Marvin W. Meyer (April 16, 1948 – August 16, 2012) was a scholar of religion and a tenured professor at Chapman University, in

Orange, California Orange is a city located in northern Orange County, California, United States. It is approximately north of the county seat, Santa Ana, California, Santa Ana. Orange is unusual in this region because many of the homes in its Old Town District ...

Career

Meyer was the Griset Professor of Bible and Christian Studies at Chapman University and Director of the Albert Schweitzer Institute. He was also Director of the Coptic Magical Texts Project of the Institute for Antiquity and Christianity. Dr. Meyer authored numerous books and articles on Greco-Roman and Christian religions in antiquity and late antiquity, and on

Albert Schweitzer Ludwig Philipp Albert Schweitzer (; 14 January 1875 – 4 September 1965) was a German and French polymath from Alsace. He was a theologian, organist, musicologist, writer, humanitarian, philosopher, and physician. As a Lutheran minister, ...

's ethic of reverence for life. He had been interviewed on television programs that aired on ABC, BBC, CNN, PBS, A&E, the

Discovery Channel Discovery Channel, known as The Discovery Channel from 1985 to 1995, and often referred to as simply Discovery, is an American cable channel that is best known for its ongoing reality television shows and promotion of pseudoscience. It init ...

, the

History Channel History (formerly and commonly known as the History Channel) is an American pay television television broadcaster, network and the flagship channel of A&E Networks, a joint venture between Hearst Communications and the Disney General Entertainme ...

, and the National Geographic Channel. Meyer was best known for his translations of the texts of documents associated with the ancient mystery religions, early Christian magic, and Gnostic texts, of which the most notable have been the

Gospel of Thomas The Gospel of Thomas (also known as the Coptic Gospel of Thomas) is a non-canonical Logia, sayings gospel. It was discovered near Nag Hammadi, Egypt, in 1945 among a group of books known as the Nag Hammadi library. Scholars speculate the works ...

and the

Gospel of Judas The Gospel of Judas is a non-canonical religious text. Its content consists of conversations between Jesus and his disciples, especially Judas Iscariot. The only copy of it known to exist is a Coptic language text that is part of the Codex ...

, the former of which is included among the

Nag Hammadi library The Nag Hammadi library (also known as the Chenoboskion Manuscripts and the Gnostic Gospels) is a collection of early Christian and Gnostic texts discovered near the Upper Egyptian town of Nag Hammadi in 1945. Thirteen leather-bound papyrus c ...

. Meyer edited a collection of English translations of the Nag Hammadi texts for the HarperOne imprint, the most recently revised edition of which has been released as the ''Nag Hammadi Scriptures'' in 2007, including help from James M. Robinson who has edited an earlier publication of the library. He was regarded as an authority on

Gnosticism Gnosticism (from Ancient Greek language, Ancient Greek: , Romanization of Ancient Greek, romanized: ''gnōstikós'', Koine Greek: Help:IPA/Greek, �nostiˈkos 'having knowledge') is a collection of religious ideas and systems that coalesced ...

and had worked on many books on the subject.

Death

Meyer died of

melanoma Melanoma is the most dangerous type of skin cancer; it develops from the melanin-producing cells known as melanocytes. It typically occurs in the skin, but may rarely occur in the mouth, intestines, or eye (uveal melanoma). In very rare case ...

on August 16, 2012.

References

1948 births 2012 deaths 20th-century American translators American religion academics Chapman University faculty Deaths from melanoma Historians of Gnosticism People from Grand Rapids, Michigan Members of the Jesus Seminar Coptologists {{Academic-bio-stub