Am 16. Januar 2020 begrüßen wir unseren zweiten Gast in der Seminarreihe Magic and Religion in Coptic Textual Culture am Lehrstuhl für Ägyptologie Würzburg, gefördert vom Universitätsbund. Herr Dr. Dylan Burns ist Dienststellenleiter für das Projekt “Database and Dictionary of Greek Loanwords in Coptic” an der Freien Universität Berlin, co-Herausgeber von Nag Hammadi and Manichaean Studies und führender Spezialist für Gnostizismus. Geheimwörte eines verheirateten Jesus, ein beschimpfteter Weltschöpfer—kein Wunder, dann, dass die koptische gnostische Bibliothek aus Nag Hammadi (Oberägypten) kontroversvoll gewesen ist. Doch geht der jüngste Kontroverse in Nag Hammadi-Studien nicht um Gnosis oder Gnostizismus, um negative Darstellung des jüdischen Gottes oder umstrittene Datierungen der Geheimwörter des Jesus, sondern um…
-
-
Religion in Coptic Magic V: Magic and Gnostic Ritual
Last week we introduced Sethian Gnosticism, used to refer to a particular body of Gnostic texts, so-called by scholars because of their shared features, in particularly the importance of Seth as a revealer and saviour. This body of texts is also called “Classic Gnostic”, since it contains many of the features typically associated with “Gnostic” systems.* In our last post we also looked at how some of the figures which occur in the Sethian system – such as the luminary Davithe – also show up in magical texts. In most cases, we suggested, this is a result of shared cultural background rather than the dependence of Sethian or magical texts…
-
Religion in the Coptic Magical Papyri IV: Sethian Gnosticism and Magical Texts
Gnosticism is one of the major areas of research within Coptic Studies, and yet, like magic, it is a controversial concept, deconstructed by its specialists to the extent that most scholars use the term “gnosticism” in scare quotes, or avoid it altogether. Yet studies of Gnosticism continue to appear, perhaps demonstrating that, despite its problems, the term still has some usefulness. In this post we will use “gnostic” and related terms as shorthands, but it is worth remembering that these are problematic labels, which may not have been those used by those we would call “gnostics”. Readers of this blog may already know that “gnostic” comes from the Greek word…