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
absolutely believing dimension elements less life movement question realize religious statements thrived
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.
anyone anywhere finds love people religious sympathy tradition
I have sympathy for anyone who finds consolation anywhere we can. And many people do find it in religious tradition as it has been. I mean, I love much of that tradition. But somehow, that just didn't speak to me in the way that it does to some.
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I am enormously susceptible to religious environments - the music, the liturgy and the prayers.
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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.
assume early people religion religious study teacher
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.
religious jesus betrayal
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.
christian religious issues
Rediscovering the controversies that occupied early Christianity sharpens our awareness of the major issue in the whole debate, then and now: What is the source of religious authority? For the Christian the question takes more specific form: What is the relation between the authority of ones own experience and that claimed for the scriptures, the ritual and the clergy?
christian religious views
Why did the consensus of Christian churches not only accept these astonishing views but establish them as the only true form of Christian doctrine? . . . these religious debates - questions of the nature of God, or of Christ - simultaneously bear social and political implications that are crucial to the development of Christianity as an institutional religion. In simplest terms, ideas which bear implications contrary to that development come to be labeled as 'heresy'; ideas which implicitly support it become 'orthodox.'
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The Book of Revelation is such a dream landscape that you can plug any major conflict in it.
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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.
gospel judas protest
The Gospel of Judas is a kind of protest literature. It's challenging leaders of the church.
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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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These ancient stories in religion speak to our desire. But they move us toward hope.
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Once you start to look at the gospels one by one, you realize that followers of Jesus were trying to understand what had happened after he was arrested and killed. They knew Judas had handed him over to the people who arrested him.