The text forms part of the Nag Hammadi library, a series of 52 religious manuscripts written sometime between the 2nd and 6th Century AD, found in northern Egypt in 1945 (inset) and being kept at Oxford University. Spread across 13 leather-bound vellum codices (right), they are of a heretical tradition known as Gnosticism – an early, mysterious form of Christianity. Earlier this year, researchers discovered that one of the library's texts stood out because it was a Greek copy of an existing piece written in Coptic. They found several fifth- or sixth-century Greek fragments of the Gnostic story of the First Apocalypse of James, which was thought to have been preserved only in its Coptic translations until now. The researchers, from the University of Texas at Austin, say the text was likely used as a teaching piece to help young Egyptians learn Greek centuries ago. Pictured left are the Coptic translations.
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