Beyond Belief: The Secret Gospel of Thomas
by Elaine Pagels
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Book Summary Information
Author: Elaine PagelsEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2004-05-04
ISBN: 0375703160
Number of pages: 272
Publisher: Vintage
Book Reviews of Beyond Belief: The Secret Gospel of Thomas
Book Review: Crucial Knowledge For Religious Students & Christians
Summary: 5 Stars
After so many years of reading the four gospels and especially John, I had no idea of the background revealed in the writings of the Nag Hammandi, or Gnostic accounts. Its amazing how so many people mold their lives from the gospels without this crucial knowledge. After reading the gospel of Thomas and comparing the differences, it can be seen that John was writing much of his account to protest the gospel of Thomas, who he labeled as "doubting Thomas," since Thomas endorsed individual subjective experience beyond the grasp of doctrine over all dogmas and orthodox hierarchy that based all its unity on such formulated, spelled-out teachings. So it was Thomas that John had Jesus speaking the words, "No one comes to the Father except through me," and "I am the way, the life and the truth." Thomas and many other schools of Christians and teachers conveyed a Christianity that entered areas apart from grasping dogmas and schematics; to find Christ was to look inside the self, to see the subjective internal experience to find the light within the self and become an enlightened "twin" of Christ. He was not an external model to follow (I remember Ralph Waldo Emerson's same words on this) but rather a model for us to find the light within ourselves and become a son of God the very same as Christ, as Christ was not considered as a divine being above humanity. And this sparked the name calling attacks by Iraneaus, labeling such as agents of Satan, evil, foolish, apostates and so forth.
The goal of Iraneaus was to one day unify the church into one orthodox Catholic church, as the Christians were under constant attacks, being murdered and tortured by the Roman authorities. And yet, while Ireaneus did allow much diversity, he drew the line with certain teachings, refusing to accept many who were even considered spiritual bishops of great magnitude and their subsequent congregations of various Gnostic and schools of Christian teachings that fell outside of the orthodox dogmas.
Now you can see this removes the fall from Eden for a perfect divine man as ransom. The fall itself is explained in this beautiful concept how Adam and Eve were instructed. In the Secret book of John, human beings have an innate capacity to know God, not by teachings of creeds, but by glimpses into his internal being, the divine reality. Eve's birth from Adam's side speaks of the awakening of this spiritual capacity, the epinoia, a creative, inventive consciousness that is awake only through personal subjective experience, mystical visions, dreams, and awareness beyond dogmas and creeds. And she helps Adam restoring him to his full Beinghood by teaching him about his decent, the way to ascend. Eve was a gift of spiritual understanding, enabling us to reflect upon the ineffable within ourselves
Another book of the Nag Hammadi, states that Adam and Eve saw that they were naked meant that they were made aware to the luminous epinoia or glimpses into spiritual dimensions beyond discursive reasonings, something personified in feminine references, with hints and glimpses, images and stories that imperfectly point beyond themselves toward what we cannot now fully understand - St. Paul's hazy mirror.
It was here that many of the various sects taught and performed second baptisms. The first baptism was one based on faith, as in Jesus healing the officer's daughter in his simple act of faith, while the second was on the epinoia, the gnosis or knowing that occurred symbolically in the illustration of Jesus speaking to the Samaritan woman at the well with the living water where one would never get thirsty. And this epinoia was a spiritual dimension found in all of humanity, not excluded to those who have faith in an orthodox doctrine on the nature of Christ. So it is above and beyond all doctrines and universal orthodox catholic teachings, it is an internal light within the self to find these glimpses of life giving water, something Irenaeus and his orthodox successors so adamantly and violently opposed accusing all who endorsed such as heretics with heretic writings, writings later ordered to be destroyed. Thus the monk, Muhammad Ali (not a boxer) buried his scrolls, which were eventually found 1600 years later.
In this the stories, illustrations and various images of the scriptures, as in the resurrection, the virgin birth and so forth, were recognized as anthropomorphic images formed to the epinoia as teachings to seek higher awareness of the spiritual dimensions found in the self which Christ himself found within and we as his "twins" could also become the light as he was.
In the gospel of Phillip, Phillip writes that while many claim to be Christians, they are not completely in that they were only baptized but they have not been spiritually transformed in the gnosis, concluding that all believers, if not in this world then in another, will one day be transformed into the gnosis or the knowing. Whoever undergoes this tranformation, Phillip says "will no longer be a Christian but a Christ." This is a major difference in what we know as traditional Christianity. A person who becomes a Christ, is not an adherent to dogmas and orthodox creeds, nor any religious organization, but one who knows,(gnosis) him or herself as a Christ.
If Irenaeus were to simply allow all the diversity perhaps the religion itself would not have acquired the strength to endure the horrendous persecutions of the Romans. It was later that Constantine legalized Christianity and it appears that it was not he who lacked tolerance, however he sided with the Orthodox in tax breaks and financing of the Orthodox and rejection of the Gnostics and other various sects that differed from orthodox teachings. It was the successor to Irenaeus, Athanasius who carried on the orthodox attack of the other so-called heretics and against the bishop Arius who did not teach the divinity of Christ. Thus the Nicene Creed was created. And by making Christ equal to God, the apostolic authority would remain in tact with the Orthodox church as the authoritative hierarchal structure to obey with the government's backing.
What also makes this book so interesting is that it reveals how the Protestants, while rejecting the hierarchy of the Catholic Church, retained the majority of the creeds, including the Nicene Creed, and in turn rejected the subjective visionary experience. Thus they interpreted and retained the dogmas and external teachings as of higher significance over the subjective experience and realm of the Tillichian expression, the "God beyond God." In this respect, it is perhaps the Pentecostals and various Charismatic sects that have appeared to have revitalized this visionary subjective experience, and yet even they have retained the exclusivity of doctrinal obedience to the divinity of Christ and many other dogmatic teachings, which make them differ sharply from the Gnostics and various early Christian sects that the Orthodoxy opposed.
Summary of Beyond Belief: The Secret Gospel of Thomas
In Beyond Belief, renowned religion scholar Elaine Pagels continues her groundbreaking examination of the earliest Christian texts, arguing for an ongoing assessment of faith and a questioning of religious orthodoxy.Spurred on by personal tragedy and new scholarship from an international group of researchers, Pagels returns to her investigation of the ?secret? Gospel of Thomas, and breathes new life into writings once thought heretical. As she arrives at an ever-deeper conviction in her own faith, Pagels reveals how faith allows for a diversity of interpretations, and that the ?rogue? voices of Christianity encourage and sustain ?the recognition of the light within us all.?
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 Beyond Belief: The Secret Gospel of Thomas Pagels, best know for her National Book Award-winning The Gnostic Gospels, 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.
At the center of Beyond Belief 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."
Beyond Belief 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. --Patrick O?Kelley
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