false 386559 16 Shortly after Elaine Pagels' two-and-half-year-old son was diagnosed with a rare lung disease, the religion professor found herself drawn to a Christian church again for the first time in many years. In <I>Beyond Belief: The Secret Gospel of Thomas</I> Pagels, best know for her National Book Award-winning <I>The Gnostic Gospels</I>, wrestles with her own faith as she struggles to understand when--and why--Christianity became associated almost exclusively with the ideas codified in the fourth-century Nicene Creed and in the canonical texts of the New Testament. In her exploration, she uncovers the richness and diversity of Christian philosophy that has only become available since the discovery of the Nag Hammadi texts. <p> At the center of <I>Beyond Belief</I> is what Pagels identifies as a textual battle between The Gospel of Thomas (rediscovered in Egypt in 1945) and The Gospel of John. While these gospels have many superficial similarities, Pagels demonstrates that John, unlike Thomas, declares that Jesus is equivalent to "God the Father" as identified in the Old Testament. Thomas, in contrast, shares with other supposed secret teachings a belief that Jesus is not God but, rather, is a teacher who seeks to uncover the divine light in all human beings. Pagels then shows how the Gospel of John was used by Bishop Irenaeus of Lyon and others to define orthodoxy during the second and third centuries. The secret teachings were literally driven underground, disappearing until the Twentieth Century. As Pagels argues this process "not only impoverished the churches that remained but also impoverished those [Irenaeus] expelled." <p> <I>Beyond Belief</I> offers a profound framework with which to examine Christian history and contemporary Christian faith, and Pagels renders her scholarship in a highly readable narrative. The one deficiency in Pagels' examination of Thomas, if there is one, is that she never fully returns in the end to her own struggles with religion that so poignantly open the book. How has the mysticism of the Gnostic Gospels affected her? While she hints that she and others have found new pathways to faith through Thomas, the impact of Pagels' work on contemporary Christianity may not be understood for years to come. <I>--Patrick O'Kelley</I> 1604669 book 1982 Beyond Belief: The Secret Gospel of Thomas total:584|5:110|4:252|3:172|2:38|1:12| 584 2162 826 53 4 2 false false Fri Dec 07 09:12:57 -0800 2007 Fri Dec 07 09:17:35 -0800 2007 more...]]> 3 0 false false Fri Feb 01 00:00:00 -0800 2008 Wed Jan 28 06:25:37 -0800 2009 Wed Jan 28 06:28:03 -0800 2009 more...]]> 4 0 false false Sun Mar 01 00:00:00 -0800 2009 Sun Mar 01 07:34:55 -0800 2009 Fri Mar 06 08:40:11 -0800 2009 more...]]> 4 0 false false Wed Mar 25 02:45:40 -0700 2009 Wed Mar 25 02:45:40 -0700 2009
Written in plain language, it covers a lot of territory and shows how the beliefs of some ...more...]]> 3 0 false false Fri Jan 09 09:56:46 -0800 2009 Fri Jan 09 10:02:22 -0800 2009
The Gospel of Thomas, some believe, contains some of Christ's actual teachings that didn't make it into the scrip...more...]]> 5 0 false false Sat May 16 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Sat May 16 20:39:01 -0700 2009 Sat May 16 20:47:20 -0700 2009 more...]]> 2 0 false false Fri Aug 01 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Mon Nov 10 19:20:58 -0800 2008 Fri Nov 14 10:07:43 -0800 2008 more...]]> 4 1 false false Wed Dec 03 00:00:00 -0800 2008 Wed Oct 01 15:22:45 -0700 2008 Wed Dec 03 08:22:51 -0800 2008 more...]]> 4 0 false false Tue Apr 01 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Sun Apr 06 13:03:42 -0700 2008 Tue Apr 22 11:56:39 -0700 2008
Her tone is kind of iffy and although I didn't mind reading a few of her books where it seems like she has an ax to g...more...]]> 3 0 false false Thu Apr 01 00:00:00 -0800 2004 Tue Nov 06 20:26:36 -0800 2007 Wed Nov 07 06:37:14 -0800 2007 more...]]> 4 0 false false Thu Jan 01 00:00:00 -0800 2009 Sun Sep 13 14:18:27 -0700 2009 Fri Sep 18 15:13:24 -0700 2009 more...]]> 2 0 false false Tue Dec 30 07:15:53 -0800 2008 Tue Dec 30 07:26:04 -0800 2008 more...]]> 5 0 false false Wed Mar 25 06:37:36 -0700 2009 Wed Mar 25 06:39:57 -0700 2009 more...]]> 0 0 false false Mon Jun 25 00:00:00 -0700 2007 Tue Apr 14 07:59:17 -0700 2009 Tue Apr 14 08:02:28 -0700 2009 more...]]> 5 0 false false Sat Mar 01 00:00:00 -0800 2008 Wed Apr 02 11:42:41 -0700 2008 Wed Apr 02 11:45:39 -0700 2008 more...]]> 3 0 false false Sun Jul 01 00:00:00 -0700 2007 Wed Aug 19 12:20:52 -0700 2009 Wed Aug 19 12:23:11 -0700 2009 4 0 false false Thu Jan 01 00:00:00 -0800 2009 Sat Nov 14 09:33:11 -0800 2009 Sat Nov 14 09:34:50 -0800 2009 4 0 false false Mon Dec 20 00:00:00 -0800 2004 Sun Jul 05 14:27:56 -0700 2009 Sun Jul 05 14:27:56 -0700 2009 more...]]> 0 0 false false Tue Aug 12 14:40:17 -0700 2008 Tue Aug 12 14:43:09 -0700 2008 more...]]> 0 0 false false Tue Sep 25 19:57:54 -0700 2007 Tue Sep 25 20:37:13 -0700 2007 more...]]> http://www.goodreads.com/book_link/follow/8?book_id=386559