Download or read book Secret Gospels written by Marvin Meyer and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 2003-02-01 with total page 208 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Marvin Meyer is one of the leading experts on the secret gospels-Gospel of Thomas, Secret Gospel of Mark, and others-who has changed forever how we read the canonical gospels and understand early Christianity. In this new collection of his work, Meyer looks at these revolutionary texts in original and illuminating ways. He writes, for example, about the naked youths in the villa of the Mysteries. On the walls of a villa in Pompeii, a famous mural depicts a naked male reading from a scroll, a look of wonder on his face. A naked youth again appears in the Gospel of Mark, abandoning his garment and fleeing naked when apprehended during Jesus' arrest. A similar youth appears in the Secret Gospel of Mark. These youths, Meyer proposes, serve as an image of religious initiation, candidates for the mysteries of Dionysus or of Christ. This is one of the many aspects of the secret gospels that Meyer examines with expert insight and creativity. Topics range from gender and infancy stories to discipleship and the relationship of the Gospel of Thomas to Islamic literature. Meyer's spellbinding readings of these materials offer fresh understandings of the canonical gospels. Marvin Meyer is Griset Professor of Bible and Christian Studies, and Director of the Albert Schweitzer Institute at Chapman University, Orange, California. He is author of The Secret Teachings of Jesus: Four Gnostic Gospels and The Gospel of Thomas: The Hidden Sayings of Jesus, and co-editor of Jesus Then and Now (Trinity Press International).
Download or read book The Secret Gospel written by Morton Smith and published by . This book was released on 2005 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Secret Gospel gives the first real evidence of the method by which Jesus of Nazareth initiated his disciples into the esoteric practices of his teaching, making this is a very important book for the history of humankind. In 1958, Morton Smith traveled to Jerusalem to do research in the monastery library of Mar Saba, in the Judean Desert. What he found was no routine corroboration of New Testament history, but a precious fragment of a second-century document that would change our understanding of the teaching of Jesus of Nazareth. As exciting as the most suspenseful adventure story, Professor Smith's book is a lively and readable account of the discovery and unraveling of some of Christianity's most intriguing mysteries. ??The Secret Gospel invites a wide community of readers to share in the challenge of [Professor Smith?s] discovery, and to evaluate for themselves the provocative?and fundamental?questions it raises.? from the Foreword by Elaine Pagels, The Gnostic Gospels
Download or read book Beyond Belief written by Elaine Pagels and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2004-05-04 with total page 272 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Beyond Belief, renowned religion scholar Elaine Pagels continues her groundbreaking examination of the earliest Christian texts, arguing for an ongoing assessment of faith and a questioning of religious orthodoxy. Spurred on by personal tragedy and new scholarship from an international group of researchers, Pagels returns to her investigation of the “secret” Gospel of Thomas, and breathes new life into writings once thought heretical. As she arrives at an ever-deeper conviction in her own faith, Pagels reveals how faith allows for a diversity of interpretations, and that the “rogue” voices of Christianity encourage and sustain “the recognition of the light within us all.”
Download or read book The Secret Book of John written by and published by SkyLight Paths Publishing. This book was released on 2005 with total page 194 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "The Secret Book of John: The Gnostic Gospel - Annotated & Explained decodes the principal themes, historical foundation, and spiritual contexts of this challenging yet fundamental Gnostic teaching. Drawing connections to Christianity, Buddhism, Hinduism, kabbalistic Judaism, and Sufism, Davies focuses on the mythology and psychology of the Gnostic religious quest. He illuminates the Gnostics' ardent call for self-awareness and introspection, and the empowering message that divine wholeness will be restored not by worshiping false gods in an illusory material world but by our recognition of the inherent divinity within ourselves."--BOOK JACKET.
Download or read book The Nag Hammadi Library in English written by James McConkey Robinson and published by Brill Archive. This book was released on 1984 with total page 516 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Hidden Gospels written by Philip Jenkins and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2002-12-05 with total page 269 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This incisive critique thoroughly and convincingly debunks the claims that recently discovered texts such as the Gospel of Thomas, the Gospel of Mary, and even the Dead Sea Scrolls undermine the historical validity of the New Testament. Jenkins places the recent controversies surrounding the hidden gospels in a broad historical context and argues that, far from being revolutionary, such attempts to find an alternative Christianity date back at least to the Enlightenment. By employing the appropriate scholarly and historical methodologies, he demonstrates that the texts purported to represent pristine Christianity were in fact composed long after the canonical gospels found in the Bible. Produced by obscure heretical movements, these texts have attracted much media attention chiefly because they seem to support radical, feminist, and post-modern positions in the modern church. Indeed, Jenkins shows how best-selling books on the "hidden gospels" have been taken up by an uncritical, drama-hungry media as the basis for a social movement that could have powerful effects on the faith and practice of contemporary Christianity.
Download or read book The Gnostic Gospels written by Elaine Pagels and published by Random House. This book was released on 2004-06-29 with total page 250 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Selected by the Modern Library as one of the 100 best nonfiction books of all time The Gnostic Gospels is a landmark study of the long-buried roots of Christianity, a work of luminous scholarship and wide popular appeal. First published in 1979 to critical acclaim, winning the National Book Award and the National Book Critics Circle Award, The Gnostic Gospels has continued to grow in reputation and influence over the past two decades. It is now widely recognized as one of the most brilliant and accessible histories of early Christian spirituality published in our time. In 1945 an Egyptian peasant unearthed what proved to be the Gnostic Gospels, thirteen papyrus volumes that expounded a radically different view of the life and teachings of Jesus Christ from that of the New Testament. In this spellbinding book, renowned religious scholar Elaine Pagels elucidates the mysteries and meanings of these sacred texts both in the world of the first Christians and in the context of Christianity today. With insight and passion, Pagels explores a remarkable range of recently discovered gospels, including the Gospel of Thomas and the Gospel of Mary Magdalene, to show how a variety of “Christianities” emerged at a time of extraordinary spiritual upheaval. Some Christians questioned the need for clergy and church doctrine, and taught that the divine could be discovered through spiritual search. Many others, like Buddhists and Hindus, sought enlightenment—and access to God—within. Such explorations raised questions: Was the resurrection to be understood symbolically and not literally? Was God to be envisioned only in masculine form, or feminine as well? Was martyrdom a necessary—or worthy—expression of faith? These early Christians dared to ask questions that orthodox Christians later suppressed—and their explorations led to profoundly different visions of Jesus and his message. Brilliant, provocative, and stunning in its implications, The Gnostic Gospels is a radical, eloquent reconsideration of the origins of the Christian faith.
Download or read book Secret Gospels written by Marvin Meyer and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 2003-02-01 with total page 208 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Marvin Meyer is one of the leading experts on the secret gospels Gospel of Thomas, Secret Gospel of Mark, and others who has changed forever how we read the canonical gospels and understand early Christianity. In this new collection of his work, Meyer looks at these revolutionary texts in original and illuminating ways. He writes, for example, about the naked youths in the villa of the Mysteries. On the walls of a villa in Pompeii, a famous mural depicts a naked male reading from a scroll, a look of wonder on his face. A naked youth again appears in the Gospel of Mark, abandoning his garment and fleeing naked when apprehended during Jesus' arrest. A similar youth appears in the Secret Gospel of Mark. These youths, Meyer proposes, serve as an image of religious initiation, candidates for the mysteries of Dionysus or of Christ. This is one of the many aspects of the secret gospels that Meyer examines with expert insight and creativity. Topics range from gender and infancy stories to discipleship and the relationship of the Gospel of Thomas to Islamic literature. Meyer's spellbinding readings of these materials offer fresh understandings of the canonical gospels. Marvin Meyer is Griset Professor of Bible and Christian Studies, and Director of the Albert Schweitzer Institute at Chapman University, Orange, California. He is author of The Secret Teachings of Jesus: Four Gnostic Gospels and The Gospel of Thomas: The Hidden Sayings of Jesus, and co-editor of Jesus Then and Now (Trinity Press International).
Download or read book The Secret Teachings of Jesus written by and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2011-09-28 with total page 161 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In December 1945, two Egyptian fellahin, digging for natural fertilizer in the Nile River valley unearthed a sealed storage jar. The jar proved to hold treasure of an unexpected sort: a collection of some fifty-two ancient manuscripts, most of which reflect the teachings of a mystical religious movement we call Gnosticism (from the Greek word gnosis, "knowledge"). The texts are also, with few exceptions, Christian documents, and thus they provide us with valuable new information about the character of the early church, and about the Gnostic Christians within the church. In this volume, Marvin W. Meyer has produced a new English translation for general readers of four of the most important and revealing of these early Christian texts -- the Secret Book of James, the Gospel of Thomas, the Book of Thomas, and the Secret Book of John.
Download or read book The Wild Girl written by Michèle Roberts and published by Random House (UK). This book was released on 1991 with total page 180 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Gospel Hoax written by Stephen C. Carlson and published by Baylor University Press. This book was released on 2005 with total page 172 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Secret Mark first became known to modern scholarship in 1958 when a newly hired assistant professor at Columbia University in New York by the name of Morton Smith visited the monastery of Mar Saba near Jerusalem and photographed its fragments. Secret Mark was announced on the heels of many spectacular discoveries of ancient manuscripts in the Near East, such as the Dead Sea Scrolls and the Nag Hammadi gnostic corpus in the late 1940s, and promised to be just as revolutionary. Secret Mark presents what appears to be a valuable, albeit fragmentary, witness to early Christian traditions, traditions that might shed light on Jesus's most intimate behavior. In this book, Stephen C. Carlson uses state of the art science to demonstrate that Secret Mark was an elaborate hoax created by Morton Smith. Carlson's discussion places Smith's trick alongside many other hoaxes before probing the reasons why so many scholars have been taken in by it.
Download or read book The Gospel the Zodiac written by Bill Darlison and published by ABRAMS. This book was released on 2008-02-14 with total page 277 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “Darlison elucidates the zodiac’s significant place in the Gospels, most specifically in the Book of Mark . . . An intriguing leap into faith” (Kirkus Reviews). For millennia the world has been driven by the differences between the great patriarchal religions. Western civilization—or Christendom, as it was once called—received its values and its confidence from a belief in God, the Father, and Jesus, his only son. But what if this conviction were founded on an error? Who is the man in the factually inconsistent Gospel stories? And who is the man who makes a brief appearance carrying a jar of water? This extraordinary study by a Unitarian minister suggests that Jesus never existed historically; he was simply a representation of an astrological theology—a representation, simply put, of the zodiac sign of Aquarius. In The Gospel & the Zodiac, Rev. Bill Darlison demonstrates that all the other signs are present too, in perfect zodiacal order. The Gospel story is not the product of historians or eyewitnesses, but an older, mystical text produced by an ancient, esoteric school as a guide to the Age of Pisces. Every bit as revelatory and controversial as it sounds, The Gospel & the Zodiac will shake up the religious status quo, and in doing so, provide both a new look at a religious icon and a deeper understanding of the faith that binds millions together. “Darlison begins by looking at different scholarly approaches to the gospels, then outlines his astrological interpretation logically and lucidly, matching the zodiacal signs to the narrative of Mark.” —Fortean Times
Download or read book The Psychedelic Gospels written by Jerry B. Brown and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2016-09-15 with total page 376 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Reveals evidence of visionary plants in Christianity and the life of Jesus found in medieval art and biblical scripture--hidden in plain sight for centuries • Follows the authors’ anthropological adventure discovering sacred mushroom images in European and Middle Eastern churches, including Roslyn Chapel and Chartres • Provides color photos showing how R. Gordon Wasson’s psychedelic theory of religion clearly extends to Christianity and reveals why Wasson suppressed this information due to his secret relationship with the Vatican • Examines the Bible and the Gnostic Gospels to show that visionary plants were the catalyst for Jesus’s awakening to his divinity and immortality Throughout medieval Christianity, religious works of art emerged to illustrate the teachings of the Bible for the largely illiterate population. What, then, is the significance of the psychoactive mushrooms hiding in plain sight in the artwork and icons of many European and Middle-Eastern churches? Does Christianity have a psychedelic history? Providing stunning visual evidence from their anthropological journey throughout Europe and the Middle East, including visits to Roslyn Chapel and Chartres Cathedral, authors Julie and Jerry Brown document the role of visionary plants in Christianity. They retrace the pioneering research of R. Gordon Wasson, the famous “sacred mushroom seeker,” on psychedelics in ancient Greece and India, and among the present-day reindeer herders of Siberia and the Mazatecs of Mexico. Challenging Wasson’s legacy, the authors reveal his secret relationship with the Vatican that led to Wasson’s refusal to pursue his hallucinogen theory into the hallowed halls of Christianity. Examining the Bible and the Gnostic Gospels, the authors provide scriptural support to show that sacred mushrooms were the inspiration for Jesus’ revelation of the Kingdom of Heaven and that he was initiated into these mystical practices in Egypt during the Missing Years. They contend that the Trees of Knowledge and of Immortality in Eden were sacred mushrooms. Uncovering the role played by visionary plants in the origins of Judeo-Christianity, the authors invite us to rethink what we know about the life of Jesus and to consider a controversial theory that challenges us to explore these sacred pathways to the divine.
Download or read book The Secret Gospel of Mark written by Robert Conner and published by Mandrake of Oxford. This book was released on 2015-01-31 with total page 160 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: While cataloging material in the library of the monastery of Mar Saba in 1958, Morton Smith discovered a quotation from a letter of Clement of Alexandria copied in the end pages of a 17th century collection of the letters of Ignatius. After more than a decade of collaborative analysis of the find, Smith published his conclusions in 1973, setting off a firestorm of controversy in the New Testament studies guild. In 1975, a Jesuit scholar, Quentin Quesnell, claimed the letter had been forged and implied that Smith was the forger, moving the focus of debate off the text itself and onto Smith. Since then the pages containing the letter have been removed from the book and possibly destroyed, while Catholic and evangelical writers, none of whom have ever seen the pages in question, continue to claim that Smith forged the letter. Following his death in 1991, accusations against Smith took on a considerably more personal tone, highlighting his alleged homosexuality and by implication his dishonesty and moral perversity. Although the question of authenticity remains unresolved, the controversy has opened a window on the intellectually corrupt nature of apologetic New Testament studies, a subject of greater importance than the authenticity of early Christian texts.
Download or read book The Secret Gospel of Ireland written by James Behan and published by . This book was released on 2012-07-01 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Secret Revelation of John written by Karen L. King and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2009-02-28 with total page 428 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Lost in antiquity, rediscovered in 1896, and only recently accessible for study, The Secret Revelation of John offers a firsthand look into the diversity of Christianity before the establishment of canon and creed. Karen L. King offers an illuminating reading of this ancient text--a narrative of the creation of the universe and humanity and a guide to justice and salvation, said to be Christ's revelation to his disciple John. Freeing the Revelation from the category of "Gnosticism" to which such accounts were relegated, King shows how the Biblical text could be read by early Christians in radical and revisionary ways. By placing the Revelation in its social and intellectual milieu, she revises our understanding of early Christianity and, more generally, religious thought in the ancient Mediterranean world. Her work helps the modern reader through many intriguing--but confusing--ideas in the text: for example, that the creator god of Genesis, a self-described jealous and exclusive god, is not the true Deity but a kind of fallen angel; or, in an overt critique of patriarchy unique in ancient literature, the declaration that the subordination of woman to man was an ignorant act in direct violation of the "holy height." In King's analysis, the Revelation becomes not strange but a comprehensible religious vision--and a window on the religious culture of the Roman Empire. A translation of the complete Secret Revelation of John is included.
Download or read book Recovering the Real Lost Gospel written by Darrell L. Bock and published by B&H Publishing Group. This book was released on 2010 with total page 156 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Darrell L. Bock suggests the real lost gospel is the one already found in the Bible and reminds everyone of what it means: good news. --from publisher description.
