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Pistis Sophia
Excerpt from the Lexham Bible Dictionary, the most advanced Bible dictionary.
Also known as Book(s) of the Savior. A noncanonical, four-book text with an intricate cosmology and revelatory dialogue that seems set within the gnostic tradition. It was discovered in 1773, 172 years before the discovery of the famous collection at Nag Hammadi. This text was never widely authoritative in the early church period.
Lexham Bible Dictionary
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The Lexham Bible Dictionary
Pistis Sophia
Pistis Sophia Also known as Book(s) of the Savior. A noncanonical, four-book text with an intricate cosmology and revelatory dialogue that seems set within the gnostic tradition. It was discovered in 1773, 172 years before the discovery of the famous collection at Nag Hammadi. This text was never widely
Eerdmans Dictionary of the Bible
Pistis Sophia
Pistis SophiaA gnostic document whose title means “faith-wisdom,” perhaps originally titled the Book of the Savior. It was discovered in 1772 by A. Askew and bought by the British Museum in 1785 but not made public until 1905. Perhaps written in Egypt during the 3rd or 4th century and belonging to the
Eerdmans Bible Dictionary
Pistis Sophia
Pistis Sophia [pĭsˊtĭs sō fĭˊə] (Gk. Pistis Sophia “faith-wisdom,” here the name of a spiritual being).* A Gnostic writing divided into four sections, the first three of which date from the late third century A.D. and form one treatise, the Pistis Sophia proper. The fourth section is a separate
The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church
Pistis Sophia
Pistis Sophia. This curious work, a product of 3rd-cent. Egyptian Christianity, is contained in a solitary *Coptic MS in the British Library (Add. 5114), formerly the property of Dr Anthony Askew (d. 1774). It purports to record instruction given by Jesus to certain disciples at the end of a 12-year
A Dictionary of Christian Biography, Literature, Sects and Doctrines, Volumes I–IV
Pistis Sophia
PISTIS SOPHIA. A Gnostic book, known under this name, is one of the few remains of the old Gnostic literature which have come down to us. It has been preserved in a Coptic MS. of the British Museum, which Dr. Askew brought to London. The manuscript, a quarto of 346 pages, is written in the Thebaic dialect.
The Zondervan Encyclopedia of the Bible, Volume 4, M–P
Pistis Sophia
Pistis Sophia pis’tis soh-fee’uh (Πίστις Σοφία, “Faith-Wisdom”). One of the spirit beings who inhabited the world of aeons, according to Gnosticism; this figure is prominent, for example, in the Hypostasis of the Archons (a treatise included in the Nag Hammadi Library). Pistis Sophia is also the title
The New Interpreter’s Dictionary of the Bible, Volumes 1–5
PISTIS SOPHIA
PISTIS SOPHIA. The Pistis Sophia, a Coptic gnostic text found in the Askew Codex, is a manuscript that became known after the British Museum purchased it in the late 18th cent. The text, which scholars think comprises the first three of the codex’s four books, records an extended post-resurrection dialogue