Bentley Layton (born 12 August 1941), is Professor of Religious Studies (Ancient Christianity) and Professor of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations (Coptic) at

Yale University Yale University is a private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. Established in 1701 as the Collegiate School, it is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and among the most prestigious in the wo ...

(since 1983). He is a

Harvard Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher le ...

-educated scholar who has been central to the late 20th-century ''Rediscovery of

Gnosticism Gnosticism (from grc, γνωστικός, gnōstikós, , 'having knowledge') is a collection of religious ideas and systems which coalesced in the late 1st century AD among Jewish Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people ...

'', which was the title of the international conference he hosted at Yale in 1980 and the volume that came of it. His interests lie in the

History of Christianity The history of Christianity concerns the Christian religion, Christian countries, and the Christians with their various denominations, from the 1st century to the present. Christianity originated with the ministry of Jesus, a Jewish teach ...

from its origins until the rise of Islam, Gnostic studies and

Coptic Coptic may refer to: Afro-Asia * Copts, an ethnoreligious group mainly in the area of modern Egypt but also in Sudan and Libya * Coptic language, a Northern Afro-Asiatic language spoken in Egypt until at least the 17th century * Coptic alphabet ...

. With a ''summa cum laude'' thesis on the

Nag Hammadi Nag Hammadi ( ; ar, نجع حمادى ) is a city in Upper Egypt. It is located on the west bank of the Nile in the Qena Governorate, about north-west of Luxor. It had a population of close to 43,000 . History The town of Nag Hammadi is name ...

Gnostic Coptic Treatise on the Resurrection, which he presented in a critical edition in 1978, he has moved on to present critical editions of other texts: '' The Hypostasis of the Archons, Or, The Reality of the Rulers...'', serialized in ''

Harvard Theological Review The ''Harvard Theological Review'' is a quarterly peer-reviewed academic journal established in 1908 and published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of the Harvard Divinity School. It covers a wide spectrum of fields in theological and re ...

'' 67 (1974) 351—425 and 69 (1976) 1—71, and others. His most accessible book is ''The Gnostic Scriptures: A New Translation with Annotations'' (Garden City: Doubleday & Co., 1987), which presents some of the enigmatic literature of gnostic Christianity for nonspecialists. He sets his selection of gnostic scripture, the writings of Valentinus and his followers, and related writings that display gnostic tendencies within the broader context of

Early Christianity Early Christianity (up to the First Council of Nicaea in 325) spread from the Levant, across the Roman Empire, and beyond. Originally, this progression was closely connected to already established Jewish centers in the Holy Land and the Jewish ...

and Hellenistic Judaism, with generous introductions and plentiful annotations. For specialists, Layton's Coptic grammar is a standard text. He catalogued all the Coptic manuscripts in the

British Library The British Library is the national library of the United Kingdom and is one of the largest libraries in the world. It is estimated to contain between 170 and 200 million items from many countries. As a legal deposit library, the British ...

. He is a board member on the '' Harvard Theological Review'' and the ''Journal of Coptic Studies''.

External links

Yale University:
Bentley Layton ''curriculum vitae'' 1941 births Living people Harvard University alumni American Christian theologians Yale University faculty Religion in Egypt Historians of Gnosticism {{US-theologian-stub