Discovery of Nag Hammadi library

The Nag Hammadi library is a collection of thirteen ancient books, or codices, made of papyrus and bound in leather, found in a sealed jar by local farmers near the town of Nag Hammadi in Upper Egypt. The texts are in Coptic, translated from Greek originals, and include the Gospel of Thomas, the Gospel of Philip and the Apocryphon of John. Many of them are Gnostic works, which present a different view of Christian teaching from the one accepted by the later church. The discovery transformed scholarly understanding of early Christianity, showing its diversity, and the codices are now preserved in the Coptic Museum in Cairo.

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