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The Anchor Yale Bible Reference Library
The Gnostic Scriptures
A collection of extra-biblical scriptures written by the gnostics, updated with three ancient texts including the recently discovered Gospel of Judas
“The one indispensable book for the understanding of Gnosis and Gnosticism.”—Harold Bloom
This definitive introduction to the gnostic scriptures provides a crucial look at the theology, religious atmosphere, and literary traditions of ancient Christianity and Hellenistic Judaism. It provides authoritative translations of ancient texts from Greek, Latin, and Coptic, with introductions, bibliographies, and annotations. The texts are organized to reflect the history of gnosticism in the second through fourth century CE. This second edition provides updates throughout and adds three new ancient texts, including the recently discovered Gospel of Judas.
“The one indispensable book for the understanding of Gnosis and Gnosticism.”—Harold Bloom
This definitive introduction to the gnostic scriptures provides a crucial look at the theology, religious atmosphere, and literary traditions of ancient Christianity and Hellenistic Judaism. It provides authoritative translations of ancient texts from Greek, Latin, and Coptic, with introductions, bibliographies, and annotations. The texts are organized to reflect the history of gnosticism in the second through fourth century CE. This second edition provides updates throughout and adds three new ancient texts, including the recently discovered Gospel of Judas.
760 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 300
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
July 29, 2011
Bentley Layton's translation of gnostic scriptures provides a great supplement to Robinson's Nag Hammadi Library. He presents one of the best and most concise general introductions to the extremely complicated gnostic mythology of anything I have yet to read. His collection of scriptures includes tractates that are not in Nag Hammadi such as the Hermetic text "Poimandres." Furthermore, each text is introduced with a summary of it's contents, the literary background, a breakdown of it's mythic characters, and a narrative outline of the myth itself. The actually text includes footnotes that provide helpful elucidation of obscure content and there are marginal references that direct the reader's attention to other passages that can contribute to an understanding of the text. This is definitely an indispensable source for those who wish to understand gnosticism and the development of early Christianity.
July 18, 2014
The definitive translation/introduction of any anthology of Gnostic Scripture, Bentley Layton has allowed us to hear what Valentinus had heard when questioning the abandoned babe: "I am the word." We are the word, and our word is God. This is the central premise of Gnosticism and the Gnostic religion in general. It is not self-worship, but the discovery of previously unknown regions of the self more vital and more informing than their predecessors; it is what Emerson would later call "the god within," or the "deep force," i.e what is within that is part of the divine. From a more secular perspective, one may also consider it as an extended metaphor that, through its employment extends consciousness, or as Thomas Mann would deem it in the twentieth century, "The romance of the soul." Whatever your ideological-cognitive stance, if Gnosticism is an interest, then this is the book to buy.
-J
-J
May 26, 2016
Fun subway reading. Fun to see where all that mysticism in Aeon Flux came from, and I was also genuinely interested in early Christian schisms and heresies. A definite need-to-read for people interested in Gnosticism and who read English.
November 7, 2011
I finished the Gospel of Thomas, and I'm generally baffled. Lots of it sounds very familiar, and echoes the canonical gospels. Other sayings are basically nonsense. I'm not a scholar, but I don't think that this adds anything to the canonical gospels.
So I'm putting this back on my to-read list in case I decide to read any of the other non-canonical texts.
So I'm putting this back on my to-read list in case I decide to read any of the other non-canonical texts.
Read
May 31, 2026The beliefs of the Gnostics are mostly known from some parchments hidden in a jar and buried in the Egyptian desert for 1,500 years, eventually being discovered by a grave robber (possibly) in 1945. Bentley Layton’s translations attempt to decipher the mysteries of their beliefs and practices.
No rating, then, because of the mitigating factor of some of the documents being so damaged that there are indecipherable sections, and because I would essentially be asked to rate a religious text. Does Layton succeed in his goal of presenting a coherent picture of their beliefs? Kind of. Some famous Gnostic texts are excluded (eg no ‘Pistis Sophia’?) but we do get ‘The Gospel of Judas’, ‘The Apocryphon of John’ and ‘The Hypostasis of the Archons’, along with later works by Valentinus and “by” Hermes Trismegistus.
Gnostic beliefs evolve over this period, but you see the trajectory rather than abruptly being jostled around. You can see why their work did not become canon: for a start, they were kind of gatekeepers, sceptical of the plebs and their ability to understand it, like a sort of Ancient Greek fan of Tool. Secondly, their belief system is consistently harder to understand than even the canonical trinity: God creates the aeons who create wisdom who create the craftsman who create man, but also there’s Adamas the concept of the first man and Adam himself, the concept of Seth and the reality of Seth, the Christ and Jesus… everything comes in a two-in-one package. Sethian Gnostics (who worshipped Seth, Adam’s third child) also believed that the material world was created by Ialdaboath, essentially a demon. Across the pieces, Gnostics have weird, and often quite vague, alternatives to Noah’s Ark, the crucifixion, the Garden of Eden and Jesus’s material form. Some of these are cryptic or overcomplicated, and the simplified canon does make the ideas more palatable.
Aside from excluding some major works, I would say that Layton’s preference for direct language translated literally hampers understanding - especially when this comes to proper nouns. Trying to understand that the fullness begats Wisdom which begats the craftsman becomes abstract when “the Plemora begats Sophia which begats the Demiurge” is an acceptable alternative translation commonly used. ‘The Hypostatis of the Archons’ becoming ‘The Reality of the Rulers’ is an example: sure, they mean the same thing, but it then becomes hard to comprehend what the hell is going on (especially because the Archons, lackeys of Ialdaboath, have evil plans for Eve, or perhaps the concept of Eve, or both - so you’re wading through a zany alternate telling of Genesis smothered in needlessly obscure text).
Still, I was glad to have read this stuff, even if it took six weeks to battle through. As a leaping point for inspiration, it was helpful, and I suspect that anyway, its 660 pages were not intended to be consumed all at once.
No rating, then, because of the mitigating factor of some of the documents being so damaged that there are indecipherable sections, and because I would essentially be asked to rate a religious text. Does Layton succeed in his goal of presenting a coherent picture of their beliefs? Kind of. Some famous Gnostic texts are excluded (eg no ‘Pistis Sophia’?) but we do get ‘The Gospel of Judas’, ‘The Apocryphon of John’ and ‘The Hypostasis of the Archons’, along with later works by Valentinus and “by” Hermes Trismegistus.
Gnostic beliefs evolve over this period, but you see the trajectory rather than abruptly being jostled around. You can see why their work did not become canon: for a start, they were kind of gatekeepers, sceptical of the plebs and their ability to understand it, like a sort of Ancient Greek fan of Tool. Secondly, their belief system is consistently harder to understand than even the canonical trinity: God creates the aeons who create wisdom who create the craftsman who create man, but also there’s Adamas the concept of the first man and Adam himself, the concept of Seth and the reality of Seth, the Christ and Jesus… everything comes in a two-in-one package. Sethian Gnostics (who worshipped Seth, Adam’s third child) also believed that the material world was created by Ialdaboath, essentially a demon. Across the pieces, Gnostics have weird, and often quite vague, alternatives to Noah’s Ark, the crucifixion, the Garden of Eden and Jesus’s material form. Some of these are cryptic or overcomplicated, and the simplified canon does make the ideas more palatable.
Aside from excluding some major works, I would say that Layton’s preference for direct language translated literally hampers understanding - especially when this comes to proper nouns. Trying to understand that the fullness begats Wisdom which begats the craftsman becomes abstract when “the Plemora begats Sophia which begats the Demiurge” is an acceptable alternative translation commonly used. ‘The Hypostatis of the Archons’ becoming ‘The Reality of the Rulers’ is an example: sure, they mean the same thing, but it then becomes hard to comprehend what the hell is going on (especially because the Archons, lackeys of Ialdaboath, have evil plans for Eve, or perhaps the concept of Eve, or both - so you’re wading through a zany alternate telling of Genesis smothered in needlessly obscure text).
Still, I was glad to have read this stuff, even if it took six weeks to battle through. As a leaping point for inspiration, it was helpful, and I suspect that anyway, its 660 pages were not intended to be consumed all at once.
July 2, 2025
I have been reading the gnostics for decades now, but only in the past couple of years have I gotten serious about it. Recently I bought Thomas O Lambdin's Introduction to Sahidic Coptic: A New Coptic Grammar though I haven’t taken the deep dive yet. Layton's Coptic in 20 Lessons: Introduction to Sahidic Coptic with Exercises and Vocabularies is pretty good too, but I felt Lambdin's book was easier to understand. However this collection of gnostic literature is all in translation so you don’t have to worry about knowing Coptic!
If you’re serious about studying Gnosticism you should consider adding this book to your library. Many of the gnostic works included herein are also included in The Nag Hammadi Library edited by James M. Robinson. The Nag Hammadi Library is a must-have for students of Gnosticism but The Gnostic Scriptures has features that make it a welcome companion volume. First and foremost, I think the formatting of The Gnostic Scriptures is superior to The Nag Hammadi Library. Each section is set off by white space and is headed by a section title so you know what you are going to be reading. And of course, there is material in The Gnostic Scriptures that is not included in The Nag Hammadi Library.
Most important among the "extra" material in The Gnostic Scriptures, I think, are extracts from the Church Fathers describing various Gnostic systems. I had already decided I was going to read Irenaeus's Against Heresies because this work is much discussed in Einar Thomassen's magisterial book on Valentinianism The Spiritual Seed: The Church of the 'Valentinians'. I'm saving my pennies to get this rather expensive tome, but I need to do some preparation to tackle it again. I do think that if I had The Gnostic Scriptures handy as I work through Thomassen's book again I would not have to work my way through Irenaeus's complete work.
Even after reading these gnostic works for years I still find them very difficult to understand. They can be contrasted with the biblical material, with which we are likely to be familiar with from years of church going and cultural assimilation. Even excepting that advantage the biblical scriptures have over the gnostic scriptures, the gnostic scriptures are simply more esoteric than the biblical scriptures. I have read the Apocryphon of John perhaps a half dozen times, and Søren Giversen's excellent commentary on that work once, and I am only now getting a handle on its cosmology. I am really struggling with the Tripartite Tractate, even after reading it three or four times and Thomassen's book on Valentinianism.
So I guess one can reasonably ask: why study Gnosticism? I think one of the best answers was given in this volume: early Christianity was largely formed as a reaction against Gnosticism, so if you want to understand the history of early Christianity, it pays to study Gnosticism. Of course, maybe you're not interested in early Christianity in which case you can ignore this book and this review!
If you’re serious about studying Gnosticism you should consider adding this book to your library. Many of the gnostic works included herein are also included in The Nag Hammadi Library edited by James M. Robinson. The Nag Hammadi Library is a must-have for students of Gnosticism but The Gnostic Scriptures has features that make it a welcome companion volume. First and foremost, I think the formatting of The Gnostic Scriptures is superior to The Nag Hammadi Library. Each section is set off by white space and is headed by a section title so you know what you are going to be reading. And of course, there is material in The Gnostic Scriptures that is not included in The Nag Hammadi Library.
Most important among the "extra" material in The Gnostic Scriptures, I think, are extracts from the Church Fathers describing various Gnostic systems. I had already decided I was going to read Irenaeus's Against Heresies because this work is much discussed in Einar Thomassen's magisterial book on Valentinianism The Spiritual Seed: The Church of the 'Valentinians'. I'm saving my pennies to get this rather expensive tome, but I need to do some preparation to tackle it again. I do think that if I had The Gnostic Scriptures handy as I work through Thomassen's book again I would not have to work my way through Irenaeus's complete work.
Even after reading these gnostic works for years I still find them very difficult to understand. They can be contrasted with the biblical material, with which we are likely to be familiar with from years of church going and cultural assimilation. Even excepting that advantage the biblical scriptures have over the gnostic scriptures, the gnostic scriptures are simply more esoteric than the biblical scriptures. I have read the Apocryphon of John perhaps a half dozen times, and Søren Giversen's excellent commentary on that work once, and I am only now getting a handle on its cosmology. I am really struggling with the Tripartite Tractate, even after reading it three or four times and Thomassen's book on Valentinianism.
So I guess one can reasonably ask: why study Gnosticism? I think one of the best answers was given in this volume: early Christianity was largely formed as a reaction against Gnosticism, so if you want to understand the history of early Christianity, it pays to study Gnosticism. Of course, maybe you're not interested in early Christianity in which case you can ignore this book and this review!
Want to Read
December 24, 2008not sure if this is the 'right' version
Read
February 21, 2022Legendary. Moving.
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews