Gnosticism was a wide-ranging religious movement of the first millennium CE--with earlier antecedents and later flourishings--whose adherents sought salvation through knowledge and personal religious experience. Gnostic writings offer striking perspectives on both early Christian and non-Christian thought. For example, some gnostic texts suggest that god should be celebrated as both mother and father, and that self-knowledge is the supreme path to the divine. Only in the past fifty years has it become clear how far the gnostic influence spread in ancient and medieval religions--and what a marvelous body of scriptures it produced.

The selections gathered here, in poetic, readable translation, represent Jewish, Christian, Hermetic, Mandaean, Manichaean, Islamic, and Cathar expressions of gnostic spirituality. Their regions of origin include Egypt, the Greco-Roman world, the Middle East, Syria, Iraq, China, and France. Also included are introductions, notes, an extensive glossary, and a wealth of suggestions for further reading.

This expanded edition of The Gnostic Bible includes the Gospel of Judas--the recently discovered and translated gnostic text that was an instant best seller on its original appearance in 2006--in its most accessible translation yet. Also included are such important and topical texts as the Gospel of Mary Magdalene and the Gospel of Thomas. Religious thinkers engaged in the quest for wisdom and knowledge, the gnostics proclaimed that salvation could be found through mystical knowledge and intuition. Dating from the first to the thirteenth centuries, the texts in The Gnostic Bible represent Jewish, Christian, Hermetic, Mandaean, Manichaean, Islamic, and Cathar forms of gnostic spirituality, and they derive from Egypt, the Greco-Roman world, the Middle East, Syria, Iraq, China, France, and elsewhere.