Background
Elaine Hiesey Pagels was born on February 13, 1943, in Palo Alto, California, daughter of William McKinley and Louise Sophia (Boogaert) Hiesey.
( The instant New York Times bestseller interpreting the ...)
The instant New York Times bestseller interpreting the controversial long-lost gospel The recently unearthed Gospel of Judas is a source of fascination for biblical scholars and lay Christians alike. Now two leading experts on the Gnostic gospels tackle the important questions posed by its discovery, including: How could any Christian imagine Judas to be Jesus' favorite? And what kind of vision of God does the author offer? Working from Karen L. King's brilliant new translation, Elaine Pagels and King provide the context necessary for considering its meaning. Reading Judas plunges into the heart of Christianity itself and will stand as the definitive look at the gospel for years to come.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/014311316X/?tag=2022091-20
(A profound exploration of the Bible's most controversial ...)
A profound exploration of the Bible's most controversial bookfrom the author of Beyond Belief and The Gnostic Gospels The strangest book of the New Testament, filled with visions of the Rapture, the whore of Babylon, and apocalyptic writing of the end of times, the Book of Revelation has fascinated readers for more than two thousand years, but where did it come from? And what are the meanings of its surreal images of dragons, monsters, angels, and cosmic war? Elaine Pagels, New York Times bestselling author and "the preeminent voice of biblical scholarship to the American public" (The Philadelphia Inquirer), elucidates the true history of this controversial book, uncovering its origins and the roots of dissent, violence, and division in the world's religions. Brilliantly weaving scholarship with a deep understanding of the human needs to which religion speaks, Pagels has written what may be the masterwork of her unique career.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0143121634/?tag=2022091-20
(Deepens and refreshes our view of early Christianity whil...)
Deepens and refreshes our view of early Christianity while casting a disturbing light on the evolution of the attitudes passed down to us. How did the early Christians come to believe that sex was inherently sinful? When did the Fall of Adam become synonymous with the fall of humanity? What turned Christianity from a dissident sect that championed the integrity of the individual and the idea of free will into the bulwark of a new imperial orderwith the central belief that human beings cannot not choose to sin? In this provocative masterpiece of historical scholarship Elaine Pagels re-creates the controversies that racked the early church as it confronted the riddles of sexuality, freedom, and sin as embodied in the story of Genesis. And she shows how what was once heresy came to shape our own attitudes toward the body and the soul.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0679722327/?tag=2022091-20
Elaine Hiesey Pagels was born on February 13, 1943, in Palo Alto, California, daughter of William McKinley and Louise Sophia (Boogaert) Hiesey.
She received both her B. A. (1964) and M. A. (1965) from Stanford University and her Ph. D. from Harvard University (1970).
Pagels joined the faculty of the department of religion of Barnard College, Columbia University, as an assistant professor in 1970. She was promoted to associate professor in 1974 and to full professor in 1976. She joined the faculty of Princeton University in 1982 as Harrington Spear Paine Foundation professor of religion. Among the honors and fellowships accorded her were a Rockefeller fellowship (1978 - 1979), a Guggenheim fellowship (1979 - 1980), and the MacArthur Prize fellowship (1980 - 1985). From the beginning of her academic work Pagels was interested in the implications of the Nag Hammadi gnostic texts for the understanding of the origins of Christianity. Discovered in Egypt in 1945, these texts have been regarded as among the most important archaeological discoveries in this century. They present the world views of early Christian communities which had previously been known chiefly through the refutations made by their opponents. Pagels began studying the texts as a doctoral student at Harvard and wrote her dissertation on the controversies between gnostic and orthodox Christians. In her first two books Pagels examined the ways in which gnostic Christians interpreted scripture, looking first at gnostic interpretations of the Gospel of John Johannine Gospel in Gnostic Exegesis (1973) and then at gnostic understandings of the letters of Paul The Gnostic Paul (1975). In both books Pagels demonstrated that, far from deriving their ideas solely from "inspiration, " these proponents of a tradition of special revelation were astute interpreters of scripture and used the biblical writings as sources for their own theology. Following the publication of these works Pagels received several grants that enabled her to study the Nag Hammadi manuscripts at the Coptic Museum in Cairo, and she participated in preparing the first complete edition of the documents in English The Nag Hammadi Library in English (1977). Pagels' later books introduced a general audience to the Nag Hammadi texts and to their implications for understanding the world views of competing groups of Christians during the first four centuries of the Common Era. She sought to place these world views in their socio-political contexts and to explore why certain doctrines gradually won out over others and came to be accepted as characteristic of mainstream Christianity. In The Gnostic Gospels (1988) Pagels presented gnosticism as an interpretation of the life, death, resurrection, and teachings of Jesus which for many years was a powerful alternative to the interpretation set forth by the documents which became the New Testament. In contrast to the majority of early Christians, who saw God primarily through male images and who insisted on the reality of Jesus' human body and his literal (bodily) death and resurrection, gnostic Christians used both male and female metaphors for God. They distrusted the body concept in favor of inner experience, and understood Jesus' death and resurrection in a symbolic way. Each of these doctrines, Pagels argued, had important social and political implications. The views of the majority, which were better suited to the development of an institutional structure, eventually displaced the views of the gnostics, ensuring the survival of New Testament Christianity through the centuries. The Gnostic Gospels received the National Book Critics Circle Award in 1979 and the National Book Award in 1980. It has been issued in foreign language editions in nine countries. In Adam, Eve, and the Serpent (1988) Pagels argued that Christian ideas concerning sexuality, moral freedom, and human value were developed during the first four centuries of the Common Era through commentaries on the stories of the creation and fall of human beings in Genesis 1-3. She concluded that Augustine's pessimistic view of human nature-a view shaped by his personal experiences but which he understood as normative-came to prevail as Christianity ceased to be a persecuted religion and became the religion of the emperors. This book provoked a great deal of controversy, most of it focused on Pagels' understanding of Augustine and on the question of the extent to which orthodox Western theology has canonized Augustine's idiosyncrasies. In 1996 Pagels published The Origin of Satan, in which she detailed the evolution of various concepts of Satan, from fallen angel and demon to Prince of Darkness, the embodiment of evil, and the arch-enemy of God. Pagels investigated the conflict between Satan and the followers of Jesus as a parable of the struggle between love and fear or hate in every human being. The idea of Satan, in what was for her one of the weaknesses of Christianity, institutionalizes the demonization of anything strange or disagreeable and legitimizes the concept of "enemy. " In addition to these major works, Pagels published more technical articles on gnosticism and early Christianity in Harvard Theological Review, Vigiliae Christianae, Journal of the Ancient Near Eastern Society, Journal of Biblical Literature, Signs, and Parabola and in several collections. Pagels was a member of the American Academy of Religion, the Society of Biblical Theologians, and the Society of Biblical Literature. Her work as an historian of religion has shaped the way scholars and the general public understand the origins and development of Christianity.
(A profound exploration of the Bible's most controversial ...)
( The instant New York Times bestseller interpreting the ...)
(Deepens and refreshes our view of early Christianity whil...)
Quotations:
"Although the gospels of the New Testament - like those discovered at Nag Hammadi - are attributed to Jesus' followers, no one knows who actually wrote any of them. "
"The efforts of the majority to destroy every trace of heretical 'blasphemy' proved so successful that, until the discoveries at Nag Hammadi, nearly all our information concerning alternative forms of early Christianity came from the massive orthodox attacks upon them. "
"There is a light within each person, and it lights up the whole universe. If it does not shine, there is darkness. "
"There's practically no religion that I know of that sees other people in a way that affirms the others' choices. But in our century we're forced to think about a pluralistic world. "
"What is clear is that the Gospel of Judas has joined the other spectacular discoveries that are exploding the myth of a monolithic Christianity and showing how diverse and fascinating the early Christian movement really was. "
"The story of the betrayal of Jesus by Judas gave a moral and religious rationale to anti-Jewish sentiment, and that's what made it persistent and vicious. "
"He's an intimate betrayer. That's what's so troubling. Judas turned in his own teacher. "
"Jesus Christ rose from the grave. ' With this proclamation, the Christian church began. This may be the fundamental element of Christian faith; certainly it is the most radical. "
"The Book of Revelation is the strangest book in the Bible, and the most controversial. Instead of stories and moral teaching, it offers only visions - dreams and nightmares, the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, earthquakes, plagues and war. "
In 1969 she married Heinz R. Pagels, a theoretical physicist. The couple had two children. In 1987, she suffered the loss of her son and then, in 1988, of her husband.