++> On March 9, 1998 Clarence Hogan wrote to
 ++> David Martorana on "Other Side of Self"
 
 CH> Hey, even the best of friends don't agree on everything, but they
 CH> don't try to smother one another by trying to put them in a box
 CH> either, right?
                             ?
 
 DM> Also I reread the Naj Hammadi Gnostic Library again; several
 DM> years and with wide sweeps through other material, I understood
 DM> a lot more of what I was reading this time ....though still not
 DM> a bell ringer .
 
 CH> I wouldn't mind reading that Library myself, does a local Library
 CH> have it?
 
     "The Nag Hammadi Library"  translated by members if the Coptic
     Gnostic Library Project of the Institute for Antiquity and
     Christianity ... under Direction of James M. Robinson
     Harper & Row, Publishes 1977 first edition
                
 
     My library does not have a copy. I've found that much of my search
     material has been available on interlibrary loan. I've had books from
     California libraries sent to me (via library) in Maryland.
 
     ALSO!!! If you don't mind reading monitor screens, the entire
             Nag Hamadi library text is available on the WWW with a
             phrase or word search facility.
 
  It is an awkward read from a Christian view (the book having been
  loaned to good friends of mine (mostly fundamentalists)). It presents
  four distinct levels of view across its 50-ish different works (some
  fragmentary) .....Pagan, Pagan/Christian, Christian and sectarian. It
  presents a most unusual view of what some Christian groups in 3/4 th
  century Egypt were reading/believing. It also presents material that the
  early church fathers were not happy with i.e. "very large" role of
  women and critical role of Mary Magdelene as well as the "tensions"
  between her and Peter. Its Gospel of Thomas is MOST teasing of an early
  Christianity not yet set down into sequential polished biblical cannon 
ext.
  It also contains a rather wondrous poem about women "The Thunder Perfect
  Mind". Aside from fragments of curious interests, it made me feel sad that
  so much of such early material was confiscated and burned ... denying ME
  an opportunity to read it.                     ......can't win em all!!!
 
 CH> Just another humble servant of The Kingdom.......clarence.......
 
     Just another ............................ @@.....dave...........
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