What Are the Gnostic Gospels—and What Do They Say About Jesus?

Early Christians didn’t all agree on what Jesus taught. Alongside the texts that became the New Testament—the canonical Bible recognized by most Christian traditions—other writings circulated in the first few centuries of Christianity, offering different ideas about God, salvation and Jesus, himself.

When a cache of more than 50 ancient texts was discovered near Nag Hammadi, Egypt, in 1945, it revealed a collection of early Christian writings, many of which had been lost for centuries. These texts—now known as the “Gnostic Gospels”—offer different perspectives on Jesus and spiritual life, sometimes conflicting with beliefs that later became central to mainstream Christianity.

In 1945, 13 leather-bound papyrus codices, sealed in an earthenware jar, were reportedly discovered by Muhammad 'Alí al-Sammán in Egypt, writes Elaine Pagels in The Gnostic Gospels. The collection contains a range of early Christian writings, including texts now known as the Gospel of Thomas, the Gospel of Philip and the Gospel of Truth.

Many of these works present themselves as records of hidden teachings attributed to Jesus and his disciples. The Gospel of Thomas, for example, opens: “These are the secret words which the living Jesus spoke and which Didymos Judas Thomas wrote down.”

Known today as Gnostics, some early Christian groups emphasized gnosis, intuitive knowledge of the divine. Gnostics “speculated about the origins of the cosmos and how the human soul came to be imprisoned in a body of flesh,” writes Vrej N. Nersessian, Christian Middle East curator at the British Library, in the introduction to The Gnostic Gospels by Alan Jacobs. Many of these groups believed that spiritual truth was something to be discovered within oneself. The texts found at Nag Hammadi are often grouped together as “Gnostic” because they reflect these themes, especially the idea that Jesus’ teachings contain meaning that is internally accessible.

The Nag Hammadi writings are Coptic translations made around A.D. 350-400, Pagels notes, but the Greek originals might be 200 to 280 years older.

“There is a general consensus among scholars that the Gospel of Thomas…dates to the very beginnings of the Christian era and may well have taken first form before any of the four traditional canonical Gospels,” the Gnostic Society Library adds, though this is debated among scholars.

The full English translation of the Nag Hammadi library was completed in 1977. 

Several Gnostic writings challenge mainstream Christian beliefs. The Gospel of Philip describes Mary Magdalene as Jesus’ intimate companion, saying he “used to kiss her often on her mouth” (though translation is debated). Some texts emphasize symbolic or spiritual interpretations of events rather than literal ones, including the virgin birth and resurrection of Jesus.

The Gospel of Judas, discovered in Egypt in the 1970s and translated by the National Geographic Society in 2006, depicts Judas not as a betrayer but as Jesus’ chosen confidant tasked with helping him shed his physical body (though its translation has also sparked debate among scholars).

Other Gnostic works retell Genesis from the serpent’s point of view or present cosmic poems spoken in the voice of a feminine divine power. “These diverse texts range, then, from secret gospels, poems and quasi-philosophic descriptions of the origin of the universe, to myths, magic and instructions for mystical practice,” Pagels writes.

In several Nag Hammadi texts, Jesus is described more as a spiritual guide or teacher than as a savior figure. Pagels writes that the “living Jesus” speaks of “illusion and enlightenment, not of sin and repentance” and that these texts often describe being “saved” as gaining knowledge rather than having sins forgiven.

In the Gospel of Thomas, Jesus tells his disciple: “He who will drink from my mouth will become as I am: I myself shall become he.” Pagels argues this line can be read as suggesting spiritual equality between Jesus and the believer.

By the late second century, bishops such as Irenaeus denounced the writings as heresy, complaining that “heretics boast that they possess more gospels than there really are,” according to Pagels. As Christianity consolidated authority, possession of such texts became a criminal offense and authorities destroyed copies.

“But in Upper Egypt, someone, possibly a monk from a nearby monastery of St. Pachomius, took the banned books and hid them from destruction—in the jar where they remained buried for almost 1,600 years,” she writes.