As a historian I wish Gnostic texts had more to say about the world around them, even where they were written is often a puzzle. Many other religions of the same time and place have splendid archaeological remains (think Mithraism) but Gnosticism, for the most part, doesn't — and that's half the trouble with studying it.
-Kushana
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