Unearthed from obscurity. Aligned with Scripture. Brimming with names, places, and details that read like a field report from the first century—The Testament of Simon the Mage offers the kind of narrative “data” many believers have long wished archaeologists would find.

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For nearly two millennia, the voice of Simon of Gitta—better known as Simon Magus—has survived only through the words of his enemies. This newly translated testament turns that on its head. It reads like a first-hand, insider chronicle closely woven into the Bible’s own story-world: Bethlehem, Herod’s court, the Magi, the Samaritan woman at the well, Philip’s miracles, Peter and John’s ministry in Samaria, Nero’s Rome—each setting appears with rich local color and internal consistency that invite serious attention.

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It offers no mere vague “inspiration”; it is specific names, dates, routes, rituals, and political details that match what we already know from Scripture and early Christian history— and then tells more!

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Tantalizing for Those Who Love Evidence

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If your heart leaps whenever a new inscription, ossuary, or scroll seems to corroborate the Bible’s world, this text is for you. The testament:

• Places a young Simon in the company of the Magi—Melkon, Gaspar, and Balthasar—entering Herod’s court and journeying to Bethlehem with specific Persian and Parthian background that tracks with Eastern Christian traditions.

• Describes the visit to the Christ-child with the kind of granular detail like someone who was actually there: gifts named, family ties traced, and even a secondary miracle!

• Connects Simon directly to the Samaritan woman at Jacob’s Well—Talmit, later called Photini—tying John 4 to an extended, vivid backstory that aligns closely with later Orthodox memory of her as “equal to the apostles” and martyr under Nero.

• Recounts Philip’s work in Samaria, Simons baptism, and Peter’s rebuke with striking narrative depth, yet in recognizable continuity with Acts 8—like seeing a familiar event replayed from another camera angle.

• Echoes known extra-biblical traditions: Simons contest before Nero, his apparent levitation, fall, and conflict with Peter and Paul, all found in early apocryphal Acts and patristic reports—but here, told from within Simon’s own circle.

Every page feels like “supplemental footage” for the New Testament: not replacing Scripture, but thickening its historical world with coherent, interlocking testimony.

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A Storyline That Illuminates Known Traditions

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Many “later legends” suddenly look less like fantasy and more like faint echoes of a much older memory. The testament:

• Narrates thel Dormition of Mary in Jerusalem, with the apostles’ gathering, her peaceful passing, and a miraculous image entrusted to Bartholomew and carried into Armenia—matching, in striking detail, later Dormition and Armenian traditions.

• Traces the life of Photini from Samaria to Nero’s Rome, where she dies as a martyr—presaging the arc preserved in Eastern hagiography, but now embedded in a broader, internally consistent narrative.

• Introduces the “Cup of Sorrows, Blessings, and Redemption,” a Solomonic heirloom that holds Jacob’s Well water, Photini’s tears, and Christ’s blood, then passes through Nicodemus and Joseph of Arimathea to be hidden in sacred waters—anticipating, in unmistakable outline, the later "Grail traditions".

For the reader who cares about how “legends” grow from earlier realities, this testament feels less like fiction and more like a missing link in the chain of Christian memory.

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A Text That Begs to Be Examined

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Otikos Publishing House does not ask you to accept these claims uncritically—but to recognize how unusually testable they are.

• The narrative is saturated with checkable anchors: rulers, routes, liturgical customs, Samaritan geography, Armenian royal names, Egyptian sites, Zoroastrian rites, and more.

• Its world matches, point by point, a web of already-known traditions about Simon, Helen, Photini, the Magi, Mary, Nero, and Joseph of Arimathea—yet weaves them together in a way that explains why those later fragments look the way they do.

• The provisional history of the scrolls—from Samaria to Lake Van, from Akdamar Church to Nazi Ahnenerbe archives, to leaked images in postwar Pentagon files—gives concrete research paths for future historians and archaeologists.

If you’ve ever wished for a single, richly detailed document that could be put under the microscope of textual criticism, history, and archaeology—all while living in the same spiritual universe as the Bible—this is that document.

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Read It As an “Ancient Dossier” Beside Your Bible

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You don’t have to agree with every theological inference in the testament to appreciate its value as potential early testimony. Read it as you would a newly unearthed scroll from Qumran or Nag Hammadi:

• As a dense, historically aware witness to how at least one early community remembered Jesus, the apostles, Mary, and the great events of the first century.

• As a narrative that repeatedly confirms, enriches, and sometimes surprises what you already know from Scripture—without asking you to surrender your faith to read it.

If you love the moment when a shard, inscription, or scroll suddenly makes Scripture’s world “click” into sharper focus, “The Testament of Simon the Mage” may be some of the most thrilling reading you'll ever encounter.