The Gnostic Gospels (Hardcover) by Elaine Pagels

from tuckerresearch

Decades ago now, I read in the ol' Intercollegiate Review about Elaine Pagels's The Gnostic Gospels: "Bored with the real Gospels and real Christianity, professors of religion were thrilled to find out how important—not to mention feminist and pre-Socratic—these fragments were." It's a biting cr...

from Devil_llama

Probably the best known work on the gnostics. The author approaches her topic with enthusiasm, and does a good job of explaining the state of knowledge about gnostic Christians. A good introductory work.

from GTTexas

A change of pace read that turned out to be even more interesting than I expected. Being in Rome during the time I read it seemed to make it even more interesting. One of a dozen or so I read on a Mediterranean cruise.

from The_Hibernator

Pagels objectively introduces the subject of the Gnostic Gospels-she describes the history of the texts, some basic differences between Gnostic beliefs and Orthodox beliefs, and then summarizes by saying that Christianity would have developed quite differently (or perhaps even fizzled out like ot...

from Arctic-Stranger

With all the fuss that the Da Vinci Code code raised, this should be required reading. Pagels places the gnostic texts in their theological and historical context, without sensationalizing them. (Jesus Marries Mary! Read It Here!) Good scholarly work, yet very accessible for the lay reader who is...