The Gnostic Gospels
by Elaine Pagels
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The Nag Hammadi texts, containing the Gnostic Gospels, were found in Egypt in 1945. These codices were compiled in the 4th century AD, but the gospels themselves date to the 2nd century AD. The Gnostic teachings are quite different from those of the orthodoxy. The Gnostics had an egalitarian approach to the sexes. Sex itself was held a sacrament, and Jesus himself had a consort in Mary Magdalene. All this points to one of the most fundamental differences of Gnosticism to the Orthodox Christianit...more
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I had read about the discovery of these documents in newspapers, but The Gnostic Gospels was the first major and eminently readable book on gnosticism benefiting from the discovery in 1945 of a collection of Gnostic Christian texts at Nag Hammadi in Egypt. Posting this now has caused me to realize that just within the fifty years easily spanned by my adult memory, gnosticism has gone from being a strange, heretical early cult to being an interesting, well-studies variant that lost out to ...more
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Read in May, 2008
Okay, so I didn't quite finish, but the library wanted it back. And I'm not really historically interested in this stuff (I had to stop being a history major when I realized that the truth didn't interest me), more interested in some ideas. . . Gnostic heretics attempted to create a religion structurally different, politically different from both Roman rule and Jewish belief--in some way, they thought Christ had really brought a new world order. But the orthodox (or proto-orthodox) took the more...more
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Gnosticism's Christian form grew to prominence in the 2nd century A.D. Ultimately denounced as heretical by the early church, Gnosticism proposed a revealed knowledge of God ("gnosis" meaning "knowledge" in Greek), held as a secret tradition of the apostles. In The Gnostic Gospels, author Elaine Pagels suggests that Christianity could have developed quite differently if Gnostic texts had become part of the Christian canon. Without a doubt: Gnosticism celebrates God as both Mo...more
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Read in February, 2007
recommends it for:
people who think the bible isn't the last word on Christianity
This book is a classic. It describes, catalogues, quotes, and interprets portions of the secret gnostic gospels which were ordered destroyed in the 4th century after Christ. How, then, did we gain access to them? Some crafty monk shoved bits and pieces of papyrus into a clay jar and buried it, like a time capsule, for 20th century archeologists to discover and historians to argue about for another 16 centuries.
What do the gnostic gospels disclose? Well, read if you want the full story, but l...more
What do the gnostic gospels disclose? Well, read if you want the full story, but l...more
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Read in July, 2002
recommends it for:
any one interested in theology
This book is about how, after JC's death, there was a struggle between heretic believers- those who believed in personal enlightenment and shunned a church hierarchy- and the disciple of John's beievers- patriarchal, hierarchal, congregational- and why John's side won. GG is based on the gnostic gospels which were discovered in urns buried in a cave in Egypt 1950. They had likely been suppressed by the dominant faction.
It does a good job describing how present-day Christianity evolved an...more
It does a good job describing how present-day Christianity evolved an...more
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This was one which I and a few others read alongside Archibald MacLeish's J.B.: A Play in Verse (with Constant Reader) and the Book of Job in the Old Testament (with Classics Corner) and then I threw in When Bad Things Happen to Good People and another one which at the moment is escaping me. Just the BEST discussion I think I've EVER experienced with the group since I joined it. Other dual discussions have also been very high level though -- don't get me wrong -- but that one was a real doozy ...more
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Read in January, 2008
I read this book after Karen Armstrong's biography of the Bible and really found the two were useful companions to read one after the other since now I had a better understanding of the history, political and social surrounding the rise of Christianity and the Christian text. This book concerns itself with the Gnostic order of Christianity, what it was about, why it receded and how a more 'catholic' and/or 'orthodox' Christianity survived instead. But beyond that, the teachings of Gnosticism fee...more
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I have been looking for a book that covers this topic for a long time. This book takes a look at some of the books about Jesus that didn't make it into the Bible and talks about their content and compares them to the books about Jesus that did make it into the Bible. I am amazed at all the differences in ideas of the early Christian church. It is interesting to think about the different directions and how different Christianity as we know it could have been if different books had made it into...more
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Ever wonder about the writings related to Jesus that are not included when the Bible Canon was decided upon by a group of church leaders under the approval of the Roman Empire in the fourth century?
The Nag Hammadi texts, containing the Gnostic Gospels, were found in Egypt in 1945. They contain Gnostic teachings that paint quite a different picture of Jesus and his teachings. Given the fact that the canonized Gospels were written decades after Jesus' death and their authorship is questionabl...more
The Nag Hammadi texts, containing the Gnostic Gospels, were found in Egypt in 1945. They contain Gnostic teachings that paint quite a different picture of Jesus and his teachings. Given the fact that the canonized Gospels were written decades after Jesus' death and their authorship is questionabl...more
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Read in January, 1997
recommends it for:
People down with rethinking religious belief
Translation and analysis of the scrolls found in Nag Hammadi. These scrolls were of competing gospels of Jesus, telling the story in a very different way than the ones found in the Old Testament. These were written by the Gnostics - a group who believed Jesus' message was more of an internal struggle of the soul to return to the universe rather than simply following the church, that the ressurection symbolizes a reborn awareness of the self, and that kingdom come is to be found within the self.
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Read in April, 1997
Unlike the vast majority of academics, Ms Pagels succeeds in keeping at bay her prejudices when examining gnostic and orthodox Christians at the beginning of the "Common Era." This individualism of gnostic Christianity is appealing, as well as its alternative interpretation of Christ and His life. She presents exceptionally well the relationship between society, politics, and religion without pandering to the idea of social determinism for the views of orthodox or gnostic theologians
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It's wonderful and frustrating to read this book - wonderful to learn what a mess the Christian religion was (and is) - seems closer to the truth than anything I've read before. It brings to light how writings for the present-day Bible were cherry-picked to promote the interests of those in power, while others like the Gospel of Thomas were deemed heresy. And so it goes...two thousand years later, and things haven't changed much!
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I was assigned this as an undergrad and it opened my eyes to a lot my church didn't let me see when I was growing up. Further adding to the confusion of the melting pot that was my family, but in a good way. There is a lot of information out there, and it would be nice if everyone was allowed to have free access to it so they can create their own paths. I had to wait until college before stumbling upon a lot of it.
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Read in October, 1997
It's been a long time since I read this, so the fine details are fuzzy. But Pagels is a very interesting, original religious scholar, and in this book, she talks about the books that didn't make it into the Bible, particularly those associated with the Gnostic movement, which was much more open to women than competing branches of Christianity and which had a sharp division between the spirit and the body.
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Read in January, 2008
A very interesting introduction to the Gnostic gospels found at Nag Hammadi in 1948. From Pagel's description, Gnosticism seems kind of like Buddhism with more fluffery and self-knowledge stuff thrown in. She does a good job of explaining how certain aspects of core Christian and Gnostic beliefs influenced the early church as an institution, and why the early church fathers found Gnosticism so heretical
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Read in October, 2007
This book was smart in that academic way (written by a college prof) but without the jargon, making it VERY accessible and readable. Really interestnig analysis of the differences between the gnostic and orthodox christian texts and belief systems, and how these influenced their political/institutional success.
Kind of like a really smart and historically accurate version of the Da Vinci Code.
Kind of like a really smart and historically accurate version of the Da Vinci Code.
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High Five! Fascinating book about the unknown sides of the early Christians. Pagles is a very accessible writer, and not one who overwhelms or expects that you know everything there is to know about Jeebus and his cronies. I will not waste time here on a treatise on Christian Humanism, but if you want to talk about it, please let me know and when I'm not drowning in educational theory, we'll chat.
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Read in January, 2000
A very interesting read. Though the information is somewhat dated now, this work sheds light on the diversity found in the early christian community based on translations of texts found at Nag-Hammadi, Egypt and other places. The early gospels reveal a wide range of beliefs that only distill later into the councils and creeds of orthodoxy. More on this in her "The Gospel of Thomas".
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Read in August, 2007
This is the kind of book I wish people who have blind faith in the bible as it currently fashioned would read. It's a bit on the light side as far as a historical treatment of the subject and Pagels seems unduly sympathetic towards the gnostic viewpoint. However she does a great job of summing up who the gnostics were and why they failed to displace the orthodox.
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