Wow! eBook
Beyond Belief: The Secret Gospel of Thomas Later Printing Edition
Author(s): Elaine Pagels (Author)
- Publisher: Random House
- Publication Date: January 1, 2003
- Edition: Later Printing
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: B00RWOLCRC
Book Description
Pagels, a writer & thinker on religion & history, winner of the Nat'l Book Award for The Gnostic Gospels , reflects on what matters most about spiritual & religious exploration in the 21st century. This book explores how Xianity began by tracing its earliest texts, including the Gospel of Thomas, rediscovered in Egypt in 1945.
When her infant son was diagnosed with fatal pulmonary hypertension, Pagels' spiritual & intellectual quest took on a new urgency, leading her to explore historical & archeological sources & to investigate what Jesus & his teachings meant to his followers before the invention of Xianity. The discovery of the Gospel of Thomas, along with more than 50 other early Xian texts, some unknown since antiquity, offers clues. She compares such sources as Thomas' gospel (which claims to give Jesus' secret teaching & finds its closest affinities with kabbalah) with the canon to show how Xian leaders chose to include some gospels & exclude others from the collection many call the New Testament. To stabilize the emerging church in times of persecution, church fathers constructed the canon, creed & hierarchy--&, in the process, suppressed many of its spiritual resources. Drawing on new scholarship--her own & that of an internat'l group of scholars--that has come to light since the '79 publication of The Gnostic Gospels, she shows that what matters about Xianity involves much more than any one set of beliefs. Traditions embodied in Judaism & Xianity can powerfully affect us in heart, mind & spirit, inspire visions of a new society based on practicing justice & love, even heal & transform us. Provocative & moving, Beyond Belief , the most personal of her books to date, shows how the impulse to seek god overflows the narrow banks of a single tradition. She writes, "What I have come to love in the wealth & diversity of our religious traditions--& the communities that sustain them--is that they offer the testimony of innumerable people to spiritual discovery, encouraging us, in Jesus' words, to 'seek, & you shall find.'"
From the feast of Agape to the Nicene Creed
Gospels in John & Thomas
God's word or human words?
The canon of truth & the triumph of John
Constantine & the Catholic Church
Acknowledgments
Notes
Index
When her infant son was diagnosed with fatal pulmonary hypertension, Pagels' spiritual & intellectual quest took on a new urgency, leading her to explore historical & archeological sources & to investigate what Jesus & his teachings meant to his followers before the invention of Xianity. The discovery of the Gospel of Thomas, along with more than 50 other early Xian texts, some unknown since antiquity, offers clues. She compares such sources as Thomas' gospel (which claims to give Jesus' secret teaching & finds its closest affinities with kabbalah) with the canon to show how Xian leaders chose to include some gospels & exclude others from the collection many call the New Testament. To stabilize the emerging church in times of persecution, church fathers constructed the canon, creed & hierarchy--&, in the process, suppressed many of its spiritual resources. Drawing on new scholarship--her own & that of an internat'l group of scholars--that has come to light since the '79 publication of The Gnostic Gospels, she shows that what matters about Xianity involves much more than any one set of beliefs. Traditions embodied in Judaism & Xianity can powerfully affect us in heart, mind & spirit, inspire visions of a new society based on practicing justice & love, even heal & transform us. Provocative & moving, Beyond Belief , the most personal of her books to date, shows how the impulse to seek god overflows the narrow banks of a single tradition. She writes, "What I have come to love in the wealth & diversity of our religious traditions--& the communities that sustain them--is that they offer the testimony of innumerable people to spiritual discovery, encouraging us, in Jesus' words, to 'seek, & you shall find.'"
From the feast of Agape to the Nicene Creed
Gospels in John & Thomas
God's word or human words?
The canon of truth & the triumph of John
Constantine & the Catholic Church
Acknowledgments
Notes
Index
