Beyond the Gnostic Gospels

doi:10.1628/978-3-16-158681-1

Beyond the Gnostic Gospels

Studies Building on the Work of Elaine Pagels

Edited by Eduard Iricinschi, Philippa Townsend, Lance Jenott and Nicola Denzey Lewis

2013. 527 pages. unrevised e-book edition 2020; Original edition 2013.

Studien und Texte zu Antike und Christentum / Studies and Texts in Antiquity and Christianity (STAC) 82

DOI 10.1628/978-3-16-158681-1

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Summary

This volume gathers contributions from both junior and senior scholars whose studies have developed in dialogue with Elaine Pagels' work on Nag Hammadi literature and ancient heresiology. The essays engage each stage of Pagels' vast trajectory, and provide critical evaluations of the field of »Gnosticism studies.«

This volume gathers contributions from both junior and senior scholars whose studies have developed in dialogue with Elaine Pagels' work on Nag Hammadi literature and ancient heresiology. Published initially in 1979, Pagels' The Gnostic Gospels represents a landmark of scholarship in religious studies. It not only made the Nag Hammadi writings and Gnosticism popular topics in modern culture, it also invited scholars to rethink early Christianity from new perspectives. What were previously seen as dry theological arguments and intricate Gnostic mythologies received new interpretations in the Gnostic Gospels as echoes of political debates about orthodoxy and heresy, clerical authority, martyrdom and gender.
After The Gnostic Gospels, Elaine Pagels extended her research in various directions, from perceptions of sexuality in early Christianity and identity politics in the Christian creation of the »Satan figure« to ancient biblical interpretations, ritual in Nag Hammadi texts, and, recently, the Gospel of Judas and ancient apocalypses. The studies included in this volume engage each stage of Pagels' vast trajectory, and provide critical evaluations of the field of »Gnosticism studies« as it has developed over the past four decades, in the subfields of the »Sethian« and »Valentinian« schools, and beyond. The studies include new interpretations of the Nag Hammadi texts and fresh analyses of ancient heresiological literature.

Table of contents:

Harold Attridge: Plato, Plutarch, and John: Three Symposia about Love - April DeConick: Gnostic Spirituality at the Crossroads of Christianity: Transgressing Boundaries and Creating Orthodoxy - Ismo Dunderberg: How Far Can You Go? Jesus, John, the Synoptics and Other Texts - John Gager: Paul the Zealot, A Man of Constant Sorrow - Deirdre Good: Jesus, Mary and Joseph in Egypt - Eduard Iricinschi: 'The Teaching Hidden in Silence' (NH II 1,4): Questions, Answers, and Secrets in a Fourth-Century Egyptian Book - Lance Jenott: Clergy, Clairvoyance, and Conflict: The Synod of Latopolis and the Problem with Pachomius' Visions - David Jorgensen: »Nor is one ambiguity resolved by another ambiguity«: Irenaeus of Lyons and the Rhetoric of Interpretation - Karen King: Rethinking the Diversity of Ancient Christianity: Responding to Suffering and Persecution - Nicola Denzey Lewis: The Problem of Bad Baptisms: Rethinking Early Christian Initiation and Its Implications - AnneMarie Luijendijk: Buried and Raised: Gospel of Thomas Logion 5 and Resurrection - Hugo Lundhaug: Begotten, Not Made, to Arise in This Flesh: The Post-Nicene Soteriology of the Gospel of Philip - John Marshall: 6 Ezra and Jewish Reception of Revelation - Marvin Meyer: Thought, Forethought, and Afterthought in the Secret Book of John - Geoff Smith: Irenaeus, the Will of God, and Anti-Valentinian Polemics: A Closer Look at Against the Heresies I.12.1 - Einar Thomassen: The Valentinian Materials in James (NHC V,3 and CT,2) - John D. Turner: Baptismal Vision, Angelification, and Mystical Union in Sethian Literature - Michael A. Williams: A Life Full of Meaning and Purpose: Demiurgical Myths and Social Implications - Holger Zellentin: Jesus and the Tradition of the Elders: Originalism and Traditionalism in Early Judean Legal Theory

Authors/Editors

Eduard Iricinschi Born 1968; MA in Religious Studies from New York University; PhD in the Religions of Late Antiquity from Princeton University; currently visiting research fellow at the Käte Hamburger Kolleg, Ruhr University Bochum.

Philippa Townsend Born 1975; degrees in Classics from Cambridge University and University College London, in Religion from Harvard University and Princeton University; PhD from Princeton in the Religions of Late Antiquity; currently Assistant Professor of Philosophy and Religion at Ursinus College, Pennsylvania.

Lance Jenott Born 1980; studied History, Classics, and Religion at the University of Washington (Seattle) and Princeton University; PhD in the Religions of Late Antiquity from Princeton University; currently Lecturer in the Department of Classics and Program in Religious Studies at Washington University in St. Louis.

Nicola Denzey Lewis Born 1966; BA in Religious Studies from the University of Toronto; MA and PhD from Princeton University in Religion and the Program in the Ancient World; currently Visiting Associate Professor of Religious Studies at Brown University.