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
approaches believe complexity gospels insist kinds literally throw
There are some kinds of Christianity that insist you have to believe literally in doctrine. The Gnostic gospels open out the complexity and multiplicity of approaches to this. If you think the story of the virgin birth is mistranslated, for instance, it doesn't mean you have to throw out the whole thing.
household time
Really, I don't like to do any household chores. There was a time when I loved to cook, but that was when I wasn't writing books.
contest forces good revelation
The Book of Revelation is all about the conflict, the contest between the forces of Good and Evil.
claimed dominant humankind insisted offered orthodox rest sin teaching transitory view
Orthodox theologians insisted that the rest of humankind were only transitory creatures, lost in sin - a view that would support what would become their dominant teaching about salvation, offered only through Christ, and, in particular, through the church they claimed to represent.
congenial editor found left liked people wonderful
After Ann Godoff, who was editor-in-chief at Random House, left and went to Viking, I got to know Viking and the people there, and liked them very much. I also found a wonderful editor there, Wendy Wolf. It's a very congenial press.
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.
early faith heard left movement parts realized simply views
I realized that conventional views of Christian faith that I'd heard when I was growing up were simply made up - and I realized that many parts of the story of the early Christian movement had been left out.
jerusalem jewish romans total trying turned
The Romans weren't trying to kill all the Jews, but they did destroy Jewish resistance to Roman rule. Jerusalem was turned into a Roman army camp, and it was a total devastation.
entirely focusing god gospel instead kingdom life presence thomas wonderful works
What's different about the Gospel of Thomas is that, instead of focusing entirely on who Jesus is and the wonderful works of Jesus, it focuses on how you and I can find the kingdom of God, or life in the presence of God.
becomes believe
Christianity becomes just a set of things you believe in. It's almost an intellectual kind of abstract issue.
exactly thomas written wrote
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.