Hugo Lundhaug – författare

Scholars of early Christian and Jewish literature have for many years focused on interpreting texts in their hypothetical original forms and contexts, while largely overlooking important aspects of the surviving manuscript evidence and the culture that produced it. This volume of essays seeks to remedy this situation by focusing on the material aspects of the manuscripts themselves and the fluidity of textual transmission in a manuscript culture. With an emphasis on method and looking at texts as they have been used and transmitted in manuscripts, this book discusses how we may deal with textual evidence that can often be described as mere snapshots of fluid textual traditions that have been intentionally adapted to fit ever-shifting contexts. The emphasis of the book is on the contexts and interests of users and producers of texts as they appear in our surviving manuscripts, rather than on original authors and their intentions, and the essays provide both important correctives to former textual interpretations, as well as new insights into the societies and individuals that copied and read the texts in the manuscripts that have actually been preserved to us.

Scholars of early Christian and Jewish literature have for many years focused on interpreting texts in their hypothetical original forms and contexts, while largely overlooking important aspects of the surviving manuscript evidence and the culture that produced it. This volume of essays seeks to remedy this situation by focusing on the material aspects of the manuscripts themselves and the fluidity of textual transmission in a manuscript culture. With an emphasis on method and looking at texts as they have been used and transmitted in manuscripts, this book discusses how we may deal with textual evidence that can often be described as mere snapshots of fluid textual traditions that have been intentionally adapted to fit ever-shifting contexts. The emphasis of the book is on the contexts and interests of users and producers of texts as they appear in our surviving manuscripts, rather than on original authors and their intentions, and the essays provide both important correctives to former textual interpretations, as well as new insights into the societies and individuals that copied and read the texts in the manuscripts that have actually been preserved to us.

Scholars of early Christian and Jewish literature have for many years focused on interpreting texts in their hypothetical original forms and contexts, while largely overlooking important aspects of the surviving manuscript evidence and the culture that produced it. This volume of essays seeks to remedy this situation by focusing on the material aspects of the manuscripts themselves and the fluidity of textual transmission in a manuscript culture. With an emphasis on method and looking at texts as they have been used and transmitted in manuscripts, this book discusses how we may deal with textual evidence that can often be described as mere snapshots of fluid textual traditions that have been intentionally adapted to fit ever-shifting contexts. The emphasis of the book is on the contexts and interests of users and producers of texts as they appear in our surviving manuscripts, rather than on original authors and their intentions, and the essays provide both important correctives to former textual interpretations, as well as new insights into the societies and individuals that copied and read the texts in the manuscripts that have actually been preserved to us.

Die Beiträge dieses Bandes verorten die Nag Hammadi Kodizes und ihre Texte im Kontext des spätantiken Ägyptens und behandeln Themen wie koptische Leser und Lesungen, das Problem der Datierung früher griechischer und koptischer Manuskripte, Schreibpraktiken, die Bedeutung von Aufstieg in den Himmel, Askese und die Unterweisung im ägyptischen Mönchtum. Zudem untersuchen sie das Verhältnis der Texte zur Origenistischen Kontroverse und dem Manichäismus, die Kontinuität der mythischen Traditionen in späterer koptischer Literatur und Fragen zur Herstellung der Kodizes und zur Beisetzung. Der Band präsentiert somit die neue Tendenz in der Forschung, die Nag Hammadi Kodizes nicht als Quellen für die Gnosis, sondern stattdessen für Christentum und Mönchtum im Ägypten der Spätantike zu behandeln.

Hugo Lundhaug und Lance Jenott untersuchen die Herkunft der Nag Hammadi-Schriften und vertreten die Ansicht, dass sie im vierten und fünften Jahrhundert von christlichen Mönchen in Oberägypten erstellt und gelesen wurden. Die Autoren vermeiden die moderne Klassifizierung der Texte als "gnostisch" und analysieren die Schriften im Kontext der vielschichtigen monastischen Klosterkultur des spätantiken Ägyptens mit besonderem Augenmerk auf das Mönchtum der Thebais und die Kontroversen um außerkanonische Bücher und das theologische Vermächtnis des Origenes. Die Frage des Besitztums wird mittels einer detaillierten Studie der handschriftlichen Notizen und Kolophone der Nag Hammadi-Schriften, der Papyruskartonagen aus den Ledereinbänden sowie der Schreibgewohnheiten und der Kodikologie untersucht und mit zeitgenössischen koptischen und griechischen Bibelmanuskripten und einer Auswahl von Quellen aus dem oberägyptischen Mönchtum verglichen.

Auf der Grundlage neuerer Forschungen, die darauf hindeuten, dass die Nag-Hammadi-Kodizes von frühen ägyptischen Mönchen erstellt und verwendet wurden, fragen die Aufsätze dieses Bandes, wie und warum Mönche die in diesen Kodizes enthaltenen Texte gelesen haben würden.