The Coptic Gnostic Library Project

The author was motivated to get into Nag Hammadi studies by two factors important to him at the time: the new access to Jesus provided by The Gospel of Thomas, and the possibility of documenting pre-Christian Gnosticism provided by The Apocalypse of Adam. Though he attended the "Colloquium on the Origins of Gnosticism" at Messina on 13-18 April 66, he did not consider himself an authority on Gnosticism. Hence he withdrew to a small side room when all participants were called upon to collect for a group picture. Actually, the photography was completed on 9 June 1966, when the last 314 negatives and prints had been sent from Cairo to UNESCO, according to Christophe. But it was this casual visit intended to do no more than satisfy my curiosity that began my involvement in the UNESCO project itself.Keywords: Cairo; Gnosticism; Jesus; The Gospel of Thomas; UNESCO project