How Can You Tell When an Ancient Text Is Gnostic, Jewish, or Christian?

The Bible and Beyond

An interview with Dr. Samuel Zinner

Dr. Samuel Zinner describes the ancient Apocryphon (or Secret Book) of James, then, focusing on two common elements in so-called ‘gnosticism’—the meaning of the demiurge and ascending—he shows how this text does not neatly fit any category. It includes no reference to demiurge, but it does involve a lengthy and unusual description of Jesus, Peter, and James all ascending. Inclusion in the Nag Hammadi collection does not necessarily define something as ‘gnostic,’ as this text illustrates.

Zinner is an award-winning author and scholar of Holocaust studies, ecumenism, modern and ancient languages, literature and history, and has been published internationally in a variety of languages by Oxford University Press, de Gruyter, and others. He has contributed articles to Religions Journal and served as peer review referee for several academic journals. He is also a documentary script writer, having worked with Jean-Claude Bragard, the creator of award-winning programs for the BBC. Zinner has collaborated with eminent scholars on the Dead Sea Scrolls and Hebrew scriptures. He's currently an editor for the forthcoming Origins and Applications of Language and Number with contributions from several eminent scholars, and he presents at conferences such as "The Bible and the Qur’an: Comparative Studies” at the Shahid Beshita University in Tehran.

His current book that we discuss in this podcast interview is The Apocryphon of James (NHC 1,2), a scholarly work on the text more popularly known as the Secret Book of James.