Elaine Pagels
Elaine Pagels
Elaine Pagels, née Hiesey, is an American religious historian, best known for her writing on the Gnostic Gospels. She is the Harrington Spear Paine Professor of Religion at Princeton University...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionReligious Author
Date of Birth13 February 1943
CountryUnited States of America
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The Secret Revelation of John opens, again, in crisis. The disciple John, grieving Jesus' death, is walking toward the temple when he meets a Pharisee who mocks him for having been deceived by a false messiah. These taunts echoed John's own fear and doubt.
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Throughout the ages, Christians have adapted John of Patmos's visions to changing times, reading their own social, political and religious conflicts into the cosmic war he so powerfully evokes. Yet his Book of Revelation appeals not only to fear and desires for vengeance but also to hope.
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There is no evidence that the author of the Book of Revelation, John of Patmos, read anything that we think of as a New Testament book. I don't see any evidence that he knew what was in the Gospels, or the letters of Paul, which I don't think he would have liked at all.
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Startling as the Gospel of Judas sounds, it amplifies hints we have long read in the Gospels of Mark and John that Jesus knew and even instigated the events of his passion, seeing them as part of a divine plan.
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The sense of a spiritual dimension in life is absolutely important, and the religious communities are also important. The question of believing in a set of creedal statements is a lot less important, because I realize the Christian movement thrived then and can now on other elements of the tradition.
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These ancient stories in religion speak to our desire. But they move us toward hope.
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So often, religion is identified in terms coined by Christianity as sets of belief. But I had the sense that it not only involves practice, but also emotion and levels of our experience that are almost precognitive.
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At the end of the day I'll go to a yoga class. I used to say that my work was my yoga, because it stretches everything, expands and challenges everything you know and understand and are.
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I study religion because I find it fascinating and problematic. But I struggle with the idea of what religion is, what being religious means. A lot of people assume that if you write about early Christianity, you must be some kind of Sunday-school teacher.
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Unlike many deities of the ancient Near East, the God of Israel shared his power with no female divinity, nor was he the divine husband or lover of any.
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Fundamentalism does mean reading quite conservatively and literally, saying 'the Bible is the word of God and we have to follow it. What it says is this.'
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The Gospel of Judas is a real surprise. It pictures Judas ..not as the worst villain in the history of the world as he's been thought of in Christian tradition..but as the one disciple whom Jesus entrusts with secret understanding.
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The Gospel of Judas is a kind of protest literature. It's challenging leaders of the church.
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We don't actually know if the person who wrote the Gospel of John had a written copy of Thomas because we don't know exactly when it was written.