16 INTRODUCTION
religions in a specific sense are those that give a primary place to gnosis,
unmediated mystical knowledge, as the way to salvation and life.- Gnostic religions typically employ wisdom traditions that are related
to the Jewish family of religions but are usually influenced by Greek
thought, and wisdom (or another manifestation of the divine) is often
personified as a character in a cosmic drama. - Gnostic religions typically present stories and myths of creation, es-
pecially from the book of Genesis, interpreted in an innovative man-
ner, with the transcendent divine spirit commonly distinguished from
the creator of the world, often to the point of dualism, in order to ex-
plain the origin, estrangement, and ultimate salvation of what is di-
vine in the world and humanity. - In their explanations and interpretations, gnostic religions typically
make use of a wide variety of religious and philosophical traditions
and find truths in a diversity of sources, such as Jewish, Greek, and
other sources, including platonism. - Gnostic religions typically proclaim the vision of a radically enlightened
life that transcends the mundane world and attains to the divine.
These traits of gnostic religions come to expression, to varying degrees, in
the sacred texts that are included in this volume: wisdom gospels, classic
texts of gnostic religions—Sethian, Valentinian, Syrian, and other gnostic re-
ligions—and Hermetic, Mandaean, Manichaean, Islamic, and Cathar texts.
These traits, though derived from an analysis of a Sethian text of fundamen-
tal significance from a tradition that understood itself to be gnostic, do not
necessarily come to expression in a uniform way in the texts included here—
recall what lonathan Z. Smith said about the relative nature of comparisons.
Yet all of the texts included in this volume address the interests of gnosis and
gnosticism.
The term bible is derived ultimately from the ancient Greek word biblos (or
byblos), meaning "papyrus," the reed used to make a primitive sort of paper in
order to construct scrolls and codices, or books, in the world of ancient book-
binding. The Greek word was also written in a diminutive form, biblion; the
plural is biblia, "books." Within the context of Judaism and Christianity cer-
tain books came to be associated with the sacred scriptures, which in turn
were eventually referred to in the singular, the Bible. Thus, within the history