Nouveaux écrits gnostiques découverts en Égypte
The first scholarly report of the Nag Hammadi find, read to the Académie des Inscriptions in Paris early in 1948. It describes the codex bought by the Coptic Museum in 1946 and repeats, with open doubt, what was then said about how the books were found.
Jean Doresse examined the codex in Cairo in October 1947 at the invitation of Togo Mina, director of the Coptic Museum, and wrote this report with Henri-Charles Puech. It lists the five works in that volume, describes a second volume that Doresse had seen in private hands, and sets the find beside the three Gnostic manuscripts in Coptic known until then.
It is the earliest account of the discovery by people who handled the books, written little more than a year after the museum’s purchase. On the circumstances of the find it reports hearsay and says so: the authors ask what trust can be put in the story of a tomb, and they withhold the name of the place. See the Nag Hammadi Library Is Found.
Cited in
- about December 1945, estimated date