Grant Adamson (2016)
https://www.academia.edu/34056151/Gnost ... _the_Field
Lively, sometimes heated, discussion is part of what makes gnostic studies so engrossing. These discussions and debates occur especially whenever gnostic texts are discovered and published, such as the huge discovery of the thirteen Nag Hammadi codices (i.e., ancient books), published in 1977, and the far smaller, but also incredible, discovery of the Codex Tchacos with its copy of the lost Gospel of Judas, published in 2006. The debates happen at academic conferences and on the printed pages of scholarship as well as on webpages such as blogs and online news sources. Understanding the debates is key to understanding the scholarship and situating the work of one expert with respect to that of another, as some specialists may reframe perennial research questions and even seek to replace them with different questions they consider more pressing. Major debates include the issue of how gnosticism is to be defined, and the question of where it came from. They also include the issue of whether its ancient opponents are reliable, and the question of who produced, collected, and owned the Nag Hammadi codices and other gnostic texts surviving in Coptic, the final form of the ancient Egyptian language. Another debate concerns what should be done when the next manuscript is found.
Contains at p.40 an attempt to describe four different categories of gnosticism - narrow to broad. In the following I have supplied numbers and headings which do not appear in the text quoted in full:
Four categories of Gnosticism - narrow to broad
Category 1) SETHIANS
At its narrowest, scholars define gnosticism in terms of a single though complex religious movement of the Sethians or classic gnostics, as experts call them (Layton 1995; Logan 2006; Brakke 2010). They were named for Seth, the son of Adam and Eve in the book of Genesis. The Sethians may have started out as a Jewish movement, while ending up more philosophically Greek and religiously Christian. Opponents of the Sethians also called some of them Ophites, in reference to the wise serpent (ophis in Greek, nah ash in Hebrew) from the creation stories in the opening chapters of the Bible.
Category 2) SETHIANS and VALENTINIANS
On a broader definition, gnosticism encompasses not only the Sethians but also numerous other Christian movements from the Roman Empire, chiefly the Valentinians (Wilson 1968). The Valentinians were named for Valentinus, an influential Christian thinker who lived in Alexandria, Egypt, and then in Rome in the middle of the second century CE. The Valentinians were also complex, existing in two main schools with different opinions about whether Jesus became Christ at his birth or his baptism, among other things.
Category 3) SETHIANS, VALENTINIANS, HERMETICISTS, MANICHAEANS, MANDIANS
Defined even more broadly, gnosticism and gnosis further circumscribe non-Christian religious movements from the ancient Mediterranean (Rudolph [1983] 1987; Pearson 2007). These include the Hermetics or Hermetists, named for Hermes Trismegistus, a legendary figure and Greco-Egyptian god, and the Manichaeans, named for Mani, a thirdcentury Syro-Mesopotamian visionary and prophet. They also include the Mandaeans, a baptismal group that still lives in Iraq, Iran, and assorted communities elsewhere, but that originally spoke a dialect of Aramaic (the word manda being the equivalent of gnosis) and that came from ancient Palestine.
Category 4) ALL THE ABOVE + PLUS + PHILOSOPHIES, SPIRITUALITIES, WORLDVIEWS
At its broadest, scholars define gnosticism and gnosis in terms of a sort of spirituality or worldview that can be found in religious and philosophical writings from antiquity to the present (Culianu 1992; DeConick 2016). These may be the letters of Paul and the Gospel of John as well as gnostic literature from the defunct Sethians to the living Mandaeans. They may be the writings of merkabah (Hebrew: “chariot”) mystics and hekhalot (Hebrew: “palaces”) mystics before Jewish kabbalah developed in the twelfth century CE (see Deutsch 1995). They may be the writings of the Christian Cathars of medieval Europe. They may be the writings of the poet and painter William Blake (1757–1827), the theosophist Helena Petrovna Blavatsky (1831–1891), the psychoanalyst Carl Gustav Jung (1875–1961), and the novelist Philip K. Dick (1928–1982). Here the word gnosticism often overlaps and at times may even be interchangeable with the words mysticism and esotericism. It overlaps as well with the word dualism, which can be defined by a cosmic separation between the
Creator and a transcendent God above, and in turn between the human body and the spirit or soul.
Category 1) SETHIANS
At its narrowest, scholars define gnosticism in terms of a single though complex religious movement of the Sethians or classic gnostics, as experts call them (Layton 1995; Logan 2006; Brakke 2010). They were named for Seth, the son of Adam and Eve in the book of Genesis. The Sethians may have started out as a Jewish movement, while ending up more philosophically Greek and religiously Christian. Opponents of the Sethians also called some of them Ophites, in reference to the wise serpent (ophis in Greek, nah ash in Hebrew) from the creation stories in the opening chapters of the Bible.
Category 2) SETHIANS and VALENTINIANS
On a broader definition, gnosticism encompasses not only the Sethians but also numerous other Christian movements from the Roman Empire, chiefly the Valentinians (Wilson 1968). The Valentinians were named for Valentinus, an influential Christian thinker who lived in Alexandria, Egypt, and then in Rome in the middle of the second century CE. The Valentinians were also complex, existing in two main schools with different opinions about whether Jesus became Christ at his birth or his baptism, among other things.
Category 3) SETHIANS, VALENTINIANS, HERMETICISTS, MANICHAEANS, MANDIANS
Defined even more broadly, gnosticism and gnosis further circumscribe non-Christian religious movements from the ancient Mediterranean (Rudolph [1983] 1987; Pearson 2007). These include the Hermetics or Hermetists, named for Hermes Trismegistus, a legendary figure and Greco-Egyptian god, and the Manichaeans, named for Mani, a thirdcentury Syro-Mesopotamian visionary and prophet. They also include the Mandaeans, a baptismal group that still lives in Iraq, Iran, and assorted communities elsewhere, but that originally spoke a dialect of Aramaic (the word manda being the equivalent of gnosis) and that came from ancient Palestine.
Category 4) ALL THE ABOVE + PLUS + PHILOSOPHIES, SPIRITUALITIES, WORLDVIEWS
At its broadest, scholars define gnosticism and gnosis in terms of a sort of spirituality or worldview that can be found in religious and philosophical writings from antiquity to the present (Culianu 1992; DeConick 2016). These may be the letters of Paul and the Gospel of John as well as gnostic literature from the defunct Sethians to the living Mandaeans. They may be the writings of merkabah (Hebrew: “chariot”) mystics and hekhalot (Hebrew: “palaces”) mystics before Jewish kabbalah developed in the twelfth century CE (see Deutsch 1995). They may be the writings of the Christian Cathars of medieval Europe. They may be the writings of the poet and painter William Blake (1757–1827), the theosophist Helena Petrovna Blavatsky (1831–1891), the psychoanalyst Carl Gustav Jung (1875–1961), and the novelist Philip K. Dick (1928–1982). Here the word gnosticism often overlaps and at times may even be interchangeable with the words mysticism and esotericism. It overlaps as well with the word dualism, which can be defined by a cosmic separation between the
Creator and a transcendent God above, and in turn between the human body and the spirit or soul.