What Is Gnosticism?

I have been talking about how I came to learn about the Gnostic Gospel of Judas, the most significant Christian document discovered in modern times (since the 1940s).  Now I want to explain what the Gospel is.  I have just called it a “Gnostic” Gospel, and so to begin I need to say something about what Christian Gnosticism was.  It is a fascinating topic, but widely misunderstood.

The reading-public-at-large was *somewhat* introduced to it in the 1950s with the publication of the Gospel of Thoma...