| First Apocalypse Of James |
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The First Yaʿaqov''', Tiberian Hebrew '''Yaʿăqōḇ''', part of the New Testament Apocrypha also called the '''Revelation of Jacob''', was first discovered amongst 52 other Gnostic Christian texts spread over 13 Codices by an Arab peasant, Mohammad Ali al-Samman, in the Egyptian town of Nag Hammadi late in December 1945. Another copy has more recently been found in the Codex Tchacos . The text itself is remarkably well preserved for its age; it is thought that the vast majority of the Nag Hammadi Papyri were buried in the 4th Century, in an effort to hide the texts from destruction by others. The form of the text is primarily that of a Revelation Dialogue/Discourse between James The Just (the ''brother'' of Jesus) and Jesus, with a rather fragmentary account of the martyrdom of Saint James(?) appended to the bottom of the manuscript, connected to the remainder by an oblique reference to crucifixion. The first portion of the text describes James' understandable concern about being crucified, whereas the latter portion describes secret ''passwords'' given to James so that he can ascend to the highest heaven (out of 72) after dying, without being blocked by evil ''powers'' of the Demi-urge . Some of the framing background details about James given in the text are thought by academics to reflect early traditions; according to the text:
One of the most curious features of the first apocalypse of James is that the range of dating of its original text, assigned to it by scholars, requires that it was written ''after'' the '' Second Apocalypse Of James ''. NOTES SOURCES
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