Elaine Pagels
Elaine Pagels is a preeminent figure in the theological
community whose impressive scholarship has earned her
international respect. The Harrington Spear Paine Professor
of Religion at Princeton University, Pagels was awarded the
Rockefeller, Guggenheim and MacArthur Fellowships in three
consecutive years. As a young researcher at Barnard College, she changed
forever the historical landscape of the Christian religion
by exploding the myth of the early Christian Church as a
unified movement.
Her findings were published in the
bestselling book, The Gnostic Gospels, an analysis of
52 early Christian manuscripts that were unearthed in Egypt.
Known collectively as the Nag Hammadi Library, the
manuscripts show the pluralistic nature of the early church
and the role of women in the developing Christian movement.
As the early church moved toward becoming an orthodox body
with a canon, rites and clergy, the Nag Hammadi manuscripts
were suppressed and deemed heretical.
The Gnostic Gospels won both the National Book
Critic’s Circle Award and the National Book Award and was
chosen by the Modern Library as one of the 100 best books of
the 20th Century.
In her most recent New York Times
bestseller, Beyond Belief: The Secret Gospel of
Thomas, Pagels focuses on religious claims to possessing
the ultimate "truth." She contends that, as Christianity
became increasingly institutionalized, it became more
politicized and less pluralistic. Says Pagels, "I’m
advocating, on some level, the inclusion of [religious
texts] that were considered blasphemous. I suggest that
there are ways of embracing a far wider spectrum of
religious diversity within Christianity and quite beyond
Christianity."
Pagels is also the author of The Origin of Satan,
which chronicles the evolution of Jewish and Christian
concepts of evil. She sees a clear connection between the
primarily western view of the world as a battleground
between good and evil and the tendency of certain societies
to demonize others. Her other books include Adam, Eve and
the Serpent, which examines the creation myth and its
role in the development of sexual attitudes in the Christian
West.
Pagels earned an M.A. from Stanford University and Ph.D.
"with distinction" from Harvard. She possesses a working
command of Greek, Latin, German, Hebrew, French, Italian and
Coptic.
She has written many scholarly articles and book reviews
and has been profiled in TIME, The Atlantic Monthly,
Vogue, Mirabella and The New Yorker. In 2004 she
was a featured commentator on the ABC special program,
"Jesus, Mary and Da Vinci."
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Series
Books:Revelations, May 2012
Hardcover / e-Book
Reading Judas, March 2007
Hardcover
Beyond Belief, January 2005
Trade Size (reprint)
The Gnostic Gospels, April 2004
Hardcover (reprint)
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