Elaine Pagels
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Elaine Pagels, née Hiesey, (born February 13, 1943), is the Harrington Spear Paine Professor of Religion at Princeton University. The recipient of a MacArthur Fellowship, she is best known for her studies and writing on the Gnostic Gospels.
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[edit] Biography
Pagels was born in California, graduated from Stanford University (B.A. 1964, M.A. 1965) and, after briefly studying dance at Martha Graham's studio, began studying for her Ph.D. at Harvard University as a student of Helmut Koester. She married theoretical physicist Heinz Pagels in 1969. At Harvard, she was part of a team studying the Nag Hammadi library manuscripts. Upon finishing her Ph.D. from Harvard in 1970, she joined the faculty at Barnard College, where she headed the department of religion from 1974.
[edit] Writing career
In 1975, after studying the Pauline Epistles and comparing them to Gnosticism and the early Church, Pagels wrote the book The Gnostic Paul. This book expounds the theory that Paul of Tarsus was a source for Gnosticism whose influence on the direction of the early Christian church was great enough for the creation of forged additions such as the Pastoral Epistles (1st and 2nd Timothy and Titus) to make it appear as if Paul supported their interpretation rather than Gnosticism.
Her study of the Nag Hammadi manuscripts was the basis for The Gnostic Gospels (1979), a popular introduction to the Nag Hammadi library. The bestselling book won both the National Book Critics Circle Award and the National Book Award and was chosen by the Modern Library as one of the 100 best books of the twentieth century. In a different measure of its influence, the conservative Christian Intercollegiate Studies Institute listed it as one of the 50 Worst Books of the Twentieth Century[1].
In the book she argued that the Christian church was founded in a society espousing a number of contradictory viewpoints. Gnosticism as a movement was not very coherent and there were several areas of disagreement between different factions. Gnosticism attracted women in particular because of its egalitarian perspective which allowed their participation in sacred rites.
In 1982, Pagels joined Princeton University as a professor of early Christian history. Aided by a MacArthur fellowship (1980–85), she researched and wrote Adam, Eve, and the Serpent, which examines the creation myth and its role in the development of sexual attitudes in the Christian West. In both The Gnostic Gospels and Adam, Eve, and the Serpent, Elaine Pagels examines the way that women have been viewed in Christian history.
In April 1987, Pagels' son Mark died after five years of illness, and in July 1988 her husband Heinz Pagels died in a mountain climbing accident. Her personal tragedies deepened her spiritual awareness, and led Pagels to begin the research leading to The Origin of Satan. This book hypothesizes that the figure Satan became a way for orthodox Christianity to demonize their religious opponents, other Christian sects and the Jews.
Her New York Times bestseller, Beyond Belief: The Secret Gospel of Thomas (2003), focuses on religious claims to possessing the ultimate truth. In it Pagels contrasts the Gospel of Thomas with the Gospel of John, and argues that a close reading of the works shows that while John emphasizes that Jesus is the "light of the world", Thomas teaches individuals that "there is a light within each person, and it lights up the whole universe. If it does not shine, there is darkness." Thomas also shares with other supposed secret teachings a belief that Jesus is not God but rather a teacher who seeks to uncover the divine light in all human beings. Pagels argues that the Gospel of John was written as a reaction and rebuttal to the Gospel of Thomas. In John, the apostle Thomas is portrayed as a disciple of little faith who cannot believe without seeing, and John places a very strong emphasis on accepting Jesus as the center of belief, which is the foundation of most traditions of Christianity today. During the time of persecution of Christians, the church fathers constructed the canon, creed and hierarchy, suppressing some of its spiritual resources in the process, in order to avoid conflict with Roman law and religion. The book also includes her personal exploration of the meaning of loss and tragedy.
[edit] Criticism
Pagels' book Beyond Belief: The Secret Gospel of Thomas has not been without controversy among Christians who adhere to traditional orthodox beliefs. Christians who dispute Gnostic theology have claimed that she asserts that man is divine and that she rejects the notion that God is the only divine being, that Christ was the unique God-man.
Pagels, in her review of the historical and theological implications of certain Gnostic texts, particularly the Gospel of Thomas, that were considered heretical by the early church because they presented a merely human Jesus and did not emphasize Jesus as divine, argues that Thomas’ gospel shows that other earlier Christians held different understandings of the meaning of the Christian gospel. Critics have countered that the Gospel of John, however, rejects the conviction that the divine dwells as ‘light’ within all beings. Pagels writes that in Thomas this is the hidden knowledge that Thomas' gospel proclaims. [2]
Her argument that John’s gospel was written to counter this “hidden ‘good news’” of the gospel of Thomas presents John and Thomas as offering equally valid views of Christianity, but it is claimed that Thomas was suppressed by a fabricated orthodoxy invented by Irenaeus and instituted through coercion. In Beyond Belief, Pagels claims that there are other equally valid historical views of Jesus' life as reflected by the Gnostic gospels. Her critics argue that the Gnostic teachings found in Thomas are incompatible with the writings of the New Testament and are rejected not out of institutional coercion, but because of a lack of credibility as an Apostolic text. [1].
[edit] Recognition
In addition to the MacArthur award, Professor Pagels is also a recipient of the Guggenheim Fellowship and Rockefeller fellowships.
[edit] Books
- Johannine Gospel in Gnostic Exegesis: Heracleon's Commentary on John (1973), Society of Biblical Literature, 132 p. 1989 edition: ISBN 1-555-40334-4
- The Gnostic Paul: Gnostic Exegesis of the Pauline Letters (1975), Fortress Press, ISBN 0-8006-0403-2
- The Gnostic Gospels (1979), Vintage Books, 182 p., ISBN 0-679-72453-2
- Adam, Eve and the Serpent (1988), Vintage Books, 189 p., ISBN 0-679-72232-7
- The Origin of Satan (1995), Vintage Books, 214 p., ISBN 0-679-73118-0
- Beyond Belief: The Secret Gospel of Thomas (2003), Vintage Books, 241p., ISBN 0-375-50156-8
- Reading Judas: The Gospel of Judas and the Shaping of Christianity together with Karen L. King, (2007), Viking Press, 224 p., ISBN 0670038458
[edit] Notes
- ^ http://www.mmisi.org/ir/35_01/50worst.pdf
- ^ Pagels, Elaine. Beyond Belief: The Secret Gospel of Thomas. New York: Random House. 2005. p75.
[edit] External links
- Rogers, D. (2004) "The Gospel Truth" Stanford Magazine, January/February 2004. - A profile of Elaine Pagels in the Stanford alumni magazine.
- (n.d.) Book Review: Beyond Belief: The Secret Gospel of Thomas Southern Cross Review website. - A review of Pagels' book, Beyond Belief.
- Gross, M. (2004) Beyond Unbelief: A Critical Response to Elaine Pagels’ Beyond Belief: The Secret Gospel of Thomas Reformed Perspectives Magazine. 6(16).
- Paul Mankowski, S.J., "The Pagels Imposture", Father Mankowski, S.J., at the Pontifical Biblical Institute claims discrepancies between Pagels interpretation of texts and what the texts actually say.de:Elaine Pagels
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