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FILE 026 · VOL III · Older Than Scripture
The Banned Gospels Say This World Is a Trap. There's a Way Out.
Recognition is the first breach.
Based on: Gnosticism and the Demiurge
Intake record
| Recovered from | Private collection, Cairo; delivered to the Archive by courier with no sender |
|---|---|
| Contents | Eleven scorched papyrus leaves, a 1945 family photograph, a letter in Arabic (translated) |
| Finder | Y. Haddad |
| Status | This is the last file in the Archive. It was not found. It was sent. |
Recovered file
In December 1945, near the town of Nag Hammadi in Upper Egypt, a farmer named Muhammad Ali al-Samman was digging for fertilizer at the foot of a cliff when his mattock struck a large clay jar. [1]
He was afraid to open it. He thought it might hold a jinn. Then he thought it might hold gold. He smashed it.
Inside were thirteen leather-bound books. Papyrus codices, more than fifty texts, written in Coptic around sixteen hundred years ago and hidden, scholars believe, by monks who had been ordered to destroy them. They are now called the Nag Hammadi library, and they are one of the most important manuscript discoveries in history. They contain gospels that never made it into the Bible: the Gospel of Thomas, the Gospel of Philip, the Apocryphon of John.
Muhammad Ali took the books home and left them beside the oven. According to his own account, years later, his mother burned some of the pages as kindling. [1]
Nobody knows what was on them.
The rest of this file is sealed. The ending, the sources and the archivist's note unseal with the file.
Unseal File 026 ($2.99) · its volume · everything ($49.99)
Built on real, cited records. The stories are dramatized. Disclaimer · If you are in crisis in the U.S., call or text 988.