In my last post I surveyed Nicholas Perrin’s interaction with the proposals of Stephen J. Patterson. This time I will be surveying his interaction with the proposals of Elaine Pagels in chapter two.

Pagels understands Thomas to represent the “kind of faith that can be found within one’s self”. 1 The church suppressed this type of literature in favor for writings such as The Gospel of John that move Jesus into an exclusive place where he is worshiped as God, rather than our model as one of us who knows of his own divine spark. 2 In fact, Pagels argues that John was written as a response to the theology of Thomas. 3

There are some interesting proposals put forth by Pagels. If John was written against Thomas then Thomas is a first century document. If Thomas is a first century document (at least in some redacted form) then it gives us a peak at early, early Christianity. If this is a version of early Christianity we must ask, from the perspective of a historian, whether or not it is viable to suggest that the Thomas community might represent a legitimate, early Christianity community that was closely connected, somehow, to the historical Jesus.

In response, Perrin affirms Pagels emphasis that “Thomasine Christianity is fundamentally an interiorized religion, one that clear identifies self-knowledge with salvation.” 4 Second, Pagels interest in Thomas’ “protology” (beginnings, which is also another connection with John [see 1:1-1:18]) is something worth following up on. Third, Pagels is right to ask why “Thomas” is the patron disciple of this gospel. 5

Perrin challenges Pagels on several points, most related to the suggestion that John eventually had a monopoly on early Christian theology:

(1) Pagels reconstruction of history makes “Christianity-as-we-know-it…a historical accident involving an isolated and misguided figure we call John than it does to anything that may have gone on in the first century” since Pagels understands John as being the gospel that church accepted wrongly and used as a lens to reinterpret the earlier three gospels. 6

(2) Although Pagels doesn’t see how the Christology of the Fourth Gospel could match up with the Synoptics, the early church “while quit aware of differences between the gospels, did not seem to be quite so bothered”. 7

(3) The high Christology of John can be found in Paul, the Book of Hebrews, and even the Synoptic Gospels! 8

(4) The early church didn’t determine doctrine because of John, especially since Matthew was the gospel of choice if there was one. 9

(5) Any attempts to deduct the gospel message down to John alone was challenged by Bishop Iranaeus when the Valentinians tried this very thing! 10

My next post will focus upon Perrin’s inter-textual reasons for challenging Pagel’s hypothesis that John was written as a polemic against Thomas.

___________________________________________

[1] Nicholas Perrin. Thomas: The Other Gospel. Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2007. 38.

[2] Ibid. 39.

[3] Ibid. 39-42.

[4] Ibid. 42.

[5] Ibid. 42-43.

[6] Ibid. 43.

[7] Ibid. 44.

[8] Ibid. 44-45.

[9] Ibid.

[10] Ibid.

“As Jesus talks with his three chosen disciples, Matthew asks him to
show him the “place of life,” which is, he says, the “pure light.”
Jesus answers, “Every one [of you] who has known himself has seen
it.”53 Here again, he deflects the question, pointing the disciple
instead toward his own self-discovery. “
(53. Dialogue of the Savior 132.15 — 16, in NHL 233.)

Elaine Pagels, The Gnostic Gospels,
Random House, New York, 1989, p. 131

Gnostics critiqued the early church in ways that, sadly, still apply to the modern church.  Elaine Pagels in her book, The Gnostic Gospels, writes: 

The Tripartite Tractate, written by a follower of Valentinus, contrasts those who are gnostics, children of the Father, with those who are children of the demiurge.  “The Father’s children, he says, join together as equals, enjoying mutual love, spontaneously helping one another.  But the demiurge’s offspring, the ordinary Christians – ‘wanted to command one another, outrivalling one another in their empty ambition’; they are inflated with ‘lust for power,’ ‘each on imaging that he is superior to the others.’ (p. 41)

Of course, there is no human organization that does not include bossy types, rivals, ambition, and lust for power, but one of my questions has been, and continues to be, how do you set up church as to cut out as much of the church crap as possible, or at a minimum, make some new mistakes.  There are no perfect churches, but is God really happy with our edifice complex, our business model of being and doing church?

So how did ancient gnostics organize themselves?  As Pagel asks, “if they rejected the principle of rank, insisting that all are equal, how could they even hold a meeting? ” (p. 41)  Irenaeus tells us about one group in his congregation in Lyons led by a Marcus who dared to meet without the authority of the Bishop, which would be – Irenaeus.  Somehow they pulled it off without the bishop.

How did some Gnostics conduct their meetings?  Irenaeus tell us that when they met all the members first participated in drawing lots.  Whoever received a certain lot apparently was designated to take the role of priest, another was to offer the sacrament, as bishop, another would read the Scriptures for worship, and others would address the group as a prophet, offering extemporaneous spiritual instruction.  The next time the group met, they would throw lots again so that the persons taking each role changed continually.” (p. 41)  It was believed that everyone, through the Gnostic initiation ritual, had received the gift of direct inspiration through the Holy Spirit. (p. 41)

In the modern church, using the business model, we try to find the best possible people to lead worship and to fill different congregational positions, which can be a camouflage for power plays in the church and does not take into account biblical narratives which indicate God has a habit of asking the worst possible people to do stuff. 

(On the other hand, God and the gnostics may want to keep in mind some people seem to be gifted in some areas and really not gifted in others.  You don’t want me doing a solo, for example.  Lord have mercy on my singing and those who hear it.)

Gnostics followed the practice of strict equality.  Casting lots prevented permanent ranks.  Gender and social status were of no importance.  Wow!  Are you listening modern Christians?

Wedgewood Baptist Church, the church I serve as pastor, makes no claim to perfection.  In fact, we like to say everyone is welcome except for perfect people; we don’t want anyone messing up our record.  One thing about Wedgewood worthy of imitation, however, is that we have learned to take turns.  Remember learning to take turns in preschool?  Wedgewoodians fill out an interest survey.  If someone serves in a position one year, and other people want to serve in that capacity the next year, the person rotates off and the names of those interested are “put in a hat” and one name is drawn out.  Anybody can be on any committee at any time and get off any committee at any time.  All committee meetings are open.  You don’t have to be on the committee to attend a meeting.  Gender, sexual orientation, social status – don’t factor in.  How long you have been at the church – doesn’t factor in.  Only two positions, deacon and trustee, require being a church member.  We have many people from various denominations and some agnostics and atheists. We bend over backward to include those leery or weary of the steeples.  The Wedgewood way of being and doing church can get chaotic, but we consider alteratives less appealing and less true to what we feel God is calling us to be and do. 

What if our church organization matched our theology?  Or matched the life and teachings of Jesus?

What if our buildings were built with our theology in mind?  Or the life and teachings of Jesus?

What if our buildings are preventing us from being the people God wants us to be and the world needs us to be?

Even if we have buildings, can’t we be better churches than we are being?

Today I finished reading Adam, Eve, and the Serpent: Sex and Politics in Early Christianity by Elaine Pagels. It’s a great book about how interpretations of the Genesis creation myth changed during the first 500 years of Christianity to support the social and political views of the interpreter. Dr. Pagels’ research gives fascinating insight into the power of evolving perceptions and how they affect the world.

an excerpt (some paraphrased)…

…After Jesus had called for people to prepare for the coming Kingdom of God, and Paul proclaimed both its imminence and its radical demands, some intensely ascetic Christians in subsequent generations tried to put their teachings into radical practice, while others attempted to accommodate Christian teaching to existing social and political structures.

When state persecution pressed Christians to revere the emperors and the gods, the boldest among them defied government officials in the name of liberty and maintained their loyalty to Jesus, crucified for treason against Rome, as their “divine King,” and others denounced the emperors and all their gods as the panoply of devils. These embattled Christians forged a vision of the new “Christian society,” which was to be marked by freedom from compulsion, voluntary contributions for the welfare of all members, mutual love, and common faith.

As the Christian movement grew, dispite persecution, and increasingly developed its own interal organization, it’s leaders expelled nonconformists from their ranks, including gnostic Christians. They insisted that only orthodox Christians preached the true gospel of Christ — the message of moral freedom, given in creation and restored in baptism.

Some of the most intense Christians refused any compromise with “the world” and sought to realize that liberty through the ascetic life by rejecting familial, social, and political obligations in order to recover the original glory of humankind, created in the “image and likeness of God.” After the persecutions ended, asceticism offered a new path for uncompromising “witness” — a new form of self-chosen martyrdom.

Christian views of freedom changed as Christianity became the religion of the emperors and was no longer a persecuted movement. … From the fifth century on, pessimistic views of sexuality, politics, and human nature [based on Augustine's interpretation of the story of Adam and Eve] would become the dominant influence on western Christianity, both Catholic and Protestant, and color all western culture, Christian or not, ever since.

Today, I finished The Origin of Satan by Elaine Pagels. Here’s an excerpt from the conclusion.

To pray for one’s enemies suggests that one believes that whatever harm they may have done, they are capable of being reconciled to God and to oneself. Paul, writing about twenty years before the evangelists, holds a still more traditionally Jewish perception that Satan acts as God’s agent not to corrupt people but to test them; at one point he suggests that a Christian group “deliver to Satan” one of its errant members, not in order to consign him to hell, but in the hope that he will repent and change. Paul also hopes and longs for reconciliation between his “brothers,” “fellow Israelites,” and Gentile believers.

Many Christians, then, from the first century through Francis of Assisi in the fifteenth century and Martin Luther King, Jr., in the twentieth, have believed that they stood on God’s side without demonizing their opponents. Their religious vision inspired them to oppose policies and powers they regarded as evil, often risking their well-being and their lives, while praying for the reconciliation–not the damnation–of those who opposed them.

Pagels suggests that the traditional Jewish view, prevalent throughout most of the OT and much of the NT, holds that Satan is not the arch-rival nemesis of YHWH, engaged in an epic, dualistic battle. Rather, Satan is an agent or servant of God, an antagonist sent to test God’s subjects, as in the case of Job.

Today’s popular views of Satan as the ultimate rival of God, embodiment of evil, became popularized in the couple centuries before the life of Christ with the Essenes. In the face of persecution during the early centuries of the Christian movement, many Christians adopted this perspective. Married to such beliefs is the systematic identification of one’s enemies as agents of or embodiment of Satan and his foes.

Jesus’ teaching of nonviolence and love for neighbor radically challenges the Christian dualistic beliefs. Our foe should not be one whom we demonize and seek to eradicate. We should not accept or permit violence and oppression. We should not under any circumstances, wish damnation on our enemies. Rather, we should, above all else, seek reconciliation.

I’ve been reading The Origin of Satan by Elaine Pagels. She traces modern day notions of Satan back to their origins. In the chapter I’m reading now, she is looking at OT usages of “satan” and its historical context. According to Pagels, satan wasn’t originally an entity; that is to say, satan wasn’t a “who” but a “what.” A satan was an inanimate object that can be roughly translated as something that blocks the path. Interestingly enough, a “satan” wasn’t always bad.

She quotes another scholar in saying, “If the path is bad, a blockage could be good.” Pagels cites the story of Balaam and his donkey from Numbers 22. As Balaam is traveling, an angel of the Lord, or satan, blocks his path. In this instance, the satan not only causes Balaam to do the right thing, it is actually an angel from the Lord.

Again in Job, Satan is a member of God’s court and one of God’s attendants. In Job, Satan plays the role of an informant or spy, roaming the Earth and keep God abreast of the doings of God’s creation. Pagels suggests that this may have been a literary device used to demonize spies who acted as informants for Babylon, which controlled Israel at the time of Job’s writing. Pagels also notes that, contrary to popular present-day notions, the Satan we see in Job was a willing servant of God and was bound to do God’s bidding.

Oddly enough, many of our present day ideas about Satan and his history come from the First Book of Enoch, an apocryphal writing which isn’t accepted in the Protestant cannon. Growing up I heard stories about how Satan was one of God’s angels, but he became arrogant and tried to overthrow God. He and his legion of followers were cast out of Heaven, and descended to torment earth. I find it ironic that this story, widely accepted as orthodoxy in my tradition, is extrapolated from an apocryphal writing, widely accepted as heresy in my tradition.

From the perspective of Biblical texts, we can see satan evolve from an inanimate stumbling block, to an angel under the command of God, to a former angel who lead an insurrection against God, into the Satan we know and hate today.

More than likely, the patriarchs of our faith would have considered satan to be a difficulty that could be either evil or righteous. Today we would probably label such people as Satanists. At the very least, we would ostracize them for the Christian tradition for daring to suggest that Satan could be a good thing.

Let’s trace the source of all these fear-mongering tales of “the end of the world,” “the end times,” and all that nonsense. Elaine Pagels is a highly respected Professor of Religion at Princeton University, and in this lecture she talks about the infamous Book of Revelation from the Christian Bible. She is still working on a book about the subject, and gives a preview of what she has discovered in this brilliant talk.

Let’s trace the source of all these fear-mongering tales of “the end of the world,” “the end times,” and all that nonsense. Elaine Pagels is a highly respected professor of religion at Princeton University, and in this lecture she talks about the infamous Book of Revelation from the Christian Bible. She is still working on her book about the subject, and gives a preview of what she has discovered in this brilliant talk.

This is a really great round-table discussion about the history and evolution of “god”, particularly in Judaism and Christianity. Participating in the discussion are Elaine Pagels (one of my favorites!), Jennifer Hecht, Beate Pongratz-Leisten, Tyler Volk and Robert Wright. Sit back and enjoy two hours of captivating conversation. Very good stuff.

For nokre år tilbake las eg boka De gnostiske evangelier av Elaine Pagels. Boka var full av påstandar om alt frå biskopar til kyrkjefedrar, utan hald i røyndomen. Difor fekk eg meg ein god latter medan eg surfa litt rundt på nettet, og fann denne kommentaren om Pagels, på nettsidene til Jimmy Akin. Bakgrunnen er at Pagels endra litt på eit sitat, fordi Irenæus ikkje sa det ho ville han skulle seie. Kommentaren kjem frå Fr. Paul Mankowski, og handlar om at Pagels ikkje er noko vitskapskvinne:

Pagels has carpentered a non-existent quotation, putatively from an ancient source, by silent suppression of relevant context, silent omission of troublesome words, and a mid-sentence shift of 34 chapters backwards through the cited text, so as deliberately to pervert the meaning of the original. While her endnote calls the quote “conflated,” the word doesn’t fit even as a euphemism: what we have is not conflation but creation.

Put simply, Irenaeus did not write what Prof. Pagels wished he would have written, so she made good the defect by silently changing the text. Creativity, when applied to one’s sources, is not a compliment. She is a very naughty historian.

Or she would be, were she judged by the conventional canons of scholarship. At the post-graduate institute where I teach, and at any university with which I am familiar, for a professor or a grad student intentionally to falsify a source is a career-ending offense. Among professional scholars, witness tampering is no joke: once the charge is proven, the miscreant is dismissed from the guild and not re-admitted.

I am not calling for academic sanctions but, more simply, for clarification. Pagels should be billed accurately — not as an expert on Gnosticism or Coptic Christianity but as what she is: a lady novelist.

Eg trur eg seier som Jimmy Akin: Ouch!

5/11/2009

Someone who had read my previous post about Crossan and the “miracles” attributed to Jesus emailed me (PLEASE NOTE: I prefer that people leave their comments on the blog itself, rather than emailing me personally!) and asked me if I believed Crossan’s interpretation of things more than I believe the canonical gospels accounts. He expressed his belief that Jesus “was God performing these acts literally.”

I replied to his email, and then realized that it might be helpful here to include my response here in the blog as well, to clarify some of my own beliefs/understanding in a succinct way (especially for those who have read only a post or two here, rather than a large portion of the blog–which, of course, explains a lot more). Here it is:

It is, of course, a subject that can (and has been) written and
discussed endlessly; past a certain point I see all of the discussion
as rather pointless (as when, for example, two people with differing
opinions about the Bible/Jesus/God toss bits of apparently discordant
Scripture back and forth at each other, hoping to convince the other
that THEIR view is the “right” one). For one thing, spiritual
matters, in my mind, should be more of an intuitive thing than an
intellectual one. For the other, I believe that people should respect
others’ understanding of the Divine (as long as that understanding
does not cause them to harm others in any way) and not badger them to
believe otherwise.

I will say, briefly, that I do not believe everything that Crossan, or
Pagels, or King, or anyone else says about Jesus, or the nature of his
mission, etc.–but there is a great deal of it that makes sense to me
for reasons I’d probably never be able to explain to you (my blog
hints at some of them), but that I am very comfortable with. Nor do I
believe, or disbelieve, everything in either the canonical gospels
(which I think were most likely NOT written by the apostles, and at
any rate were written decades after Jesus’ death) or those left out of
the canon. Everything is subject to memory, interpretation,
political/social events at the time, individual ambition and
institutional attempts to gain power, etc., etc. Obviously, I am not
among those who believe that God is the Editor-in-Chief of the Bible;
I believe it’s the work (like any other spiritual text) of people of a
certain time or place trying to understand God and their own
relationships to the Divine. And I certainly do not believe that the
Bible is the only “authoritative” text on those things–it’s one of
many.

That’s about it. I’m not Christian, nor do I call myself anything
else in reference to my spirituality, but I believe very strongly in
God, and I love and respect Yeshua’s teachings as I understand them,
and I’m trying to learn to live by them to the best of my ability.

4/29/2009

This is a quote from Reading Judas, a book about the Gospel of Judas by Elaine Pagels and Karen King. Like the parts of the Gospel of Thomas quoted or interpreted in my previous post, they seem to confirm some of the things that I’ve been told and taught in the past year or two about the afterlife, finding a connection with God that has nothing to do with clergy, ritual, “religion,” etc., and the way that Yeshua views Christianity as it was shaped and practiced after his death. (Keep in mind that, as with probably all of the other gospels, the person–in this case, Judas–to whom authorship is attributed in the title is not the author. What’s important is that, like the other gospels that didn’t make it into the “canon”, it provides some insight into how other early Christians interpreted what Yeshua was trying to do and, even though they may seem quite different from the familiar four Gospels, they may be just as valid and valuable.)

“…as Jesus teaches Judas, it is only people themselves who keep the spirit confined within the flesh. By seeking the spirit within themselves, they can overcome the rules of chaos and oblivion, see God, and enter the heavenly house of God above. And they can do this even as they live in this world.”

In other words, again, the “Kingdom of God” is not some other “place” to be accessed by the “righteous” (however they define themselves) at some point in the future, but a state of being that can be found all around us if we look for God’s loving spark within ourselves and open our eyes to the potential beauty around us.

This is another quote from the book:

“…to all who wander this world in terror, anguish, and confusion, Jesus reveals a divine secret: that they are deeply connected with God the Father, and with the divine Mother, the Holy Spirit… (Jesus says) ‘in you dwells the light that does not fail.’“

In order to have these things, there is no need to “choose” a “religion”, or live by any strict, arbitrary, man-made set of rules. One needs only to make the choice to act out of love in everything one does.

And finally, there is in the book a quote attributed to Yeshua that seems to be about how his teachings were twisted after his death by those who were more interested in creating a “Church” and a hierarchy than in his message of love:

“…in my name they shamefully planted fruitless trees.”

4/28/2009

I never knew until fairly recently that Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John were not the only gospels written, and that all were probably written at least three decades after Jesus’ death, and in all likelihood not by the apostles themselves. Many offer very different interpretations of Yeshua’s teachings and life; this doesn’t make them any more or less reliable or “true”–they were simply not chosen to be part of the “canon” because they didn’t fit in as well with the ideas that those who had the power to do the choosing (and editing, perhaps) had about what it should mean to be a Christian. Parts of some of them, however, seem much more in keeping with the things I’ve been taught over the past few years.

This is from the Gospel of Thomas, and the quote is attributed to Yeshua:

“(The Kingdom) will not come by waiting for it. It will not be a matter of saying, ‘Here it is,’ or “There it is.’ Rather, the Kingdom of the Father is spread out upon the earth, and people do not see it.” (This, of course, reminds me of what he’s often told me that he was trying to do–get people to “open their eyes.”)

In her book about the Gospel of Thomas, Beyond Belief, Elaine Pagels says this:

“What John opposed…includes what the Gospel of Thomas teaches–that God’s light shines not only in Jesus but, potentially at least, in everyone.” (That reminded me of when he said, “All you have to do is let all souls see light.” He meant, I believe, the light of God that exists within themselves.)

3/20/2009

The following, from the book Reading Judas (about the Gospel of Judas), by Elaine Pagels & Karen L. King, seems to in many ways sum up what he (and the lost souls I’ve spoken to and prayed for) have been trying to tell and show me me over the past year or two, in so many ways:

“…as Judas teaches Jesus, it is only people themselves who keep the spirit confined within the flesh. By seeking the spirit within themselves, they can overcome the rules of chaos and oblivion, see God, and enter the heavenly house above. And they can do this even as they live in the world…

…to all who wander this world in terror, anguish, and confusion, Jesus reveals a divine secret–that they are deeply connected with God the Father, and with the divine Mother, the Holy Spirit…(Jesus says), ‘in you dwells the light that does not fail.’“

(The only part of the above that doesn’t sound right to me is the idea of a “heavenly house above”. When they finally become spirit and find peace with God, the lost souls don’t necessarily “go somewhere else.” The peace–the bliss they seem to feel–is a state of being, and not a “place.” They’re free at that point to be where they want, no longer attached to the cares and anxieties of this world, and no longer lost, afraid, and unsafe.)

One more thing from the book that sounded so similar to what he’s been telling me (“gave my gift and they destroyed it,” he’s said more than once, in several ways):

“...in my name, they shamefully planted fruitless trees.”

LATER

He was telling me about being at Mary’s family’s house at Bethany; I’d been trying to imagine it before falling asleep for a nap one afternoon, and I woke up to see the following:

“Tarry by (Mary’s) house…(she was) happy (to) let slaves serve me…Peter hated it there.”

(I wasn’t wild about the idea of slaves, but he said something to the effect of, “slavery was different then.” Hm…)

3/5/2009

I went to the library and borrowed a CD-ROM to learn some Hebrew (as he’d asked me to do, so that I can figure out what’s being said to me more easily, and, I think, to also try to help me “remember” the past).

When I came home, he said, “Toda” (which, I’d just learned from the CD-ROM, means, “thank you”). “Afraid of what would happen if we didn’t return to our past.”

And then he said, “Sova.” I looked it up in the Hebrew lexicon online, and found that “soba” means, “satisfied. (I THINK that, in Hebrew, “v” and “b” are often pronounced the same.)

LATER
(From Beyond Belief, by Elaine Pagels)

“What (the author of the Gospel of) John opposed, as we shall see, includes what the Gospel of Thomas teaches–that God’s light shines not only in Jesus but, potentially, at least, in everyone.”

(From the Gospel of Thomas)

“The Kingdom will not come by waiting for it. It will not be a matter of saying, ‘Here it is,” or, “There it is.’ Rather, the Kingdom of the Father is spread out upon the earth, and people do not see it.”

LATER
(NOTE–At this point it seemed that I was perhaps somehow coming up on my own with Hebrew words, as if I were remembering some long-forgotten language. Again, I never knew any Hebrew beyond, basically, “Shalom.”)

When I was outside (standing among the wet, fallen, pretty much rotten at this point, leaves), the word, “rehelim” suddenly popped into my head, and repeating itself. I asked if it was a real Hebrew word, and he said that it was, and that it meant, “dry leaves.”

So I looked it up on the Lexicon. The word for “leaves” is, “elim.” I couldn’t find how one would say, “dry leaves,” but I did find that the one of the meanings of the word, “ra’” is “bad (of its kind–land, water, etc.)”. “Bad leaves?” I don’t know for sure…

“Happy to see you start to remember,” he said. “Surprised.”

Then I thought I’d try again, and the word, “chabash,” came to mind. He said that that was a real word too, and that it meant, “dirty.” But when I looked it up I found that “dirty” is a different word. (“Possible I don’t remember a lot of words,” he said–apparently he’s remembering, too.)

“Chabash,” however, IS a real word, and it means, “to bind.” And the word, “abash” means, “rotten”–maybe that’s where he got confused.

The Gospel of John vs. The Gospel of Thomas

I’ve read the book The Gnostic Gospels by Elaine Pagels. Boy are there a lot of discrepancies here or different interpretations between the Christian Bible and Gnostic gospels: very interesting…

Here I will give you an example.  In the New Testament, Gospel of John, Chapter

14:5-6, Thomas saith unto him, Lord we know not whither thy goest; and how can we know the way? Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth and the life; no man cometh unto the father, but by me.

According to Ms. Pagels, Gnostic sources offer a different religious perspective.  “According to The Dialogue of the Savior” (142.16-19, in NHL 237) when the disciples ask Jesus the same question, (“What is the place to which we shall go?”) he answered, “the place which you can reach, stand there!” The Gospel of Thomas (38.4-10, in NHL 121) relates that when the disciples asked Jesus where they should go, he said only, “There is light within a man of light, and it lights up the whole world. If he does not shine, he is in darkness.” The author states that both sayings direct one instead to oneself-to one’s inner capacity to find one’s own direction, to the “light within.”

Ms. Pagels claims that the reason why the church rejected the writings of the Dialogue of the Savior and the Gospel of Thomas was because the church wanted to indicate that one finds god only through Jesus and one finds Jesus only through the church. They wanted more people to attend mass or church services which would strengthen the congregation.

Recently (3/18/1995), I concluded reading the insightful and engaging work by ELaine Pagels, “Adam, Eve, and the Serpent,” Vintage Books: New York (1988), 189 pages.

Pagels Book

The book is one of those rare scholarly books which can be easily digested by general audiences which takes a very unique approach to the study of Adam and Eve as they rise and fall in the Garden of Eden. The abiding thesis of the work  is that most of the sexual attitudes of Christianity flow from interpretations of the Garden of Eden events and the intrusion of a “subtle beast” serpent into the “good” harmony of Adam and Eve. Most of the book is devoted to the debate between Augustine and Julian as to how these events ought to be understood and transmitted to believers.

For those who are familiar with Christianity in the West, Augustine is one of the titular theologians of both Roman Catholicism and Protestantism. Augustine helped to shape medieval Christianity as he wrote against many of what were denominated heresies and his “Confessions” and “City of God” are foundational texts for insight into Medieval Christianity. Of particular interest to Pagels is Augustine’s teachings on the extent to which descendants of Adam and Eve are bound by original sin. Augustine argued that when Adam and Eve sinned, theology continues to debate just what that sin was although Pagels argues that it was sexual in nature, they sinned for all humanity since all future humans were contained in the sperm of Adam; consequently, all humans are born into sin and needs the church and government to protect humanity from itself. Martin Luther would much later develop this concept into his doctrine of two kingdoms. Therefore, in Augustine’s view, there can be no salvation outside the church and without government the world would be in anarchy (Those calling for government bailouts and government regulation of Wall Street can cite Augustine as authority.).

Opposing Augustine’s view is that of Julian who argued that whereas Adam and Eve did sin in the Garden of Eden, that sin is particular to Adam and Eve and does not curse all humanity because humans have free will which means that humans can choose whether to do good or evil and such choices can be made both inside and outside the church. Further, Julian held that humanity does not need any type of external force to persuade humanity to do good or to do evil.

It is easy to understand why Augustine’s view was accepted over Julian’s for Augustine privileges the presence and role of the church in the salvific process and the intrusion of church and government into the lives of individuals and groups.

Another contribution of Augustine is the major influence sexual urges have on humans and emphasis on Pauline passages which enable humans to check those urges. The book is replete with narratives of early Christians, such as Perpetua and Myedonia, who struggled to enact in their lives Paul’s instruction that it was better not to marry and even if one was married it was better to live as if one was not married.

Pagels traces the development of celibacy among both single and married Christians and shows how Christianity has been and continues to be obsessed with sex and things sexual. For instant, if celibacy is preferred as Paul and Jesus suggest, then what is God’s plan for the perpetuation of the human race? Pagels hints at this question but she does not answer it. She suggests that, had Adam and Eve not sinned God would have provided some way for humans to “multiply” but she does not say what that method might have been.

However, Adam and Eve did sin and since humans must multiply through sexual intercourse, Pagels does not give any comfort   to those who seek to live faithfully while enjoying their sexuality.  Therefore, while I read the book with eagerness, I was dissatisfied and frustrated at the end when I found myself having more questions than when I started reading Pagels’ interesting and insightful book. Still, I recommend the book highly.

In past blog posts, and on a local message board in which I discuss such things with others, there have been a few people who have asked questions in regards to my statements as to the relationship of the Council of Nicaea to the Canonization of scripture, and my assertion that the men who met at that Council ultimately determined what books appear in the Bible you and I hold in our hands. I haven’t responded to those questions, as I knew that I’d eventually post this article.

FYI: this article is one part (of five) of a paper that I had to write for a Seminary class assignment. You’ll notice it refers to other writings not posted here. Should anyone wish to read the other writings I’d be happy to post them in a future blog post. There are also references in parenthesis to books in the Bibliography from which this paper comes. I’ll post that Bibliography as a comment to this blog post for those who might want that information.

Event #2: Canonization of Scripture

What can possibly be of more importance to the history of the church than the scriptures upon which it is based? Yet few of us have any clue why our Bibles contain the books they contain. Fewer still realize that at the time of canonization, the opinion of the Christian community was split almost 50/50 as to what should and should not be considered as scripture (Pagels, 2004, pages 170-175). While some simply accept the idea that to be considered part of the canon of scripture, writings must be traced to an apostle as the writer or main source, others point out that even those writings traced back to apostles are often in conflict.

Having received both her Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees from Stanford, and her PhD from Harvard, author Elaine Pagels is the Harrington Spear Paine Professor of Religion at Princeton University. Ms. Pagels area of expertise is early Christian history. When new religious artifacts are discovered, Pagels is often called upon to help interpret them.

In her book Beyond Belief: The Secret Gospel of Thomas, Pagels points out that there are literally hundreds of pages of “gospels” and “apocrypha” written during the first centuries, many of them documents the average lay person isn’t even aware exist, that contain sayings, rituals and dialogues attributed to Jesus and his disciples. In the early years of Christianity many of these documents were just as well known as the 27 books we have in the New Testament of our Bibles today. The Gospel of John, written at close to the same time as the Gospel of Thomas, reveals a minor rivalry even amongst two of Jesus’ own disciples, and many of today’s best scholars believe John’s gospel was written as a rebuttal to teachings attributed to Thomas. One example of rivalry is hinted at by reading the books that are included in our Bibles: while the Gospels of Matthew, Mark and Luke refer to Jesus appearing to the 11 after his Resurrection (Judas was no longer with them), the Gospel of John says Jesus appeared to 10 of them, as Thomas was not present. And it is only in John’s gospel that Thomas is referred to as a doubter. John’s gospel emphasizes that some of the key beliefs put forth by Thomas’ gospel are incorrect. The Gospel of Thomas teaches, for example, that God’s light shines not only in Jesus but potentially in everyone. Thomas’ gospel encourages the hearer not so much to believe IN Jesus, as John’s gospel requires, as to seek to know God through one’s own, divinely given capacity since all are created in the image of God (Pagels, 2004, pages 30-73).

Many amongst the first generations of Christians disagreed with John’s gospel that Jesus was God in the flesh, doubted his writings were scripture, and did not want his book to be part of what we now call the New Testament. Those believers also took issue with the fact that in a handful of places John’s gospel differs with, and even directly contradicts, the combined testimony of the gospels of Matthew, Mark and Luke. John tells a different version of Jesus’ final days, for example. John also places the story of Jesus in the Temple disrupting the money changers at the beginning of his ministry, while the gospels of Matthew, Mark and Luke place that as happening at the end of his ministry. Only in John’s gospel do we find the story of Lazarus being raised from the dead, which was an act that upset the leaders of the time so much that they wanted to kill not only Jesus but Lazarus as well, because they were concerned that if he were to go on doing such things everyone would believe in him. It is noted that even early defenders of John’s gospel, such as a teacher named Origen, are quoted as saying that the author of John’s gospel might not always tell the truth “literally” but always told the truth “spiritually” (Origen, Commentary on John, 10.4-6).

If John was to be believed, Jesus proclaimed himself begotten of God, equal to God, and God in the flesh. If Thomas was to be believed, Jesus only claimed to have been created by God just as the rest of us, although with a deeper level of connection and understanding. According to Thomas, although he may have been of similar substance as God, Jesus was not fully man and fully God and he wanted the world to know that God’s Light could be found within all of us.

The argument between those who believed the teachings attributed to John and those who believed the teachings attributed to Thomas led to many writings and discussions. It is clear that if the four gospels of our Bibles were Matthew, Mark, Luke and Thomas we’d have a much different view of Jesus than we do now, with John’s gospel as the fourth.

One man in particular, a man named Irenaeus, wrote extensively on such matters. Irenaeus was a disciple of Polycarp, and Polycarp was a disciple of John. Irenaeus was very much in favor of showing those who followed Thomas’ teachings the errors of their ways. He was of the opinion that those who disagreed with John had “cast truth aside” and “resorted to evil interpretation” (Irenaeus, Against Heresies 1, c. 180). He was alarmed to learn that even amongst those in congregations to whom he personally traveled as a missionary, many were divided on whether to believe the teachings attributed to Thomas or whether to lean more towards what was taught by John’s gospel.

Irenaeus’ writings became quite influential in guiding the paths of those that would eventually decide which books belong in our Bibles. His opinion could be summed up with his assertion that if those heretics had been right, we would have no need for revelation and “the coming of the Lord” would “appear unnecessary and useless” (Irenaeus, Against Heresies). Through Irenaeus’ writings, it was made very clear that John’s gospel definitely means that God = Word = Jesus Christ, the Word made flesh. Irenaeus declared that teachings like Thomas’ gospel were nothing more than gnosticism pushing its influence into Christianity. Even so, the discussion continued after he died in 202 AD, and wasn’t totally settled until late the next century, many years after Constantine became the first Christian Roman Emperor and ended the persecution of Christians.

When I mentioned in “Event #1″ that Constantine, after becoming emperor, gave back to the church all the lands that were taken from it, what I didn’t mention was that Constantine also befriended many of the bishops, even writing them personal letters (Barnes, 2006, pages 208-227). The purpose of the Council of Nicaea in 325 was to resolve disagreements over the nature of Jesus in relationship to the Father, in particular, whether He was of the same substance as God the Father or merely of similar substance. As many of us know, this council resulted in the Nicene Creed, which Constantine himself endorsed. Afterward, the official doctrine became such that “all Christians henceforth must accept and participate in the only church recognized by the emperor – the catholic (universal) church.” Even a year before the Council of Nicaea, Constantine made an attempt to legislate an end to “sects” he considered heretical, which included half the Christians in the empire (MacMullen, 1986, pages 59-119). His beliefs on what was or was not heretical (meaning, “wrong teaching”) were greatly influenced by the bishops he had befriended, who were in turn followers of the line of beliefs written by the likes of Irenaeus. Although it is often said that the canon of scripture was issued at the Council of Hippo in 393 and at the Council of Carthage in 397, because of the nature of the politics surrounding the Nicene council and Constantine’s endorsement of it, the books that conflicted with the Nicene Creed were already “on the way out.” The desire (or often times: commands) to destroy those books led those who wished to preserve them to hide and bury them in jars or even graves (we have recovered some of these texts even as recently as the mid 1900s).

In 367, Church Father (and bishop) Athanasius, wrote an easter letter that listed the 27 books we now have in our New Testament (it should be noted that Athanasius was present at the Council of Nicaea, and was very much involved with those on “the winning side”). The Western church approved the same 27 books at the Council of Hippo in 393 and at Carthage in 397 (Garlow, 2000, pg 48). In the alternate textbook assigned for this class, How God Saved Civilization, there is a quote by David F. Wright on page 49 that states the following:

Although churchmen in a literal sense created the canon (the Bible), they were only recognizing the books that had stamped their own authority on the churches. The criteria for accepting a book as canonical (authentic) were sometimes complex. Above all, it had to be written or sponsored by an apostle, and also be recognizably orthodox in context, and publicly used by a prominent church or majority of churches… But the eventual shape of the New Testament shows that the Early Church wanted to submit fully to the teachings of the apostles. It had been created by their preaching and now grounded itself upon their writings.

Whether or not one might wish to disagree with the exclusion of certain books from our Bible that for centuries had been accepted as scripture by half the Christian community, and whether or not one might wish to argue that the ultimate list of 27 books of the New Testament was greatly influenced by political pressures and favors from the first Christian Emperor, there is no doubt that the canonization of scripture is one of the most important events in all of church history. It is literally what millions have built their faith, and lives, upon.

Sun Jul 27 22:42:16 2008
I met Elaine Pagels at a conference. Her book, The Gnostic Gospels was an excellent and the most accessible introduction at the time. Everyone was shocked that it became a surprise bestseller.

When I was studying Gnosticism the two classics were The Gnostic Religion by Hans Jonas and Die Gnosis by Kurt Rudolph. I have heard that the Rudolph book has been subsequently translated into English, but I have not seen the translation. I also think there are some books that take into consideration more recent scholarship but cannot recall them.

In 1988, when my husband of twenty years died in a hiking
accident, I became aware that, like many people who grieve, I was
living in the presence of an invisible being—living, that is, with
a vivid sense of someone who had died. During the following
years I began to reflect on the ways that various religious
traditions give shape to the invisible world, and how our
imaginative perceptions of what is invisible relate to the ways we
respond to the people around us, to events, and to the natural
world. I was reflecting, too, on the various ways that people
from Greek, Jewish, and Christian traditions deal with
misfortune and loss. Greek writers from Homer to Sophocles
attribute such events to gods and goddesses, destiny and fate—
elements as capricious and indifferent to human welfare as the
“forces of nature” (which is our term for these forces).
In the ancient Western world, of which I am a historian,
many—perhaps most—people assumed that the universe was
inhabited by invisible beings whose presence impinged upon the
visible world and its human inhabitants. Ancient Egyptians,
Greeks, and Romans envisioned gods, goddesses, and spirit
beings of many kinds, while certain Jews and Christians,
ostensibly monotheists, increasingly spoke of angels, heavenly
messengers from God, and some spoke of fallen angels and
demons. This was especially true from the first century of the
common era onward.
Conversion from paganism to Judaism or Christianity, I realized,
meant, above all, transforming one’s perception of the invisible
world. To this day, Christian baptism requires a person to
solemnly “renounce the devil and all his works” and to accept
exorcism. The pagan convert was baptized only after confessing
that all spirit beings previously revered—and dreaded—as divine
were actually only “demons”—hostile spirits contending against
the One God of goodness and justice, and against his armies of
angels. Becoming either a Jew or a Christian polarized a pagan’s
view of the universe, and moralized it. The Jewish theologian
Martin Buber regarded the moralizing of the universe as one of
the great achievements of Jewish tradition, later passed down as
its legacy to Christians and Muslims. The book of Genesis, for
example, insists that volcanoes would not have destroyed the
towns of Sodom and Gomorrah unless all the inhabitants of
those towns—all the inhabitants who concerned the storyteller,
that is, the adult males—had been evil, “young and old, down to
the last man” (Gen. 19:4).

… I assumed that Jewish and Christian
perceptions of invisible beings had to do primarily with
moralizing the natural universe, as Buber claimed, and so with
encouraging people to interpret events ranging from illness to
natural disasters as expressions of “God’s will” or divine
judgment on human sin. But my research led me in unexpected
directions and disclosed a far more complex picture. Such
Christians as Justin Martyr (140 C.E.), one of the “fathers of the
church,” attributes affliction not to “God’s will” but to the
malevolence of Satan. His student Tatian allows for accident in
the natural world, including disasters, for which, he says, God
offers solace but seldom miraculous intervention. As I proceeded
to investigate Jewish and Christian accounts of angels and fallen
angels, I discovered, however, that they were less concerned
with the natural world as a whole than with the particular world
of human relationships.
Rereading biblical and extra-biblical accounts of angels, I
learned first of all what many scholars have pointed out: that
while angels often appear in the Hebrew Bible, Satan, along with
other fallen angels or demonic beings, is virtually absent. But
among certain first-century Jewish groups, prominently
including the Essenes (who saw themselves as allied with angels)
and the followers of Jesus, the figure variously called Satan,
Beelzebub, or Belial also began to take on central importance.
While the gospel of Mark, for example, mentions angels only in
the opening frame (1:13) and in the final verses of the original
manuscript (16:5-7), Mark deviates from mainstream Jewish
tradition by introducing “the devil” into the crucial opening
scene of the gospel, and goes on to characterize Jesus’ ministry as
involving continual struggle between God’s spirit and the
demons, who belong, apparently, to Satan’s “kingdom” (see
Mark 3:23-27). Such visions have been incorporated into
Christian tradition and have served, among other things, to
confirm for Christians their own identification with God and to
demonize their opponents—first other Jews, then pagans, and
later dissident Christians called heretics. This is what this book
is about.
To emphasize this element of the New Testament gospels does
not mean, of course, that this is their primary theme. “Aren’t the
gospels about love?” exclaimed one friend as we discussed this
work. Certainly they are about love, but since the story they
have to tell involves betrayal and killing, they also include
elements of hostility which evoke demonic images.

The Origin of Satan
Elaine Pagels

Please Go HERE for this post

This article, “The Betrayal of Judas,” from the Chronicle of Higher Education, recounts the multi-decade history of the Gospel of Judas, including its abuse for commercial, televised success.

A few points of my own:

1. It’s not uncommon for these texts to take years to get to any kind of public view. The same happened with the Nag Hammadi texts, the Dead Sea Scrolls and the Mar Saba Clementine. The article does it justice: reassembling the text is a long task, coupled with the rendering of ink smudges into transcripts into translations into commentary into scholarly article into National Geographic special. It does take decades.
2. This article makes as good a plot as the new Indiana Jones movies. But without the sword fights. So far.
3. Bart Ehrman seems to love controversy for its own sake.
4. Elaine Pagels would do well to get out of the spotlight and back into her scholarship.
5. Kathleen McVey, a beloved seminary professor of mine, had this to say about Pagels’s Gnosticism work. I’m glad to find this review in digital form rather than an nth-generation xerox.
6. The Gospel of Judas, like most Gnostic texts, is stridently anti-Jew. In its theology, Ialdaboth (a faux-Hebrew term, soundalike to ‘Yahweh”) is the creator sub-deity and is also a deluded and evil underling. To this theology, Jesus came to rescue the Jews from the worship of the evil God of Israel and to the true, ineffable God.