Is Egerton Gnostic?
John wasn’t the only gospel speculating on Jesus’s origin. According to Dr Koester, a quasi-philosophical religion called “gnosticism” preceded the Johannine Gospel. The gnosticism associated with John claims special “knowledge” hidden from the average person; knowledge concerning the elect’s origin from a divine plane alien to this world (which is of the devil: John 17). Helmut Koester noted parallels between Dialogue of the Saviour 13:1-14:4, Secret Book of James 2:4-6, and John 14:2-9. Koester and others think that collections of dialogues developed into dialogue narratives, and thence to dialogue-miracle gospels. Admittedly the parallels in the surviving literature are more thematic than literal, but this can be easily addressed; it is entirely probable that at least within gnosticism, the older forms were not abandoned (and therefore frozen in time) but took further paths of development before being buried at Nag Hammadi. I agree with Koester that the evidence is in favour of the
