Beyond Belief -- The Secret Gospel of Thomas (Elaine Pagels)

e wrote:

In her exploration, she uncovers the richness & 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 she identifies as a textual battle between The Gospel of Thomas (rediscovered in Egypt in 1945) & The Gospel of John. While these gospels have many superficial similarities, she demonstrates that John, unlike Thomas, declares that Jesus is equivalent to "God the Father" as identified in the Hebrew Scriptures. 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 humans. She then shows how the Gospel of John was used by Bishop Irenaeus of Lyon & others to define orthodoxy during the 2nd & 3rd centuries. The secret teachings were literally driven underground, disappearing until the 20th Century. This process "not only impoverished the churches that remained but also impoverished those [Irenaeus] expelled." Beyond Belief offers a framework with which to examine Christian history & contemporary faith, & she renders her scholarship in a highly readable narrative.

http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/386559.Beyond_Belief

e wrote:

“This packed, lucid little book belongs to that admirable kind of scholarship in which . . . the exhausting study of ancient fragments of text against the background of an intimate knowledge of religious history can be represented as a spiritual as well as an intellectual exercise.”
–The New York Times Book Review

“With the winning combination of sound scholarship, deep insight and crystal-clear prose style that distinguishes all her work, Pagels portrays the great variety of beliefs, teachings and practices that were found among the earliest Christians.”
–Los Angeles Times

“[An] explosive and, some say, heretical look at the evolution of Christianity.”
–The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

“Elaine Pagels has a gift for bringing ancient Christian texts alive, and for displaying their profound, sometimes startling import for contemporary experience.”
–The Christian Science Monitor

“This luminous and accessible history of early Christian thought offers profound and crucial insights on the nature of God, revelation, and what we mean by religious truth. . . . A source of inspiration and hope.”
–Karen Armstrong, author of A History of God

“A book many readers will treasure for its healing, its good sense, and its permission to think, imagine, and yet believe.”
–Karen King, author of What Is Gnosticism?

“It is as generous as it is rare that a first-rate scholar invites the reader to see and sense how her scholarship and her religious quest became intertwined. Elaine Pagels calls for a generosity of mind as she takes us into the world of those early Christian texts that were left behind but now are with us. Her very tone breathes intellectual and spiritual generosity too rare in academe.” —Krister Stendahl

“A thoughtful and rewarding essay, as we’ve come to expect from Pagels.” —Kirkus Reviews

http://www.randomhouse.com/catalog/display.pperl?isbn=9781400079087&view...