The Gnostic Gospels | Elaine Pagels | Outstanding scholarly work

The Gnostic Gospels | Elaine Pagels | Informative

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The Gnostic Gospels

	The Gnostic Gospels Elaine Pagels Vintage, 1989 - 224 pages average customer review:based on 186 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

Outstanding scholarly work

Originally written nearly 30 years ago, this book remains a must-read on the subject. Elaine Pagels is a renowned scholar with a Harvard Ph.D. in religion. She directly studied and translated some of the Nag Hammadi manuscripts in the early seventies. Her related research represents the foundation of this book. She later became a Princeton professor. She wrote several seminal books on Christianity. Her lifelong work has significantly advanced our knowledge of early Christianity.

Each chapter focuses on a specific tenet of Christianity and stresses the differences between Gnostic and orthodox Christians. While the orthodox Christians believe in the physical reality of Jesus' resurrection, the immaculate conception of Jesus, and martyrdom; the Gnostic Christians interpret the resurrection in a spiritual way (not a literal one). They also do not believe in the Immaculate Conception. And, they reject martyrdom as a fanatical practice not reflecting Jesus' teachings.

The Gnostic Christians don't believe in the orthodox Christians' hierarchy. Gnostic Christians believe each of us has direct access to God. And, that orthodox bishops and priests represent unwanted obstacles to this access. Additionally, Gnostic Christians do not exclude women as the sexes are equal in front of God. They even revere God as both the Father and the Mother. Also, they don't consider Mary Magdalene to be a woman of ill repute, but instead an equal if not a superior to the twelve apostles.

For Gnostic Christians, the overarching factor is how much gnosis (knowledge) a believer has. This also entails wisdom and maturity. Gnosis is means knowledge based on empirical firsthand experience in Greek. It entails self-knowledge or "know thyself" a key concept in Greek philosophy (Aristotle, Plato, Socrates). For Gnostic Christian this concept is so important that knowing self ultimately leads to knowing God. Thus, there is no separation between God and the individual. This underlines the drastic difference between Gnostic and orthodox Christians. The author mentions that this concept leads to Gnosticism having a significant influence on modern Existentialism.

Gnostic Christians also considered Jesus to be a spiritual guide more than a divine entity. The author indicates that other historians suggested this concept comes from Buddhism and that early Gnostic Christians may have likely been influenced by Buddhism. They support their arguments by the existing trade routes of the time that linked the relevant regions allowing for the mentioned exchange of spiritual concepts.

Pagels advances that the orthodox Christians more concrete criteria to join their religion were at the essence of their success over their Gnostic counterparts. For a religion to be successful it needs more than ideas. It needs a strong organizational political structure that promotes its expansion based on principles readily understandable to newcomers. Orthodox Christianity had all these elements enhancing its prospective success. Gnosticism had ideas alone. Within two centuries, the Gnostic movement will have disappeared and orthodox Christianity will flourish presenting a fairly united front for over a millennium until Martin Luther in the 16th century. Oddly enough, Luther's Reformation would adopt certain of the Gnostics concepts including the deemphasizing of a religious hierarchy and implementing the more direct access between each individual and God.

To this day the majority of Christian movements follow an orthodox Christian structure. Gnostic Christianity has entirely disappeared; But as mentioned some of its ideas have survived within eastern philosophies (Buddhism), classical Greek philosophy, and modern existentialism.

This is a fascinating book on a subject with an extensive literature. If you like this book, I strongly recommend all the other books written by the same author. I also recommend books written by Michael Baigent. In particular, his latest book "The Jesus Papers" is excellent.

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Informative

Still reading this but it's very informative because it gives background and history which is different from the other Gnostic Gospels that I have. If you are searching for truth and are willing to open your mind to ALL possibilities, add this to your collection. My motto is, I am searching for the truth and I don't care what clothes it is wearing. Truth is Truth. If you agree, get this book and continue your search. This will help you.

A spotlight on controversy

I have always enjoyed Ms Pagels' commentaries on the History Channel, and found this book expands upon them in a scholarly manner, as she gives not only her conclusions but the path she took to arrive at them. This is a fine volume for anyone interested in early Christian ideas which were discarded.
J. V. Vaisvil

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an excellent primer on the subject

With all of the discussion around Gnosticism in popular culture, if you'd like to know a little bit more about what Gnosticism actually is from a more scholarly point of view, this is the book for you. It's a primer, and only a primer on the subject, and you will need further study to more fully debate the specifics or know the complete history. I would recommend one of the several compendia of Gnostic gospels out there, if you so desire more info. But, Pagels' book is a good starting place. And if all you need is to know what the big deal is, after an hour or two reading this book, you'll have a pretty good idea.

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Interesting Read

I recently finished the book. I found it very interesting and a thought provoking read. At times it was a dragged a bit, but over all worth the effort.

reviews: 1, 2, 3, page 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13

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