Is There a Connection Between the Dead Sea Scrolls and the Nag Hammadi Library?

The Bible and Beyond

Is There a Connection Between the Dead Sea Scrolls and the Nag Hammadi Library?

An Interview with Dr. Matthew Goff and Dr. Dylan Burns (Part 1)

Professors Matthew Goff and Dylan Burns realized there were some surprising commonalities between the Dead Sea Scrolls and Nag Hammadi Library. Traditionally, these ancient writings are studied separately, despite their modern discoveries around the same time and relatively close locations. With Dr. Goff’s expertise in the Dead Sea Scrolls and Dr. Burns’ expertise in the Nag Hammadi Library, they could describe why both are so important for an understanding of the evolution of Judeo-Christian religions.

This is part one of a two-part series. The second episode in the series will be released on June 4, 2025.

Read the book they co-authored, The Dead Sea Scrolls and the Nag Hammadi Codices. It's open source, so it's available for free!

Dr. Dylan M. Burns is Assistant Professor of the History of Esotericism in Late Antiquity at the University of Amsterdam. He earned his doctorate in Ancient Christianity at Yale University in 2011, before holding research positions in Copenhagen, Leipzig, and Berlin. Among his books are Apocalypse of the Alien God: Platonism and the Exile of Sethian Gnosticism (2014), Did God Care? Providence, Dualism, and Will in Later Greek and Early Christian Philosophy (2020), and The Dead Sea Scrolls and the Nag Hammadi Codices (2022).

Dr. Matthew Goff joined the faculty of Florida State's Religion Department in 2005. He completed an M.T.S degree in 1997 at Harvard Divinity School and finished his Ph.D. at the University of Chicago in 2002. He studied under John Collins and wrote his dissertation on a Qumran text entitled 4QInstruction. His publications focus on the Dead Sea Scrolls and ancient Judaism, and his most recent book is The Apocrypha: A Guide (Oxford, 2024). His current book project is on demons and monsters in ancient Judaism and early Christianity.

A written transcript is available here: https://earlychristiantexts.com/dead-sea-scrolls-and-nag-hammadi-library/.