Talk:Sophia of Jesus Christ

BF, what's the copyright status on this material? --Stephen Gilbert

Not sure. It was on a gnostic web site without any clear indications. btw, I have read this book it comes from, so it may be a prob, but it also may not because the source for the translation comes from scrolls dated in the 2nd and 3rd centuries A.D. To put a picture of the scrolls is no different than to show the translation. I'm not exactly sure how this works, but it's definitely, and upgrade for New_Age, as Larry Sanger asked. I've only just begun to show the depth of knowledge and the sources they come from on that topic, contrary to my earlier revelations, which were based on years of study in many key slanted areas revised into meaningless drivel by scared people who think they really have a clue what New Age is about =)

There is no good reason, that I can see, to think that this translation is public domain. Is there any that you can see? --LMS

The translation can be found on http://www.gnosis.org/naghamm/sjc.html and there is no reference any place on the site about copyrights. James Robinson and Elaine Pagels are some of the many translators of the Nag Hammadi scrolls, they did not write them. Since they are as old as the New Testament, isn't this like saying we can't quote any scripture here ? ~BF


 * No, it's not. Translation is an active process that results in a new work, which can (and usually is) subject to copyright law, just as other works are. Also, note that the publish date is 1990; it's virtually unimaginable to think that this isn't under copyright. Given this, I'm going to nuke the page; if I'm wrong, we can always recover it from the prior revision. -- EdwardOConnor

Fine, then we can compromise with a small article reviewing the Sophia, with a link to the web site. ~BF


 * An article about the Sophia would be fine. As for the link, I would like to determine whether or not the webmaster of that page is posting it illegally. --Stephen Gilbert


 * Good compromise, BF! :-)

- translations ARE copyright

I am having a look into the provenance of this; The Nag Hammadi scrolls, I seem to recall, are a subject of debate in some historical circles. sjc

I've got some email from a person who quotes liberally from the Nag Hammadi scrolls on a web site. The email basically says the same thing as wiki on fair_use. Is wiki for educational purposes ? If so, how much copyrighted material can we include here under the fair use provision of US Copyright Law ?


 * AFAIK, Wikipedia has traditionally adhered to a fairly tight standard of quoting under "fair use" guidelines, i.e., "not a lot". Maybe a few sentences - a pithy quote, or a sample to give the flavor of the material. If we can link to an online copy, since it's only a click away discretion may be the better part of scholarship at this time. Comments?


 * As someone who is working on a scholarly translation of an obscure (unjustly obscure! get your copy of the Libri Carolini NOW!) text who hopes to see it published not only in a nice little book but also on the Web I can sympathize with the idea that translations should be as widely distributed as possible.  But in the context of a Wiki that makes me VERY nervous.  I don't want my name attached to a translation that can be edited or altered.  I would want a link to an un-editable site, but in this case copyright serves accuracy as well as 'property' rights to the translation. So, my vote goes to 'quote and link to full-text' practices.  (and yes, I realize how oppressive and hegemonistic concepts of 'my accurate translation' seems to some people.  But anyone who makes public translations is of a personality type that believes in 'accuracy', or they wouldn't bother.)  --MichaelTinkler

I still have no idea how The Gnostic Society posts their translations of the Nag Hammadi on their website, placing a fine print copyright underneath each. Maybe, the translators gave them permission to post on the web site. Putting a full translation of one gnostic gospel here might encourage malicious editing, as Michael infers. I need to expand the article more without bias to encourage those who may be searching for information in that "lost period" of history called Early Christianity, in which Elaine Pagels now has a doctorate degree. - I revised first sentence to reflect the simple truth that sophia means wisdom in any form of Greek; perhaps more tendentious (though obviously *I* think it's true) is that in a Gnostic context it means 'esoteric wisdom'. I also removed the strange italics on the paragraph at the bottom of the page and qualified the dating of the Gnostic texts. Many, if not most scholars believe that the Gnostic texts are significantly later than the late first century. None of the Nag Hammadi manuscripts are earlier than the 3rd century, so they are not exactly great evidence of earliness. They are in Coptic, which implies (to some scholars) that if they were written in Greek there must have been some lag time, but no mainstream scholar of New Testament text studies puts the first 2 gospels later than 90 (that is, late 1st century). Some actually put them earlier than that. Elaine Pagels is FAR from the only or first specialist in Early Christianity. --MichaelTinkler

Synoptic Gospels
The article references the "four synoptic Gospels." In fact there are three synoptic Gospels, Matthew, Mark and Luke. John is not a synoptic Gospel.