The Gnostic Gospels
by Elaine Pagels
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Book Summary Information
Author: Elaine PagelsEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 1989-09-19
ISBN: 0679724532
Number of pages: 182
Publisher: Vintage
Book Reviews of The Gnostic Gospels
Book Review: Beyond Relief
Summary: 1 Stars
Gnosticism ain't Christianity folks, in any way, shape, or form - despite Pagels' "scholarly" efforts to make it appear otherwise.
"The Gnostic Gospels," and "Beyond Belief," are Pagels' attempt to come up with a new, more appealing and politically-correct form of Christianity (eg. Gnosticism proclaims "God" is androgynous, or both man and woman, Mary Magdalene is elevated to the status of the first and greatest Apostle and is Jesus' wife and divine consort, Gnostic writings were suppressed by the "Patriarchical" Church, etc.,).
Pagels makes her claim by presenting to us supposedly "discovered" scripture that supports her position and provides an alternative to stodgy, stuffy, conventional Christianity. No mistake, those searching for a brand of "Christianity Light," will find a lot of appeal in her work.
But the fact of the matter is, anyone with even a minimal understanding of ancient history and the world's religions and philosophies will realize how bunk her theories and arguments are. For starters, the main premise of Pagels' case is simply wrong - Gnosticism isn't an "offshoot" of Christianity. This is a fundamental misconception.
Gnosticism goes back centuries BEFORE the Christian era. Perhaps as early as the Fifth Century B.C., a belief system developed in ancient Syria and Persia, that held salvation of the soul could be achieved by attaining a deep, mystic, and divine knowledge (based on the Greek "gnosis," for knowledge).
According to gnostics, humans were divided into a 3-tiered hierarchy. Those that possessed this knowledge, or gnosis, were a superior form of human being whose present and future destiny were not intertwined with those humans that, for whatever reason, did not "know." Those humans too influenced by matter were doomed. And somewhere in between were those who did not yet possess the gnosis, but could yet be saved.
Rather than believe in the good of creation, Gnostics regarded matter and indeed, the whole physical universe to be a defilement of the deity - the god of light/spirit - and taught that the ultimate end would be to overcome matter and be reunited with the parent spirit and realm of light/energy. This would not be achieved by submission to God's laws, or through Grace (God's forgiveness of man's sins) by acceptance of the living Christ - the Son of God and Redeemer.
Rather, the process was completely intuitive and esoteric. Redemption or salvation would occur by awakening the sleeping gnosis (knowledge/wisdom) or "God within" - through deep thoughts, reflection, and meditation - thereby freeing the good spirit imprisoned within the evil, physical body.
Does this sound like Christianity? Hardly. Gnosticism has more in common with the movies "Star Wars" ("The Force") and "The Matrix," than it does Christianity.
Gnostics were the New Agers of their day, and with the founding of the Christian Church and spread of Christianity, they incorporated and appropriated various elements of Christianity into their beliefs. NOT the other way around.
Pagels paints early Christian church fathers who developed the Canon as repressive, threatened control freaks who were bent on creating unthinking, unquestioning dogma. Pagels couldn't be more wrong and misses the point entirely.
With regional and philosophical offshoots and sects of Christianity spiraling out of control during the first several hundred years of Christianity (Gnosticism, Marcionism, Manichaeans, Docetism, Arianism, etc.,), the hand of the early church was forced: it either define itself as a faith and find some common belief system or doctrine that could be agreed on by those that espoused to be "Christians" - or risk dying out, degenerating into a plethora of splintered factions and cults, as numerous other religions and philosophies had done so before and since.
How is this any different than the history of the world's other great philosophies/religions, like Confucianism, Judaism, Buddhism, Taoism, and Islam - the very word itself meaning "submission." If a religion or philosophy doesn't have a unique and defining set of beliefs or doctrine, what is it exactly that its adherents are adhering to? But please don't bring that fact up to Pagels and her Ivory Tower contemporaries. Remember, its only P.C. to bash Christians...
So, over the course of hundreds of years, the Church strove to define itself. In doing so, it determined which beliefs (through decrees and doctrines adopted by Ecumenical Councils like the Nicene Creed) and writings had Authority. Writings that were true Scripture (that is, prophetic or divinely inspired) were deemed Cannonical and those which were not were Apocryphal or Heretical.
Much to the contrary of the Book's title, there was and is nothing "secret" about the "Gospel of Thomas," (the existence of the writings have been known and their contents debated and rejected centuries upon centuries ago). Nor was it ever actually considered a true "Gospel" - that is, Scripture accepted as Canon or authoritative within the Church.
In fact, there are dozens of New Testament books and writings - some of them nothing short of absurd (Google "The Acts of Andrew" for a great example) - that were deemed Apocryphal by the early church. The fact of their existence, in and of itself, does not confirm that some wild, wonderful, secret shortcut to salvation was stamped out by a reactionary, threatened church. Far from it.
In fact, the best reason of all the great majority of New Testament Apocryphal writings were rejected is that, like the so-called Gnostic Gospels, they were composed centuries after the end of the Apostolic age. Therefore, their authorship and authenticity in providing insight on Jesus Christ and the Apostles is at best, questionable. At worst, the documents are complete bunk.
The tenets of Gnosticism - its elitism, its belief that man is co-substantial, or of the same substance as God, and numerous others - are utterly and irreconcilably incompatible with Christianity. Anyone with half a brain can see that and understand why it was deemed so, so many centuries ago.
Summary of The Gnostic Gospels
A provocative study of the gnostic gospels and the world of early Christianity as revealed through the Nag Hammadi texts.Gnosticism's Christian form grew to prominence in the 2nd century A.D. Ultimately denounced as heretical by the early church, Gnosticism proposed a revealed knowledge of God ("gnosis" meaning "knowledge" in Greek), held as a secret tradition of the apostles. In The Gnostic Gospels, author Elaine Pagels suggests that Christianity could have developed quite differently if Gnostic texts had become part of the Christian canon. Without a doubt: Gnosticism celebrates God as both Mother and Father, shows a very human Jesus's relationship to Mary Magdalene, suggests the Resurrection is better understood symbolically, and speaks to self-knowledge as the route to union with God. Pagels argues that Christian orthodoxy grew out of the political considerations of the day, serving to legitimize and consolidate early church leadership. Her contrast of that developing orthodoxy with Gnostic teachings presents an intriguing trajectory on a world faith as it "might have become." The Gnostic Gospels provides engaging reading for those seeking a broader perspective on the early development of Christianity. --F. Hall
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