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Summary: INSIGHTFUL SCHOLARLY CRITIQUE OF CHRISTIAN GNOSTICISM
Review: I write this review in response to the previous review, which inappropriately labeled Pagels a "Christian Hater." For the record, Pagels is a world famous scholar, an expert in early Christianity, and a professor at Princeton. This book is far from "Christian bashing," it engages fundamental issues regarding the relevance of a movement that was once a major competitor to Catholic Christianity. "Gnostic Gospels" was recently rated one of the 100 most important books of the century! Myself and thousands of others have enjoyed this book immensely. The book assumes greater importance as we encounter the emerging contemporary Gnostic revival. Highly recommended!
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Summary: An excellent review of the politics of early Christianity
Review: This book is an easy, engrossing read, with a good balance between scholarly and popular appeal. Despite many reviewer's comments, it is evident that Pagels is not entirely objective in her treatment of both orthodox and gnostic Christianity, and clearly sympathizes with the latter. Perhaps to redress this imbalance, her last chapter falls short of embracing a return to gnosticism. Nevertheless, a revisionist history of early Christianity is necessary to restore the voices of the few, which have been drowned out by the many.This book does a great deal to point out that the most significant problem with gnosticism, from the point of view of the orthodox, is that the gnostics refused to vest the church hierarchy with spiritual authority. The gnostics were not at all concerned with how early or authentic their scriptures were, but with how much they reflect the truth, as individually experienced. The orthodox claims that the canonical Gospels contain the truth, and all others are heresy, rely upon circular, unprovable arguments (i.e., the Holy Spirit made us choose them!). The God of the gnostics was and is the Unknown God, the Fullness of Being, and supreme good, dwelling within the Universe and in Man. The God of the orthodox was and is the Father Almighty, Maker of Heaven and Earth, jealous, cruel, and blind, and diametrically opposed to His creation and His children. The venomous attacks on this book by some on-line reviewers betrays the old, perpetual intolerance of the orthodox in the face of anything which threatens their narrow, fragile, and increasingly irrelevant belief system. The gnostics of old could not mistake these modern day followers of the Demiurge.
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Summary: Gnostic Gospels
Review: Pagels and some of the other reviewers below seem to think that the selection of today's New Testament canon, and its four gospels, was completely arbitrary. In other words, by chance. That is absurd. The four gospels were considered authoritative because they were written by either Jesus' actual disciples or the disciples of those apostles. They also were all written by the end of the first century. The Gnostic gospels are for the most part second century compositions, and were not written by any apostle or anyone connected with the apostles. Their teachings were never accepted by the mainstream of Christianity. The Church did not "suppress" these writings. Instead Christians rejected them, as having no authority and being false teachings, and scribes simply stopped copying them. There is a vast difference between suppression and rejection. This book deserves three stars for making these writings available for study, but Pagels' critical interpretations are clouded by her social/political leanings.
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Summary: Absurd Revisionist History
Review: Though I am not a Christian, I profess that this attempt to revise history is based on this author's hate for Christianity. It has no real facts contained within and only cites obscure heretical groups as its source. Being an obvious Christian hater, this author flames away with drawn and spurious conclusions and severe revisionism is written as if it were really true.
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Summary: That's Gnostic, not caustic...
Review: I sincerely appreciate what Pagels has accomplished with this brief study. It is succinct, informative, well-written, and intriguing. The fact that it raises more questions than it answers should not deter a reader. A very important book, I highly recommend it.
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Summary: Incredibly average, Pagels fails to convince me of anything
Review: The good news: Pagels has done her homework. She gives a lot of information on both sides(orthodox and Gnostic), and is even fairly objective at times, at least in presenting the premises. Fabulous job of telling the story between Irenaeus and Tertullian and the Gnostics. The bad news: Pagels' argument about the issue being not religious but only political falls flat on its face. Believing the myth that you could somehow completely separate religion and politics, Pagels suggests politics is the only motivation for the Gnostic writings being left out of the Bible. She assumes quite a bit through her interpretation, more than any other I've ever read dealing with early Christianity. She sets up the statements of Irenaeus and Tertullian as straw men, knocks them down, and claims a glorious victory. Please! She doesn't even bother to mention modern arguments against these Gnostic writings being in the Bible, and there are some good ones. Doesn't even address the idea of a divided Jesus that is formed if you accept both the Gnostic and Canonical documents. I highly recommend for Christians to read this- it will give you a deeper understanding of how we got the Bible today. Just don't put Pagels rose-colored glasses on- her argument doesn't hold up. Her work is much less sensational than many other Dead Sea Scrolls books out there, so it's a good book to read from an opposing viewpoint.
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Summary: Doesn't hold up with time
Review: When this work was first published in the late 1970's, gnosticism (you needn't wonder why a self -avowed gnostic like Harold Bloom gave it such praise) and Jungian ideaology were just getting fired up for their great publishing spew of the next twenty years--the cocktail party subject and ideology of choice for all "hip" "New-Age" yuppies of the American intelligencia. To be fair, Pagels' work is more than just new-age drivel, but she was writing about a subject (gnosticsm) of which she really knew little about at the time. Her real purpose was to try and define gnosticism as some kind of "proto-feminist" Christianity in order to give contemparary Christianity an historical foundation for feminist principles. This is a betrayel of the true principles of schaolarship; real scholarship does not serve a political agenda, no matter how noble. It also gives short shrift to the fundamentally nihilist principles of gnosticism. About a decade later, she refuted her own conclusions in an interview, saying roughly to the effect that nothing about the real position and treatment of women in earlier Christianity could be deduced from a few obscure Naf Hammadi codexes. This work tells us little about gnosticism (Try Cuoliano's "Tree Of Gnosis"). Most neo-gnostics today are as full of biased political blather and historical ignorance as are their "orthodox" opponents. This book will go down in history more notably as an historical landmark, one of the first "shots" in the wave of neo-gnostic literature that marked our "fin-de- siecle" and saw the ushering in of new paradigmns of debate over religion and Christianity.
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Summary: How the Church Took Over Christianity
Review: An excellent book that shows how "The One True Faith" actually began as a number of highly divergent and antithetical interpretations of the Jesus myth. That there are many different sects of Christianity today comes as no surprise; what is surprising, however, is how many different sects there were in the first hundred or so years after the supposed crucifiction and resurrection. As Pagels says, in order for the Roman Church to survive and become the monolithic and all-powerful institution it did, it had to a) eradicate all "heresies" that did not conform to the orthodox teachings of Rome, resulting in a New Testament which provided theological support for the Church; b)appeal to as large a number of potential converts as possible by reducing the complexities of Jesus' message to a basic belief in his divinity; c) discourage any critical thinking about Christianity by emphasizing and enforcing obedience to the priests and bishops and their edicts; and d)promote martyrdom as a way of gaining sainthood because of its dramatic appeal to the masses ("how could anyone willing to die for his faith not be worthy of emulation?"). The great success of the Church's strategy can be seen in that it took another 1,400 or so years (until the Reformation) before the gnostic idea of finding salvation through one's own relationship with God, rather than through the Church, was reborn. Christians who have already made up their minds about the inerrancy of the Bible will, of course, not be edified or enlightened by this book.
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Summary: Should be read by anyone who considers him/herself Christian
Review: The Gnostic Gospels is a truly mind-liberating, eye-opening piece of historical analysis that I would recommend to anyone, especially those from a "Christian" background. It addresses the fact that our knowledge of modern Christianity is based on four gospels in the New Testament that lay the foundations for Christian doctrine, i.e., that Jesus' resurrection be understood literally, that the Trinity consists of Father, Son and Holy Ghost, and that one is "originally" sinful and must accept Jesus as his/her savior. This modern doctrine, in my opinion, leads to self-denial and an "easy way out"- overly simply explanations which lead to close-mindedness. In my experience, mass religion has little value- it is one's personal philosophy and individual spiritual development that I think is essential for one to be truly religious and spiritually alive. For this reason the Gnostic Gospels struck me profoundly. It revealed the fact that these four Gospels (selected by the orthodox church to institute this religion) were among SCORES of gospels about Jesus' teachings, some of which are very likely to be more historically accurate than those found in the Bible. This alternative philosophy and teaching of Jesus encourages bringing out one's true self and coming to know oneself in order to get close to God. It speaks of God as both masculine and feminine. In a sense it resembles Buddhism. More importantly, I believe these gnostic texts (which weren't discovered until 1945 in Egypt) contain a truer, more meaningful message that can be applied to an individual's life. This book has reconciled me with Christianity, for I agree with - and try to learn from - many of the Gnostic teachings. Unfortunately, as these teachings encourage one to ask questions and go one's own way (rather than blindly accepting what society preaches), it was impossible for the church to institutionalize Christianity without selecting only certain, "easy answer" texts which allowed the church to legitimize the Bishops' authority over people. Above all, Pagels's study demands that we reconsider our interpretation of history and realize that what we know of as "Christianity" remains very limited. Anyone even slightly interested in religion should read The Gnostic Gospels; its uncommon ability to help us de-provincialize ourselves requires only one essential tool: an open mind.
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Summary: From A Christian Perspective
Review: I disagree on some of the authors interpretations of Biblical Scripture; however, the author attempts to present the facts in an unbiased manner.
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