Download or read book Paul and Gnosis written by Stanley E. Porter and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2016-04-26 with total page 236 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This collection of essays—the ninth volume in Brill’s Pauline Studies series—features Paul and his relationship to knowledge. Gnosis, the Greek word generally translated as "knowledge," is broadly interpreted, and the essays contained in this volume revolve around both a more general notion of knowledge in relation to Paul and more specific references to Gnosticism. Several of these essays discuss Paul’s use of "knowledge" words, Paul’s knowledge and understanding of key themes and ideas in his writings, Paul’s interpreters in light of gnostics like Valentinus and Marcion, and Gnosticism in light of Paul’s letters. This collection of essays exposes the reader to crucial topics regarding Paul and Gnosis that are not readily addressed elsewhere.
Download or read book The Gnostic Paul written by Elaine Pagels and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 1992-03-01 with total page 193 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this highly original work, Elaine Pagels demonstrates how evidence from gnostic sources may challenge the assumption that Paul writes his letters to combat "gnostic opponents" and to repudiate their claims to secret wisdom. Drawing upon evidence from the gnostic exegesis of Paul, including several Nag Hammadi texts, the author examines how gnostic exegetes cite and interpret key passages in the letters they consider Pauline-1 & 2 Corinthians, Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, and Hebrews. Besides offering new insight into controversies over Paul in the second century, this analysis of gnostic exegesis suggests a new perspective for Pauline study, challenging students and scholars to recognize the presuppositions-hermenuetical and theological-involved in their own reading of Paul's letters. Elaine H. Pagels is the Harrington Spear Paine Professor of Religion at Princeton University. She is the author of The Gnostic Gospels, which won the National Book Award and the National Book Critics Circle Award, The Johannie Gospel in Gnostic Exegesis, Adam, Eve, and the Serpent, and the best-selling Beyond Belief: The Secret Gospel of Thomas.
Download or read book The Gnostic Bible written by Willis Barnstone and published by Shambhala Publications. This book was released on 2006 with total page 874 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The most comprehensive collection of gnostic literature ever published, this volume is the result of a unique collaboration between a renowned poet-translator and a leading scholar of early Christian texts.
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 The Gnostic New Age written by April D. DeConick and published by Columbia University Press. This book was released on 2016-09-27 with total page 515 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Gnosticism is a countercultural spirituality that forever changed the practice of Christianity. Before it emerged in the second century, passage to the afterlife required obedience to God and king. Gnosticism proposed that human beings were manifestations of the divine, unsettling the hierarchical foundations of the ancient world. Subversive and revolutionary, Gnostics taught that prayer and mediation could bring human beings into an ecstatic spiritual union with a transcendent deity. This mystical strain affected not just Christianity but many other religions, and it characterizes our understanding of the purpose and meaning of religion today. In The Gnostic New Age, April D. DeConick recovers this vibrant underground history to prove that Gnosticism was not suppressed or defeated by the Catholic Church long ago, nor was the movement a fabrication to justify the violent repression of alternative forms of Christianity. Gnosticism alleviated human suffering, soothing feelings of existential brokenness and alienation through the promise of renewal as God. DeConick begins in ancient Egypt and follows with the rise of Gnosticism in the Middle Ages, the advent of theosophy and other occult movements in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, and contemporary New Age spiritual philosophies. As these theories find expression in science-fiction and fantasy films, DeConick sees evidence of Gnosticism's next incarnation. Her work emphasizes the universal, countercultural appeal of a movement that embodies much more than a simple challenge to religious authority.
Download or read book St Irenaeus written by Saint Irenaeus (Bishop of Lyon.) and published by . This book was released on 1920 with total page 188 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
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 The Gnostics written by David Brakke and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2011-01-01 with total page 181 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Who were the Gnostics? And how did the Gnostic movement influence the development of Christianity in antiquity? Is it true that the Church rejected Gnosticism? This book offers an illuminating discussion of recent scholarly debates over the concept of “Gnosticism” and the nature of early Christian diversity. Acknowledging that the category “Gnosticism” is flawed and must be reformed, David Brakke argues for a more careful approach to gathering evidence for the ancient Christian movement known as the Gnostic school of thought. He shows how Gnostic myth and ritual addressed basic human concerns about alienation and meaning, offered a message of salvation in Jesus, and provided a way for people to regain knowledge of God, the ultimate source of their being. Rather than depicting the Gnostics as heretics or as the losers in the fight to define Christianity, Brakke argues that the Gnostics participated in an ongoing reinvention of Christianity, in which other Christians not only rejected their ideas but also adapted and transformed them. This book will challenge scholars to think in news ways, but it also provides an accessible introduction to the Gnostics and their fellow early Christians.
Download or read book Christian Gnosis written by Wolfgang Smith and published by Angelico Press. This book was released on 2009-01 with total page 248 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Basing himself principally upon the teachings of Saint Paul and the Clementine Stromata, the author begins the present treatise by distinguishing the idea of gnosis in nascent Christianity from its Gnostic counterfeit. He then considers the implications of authentic gnosis for cosmology, a question that connects intimately with his earlier studies, notably his ground-breaking work regarding the interpretation of quantum theory. The same considerations, however, which invalidate naive cosmology, have bearing on the theological notion of creatio ex nihilo as well; it is this crucial recognition that leads the author to consider alternative formulations within the Judeo-Christian tradition: from Christian Kabbalah to Jacob Boehme and Meister Eckhart. What emerges are the outlines of a Trinitarian nondualism definitive of Christian gnosis. Wolfgang Smith broaches a vast range of subjects with a mastery that bespeaks an immense culture. --Jean Borella Here is that rare person who is equally at home with Eckhart and Einstein, Heraclitus and Heisenberg! --Harry Oldmeadow Wolfgang Smith is as important a thinker as our times boast. --Huston Smith After graduating from Cornell University at age eighteen with majors in physics, mathematics and philosophy, Wolfgang Smith took an M.S. from Purdue, following which he spent three years at Bell Aircraft Corporation as an aerodynamicist. During this period he gained recognition for his pioneering papers on the effect of diffusion fields, which provided a theoretical solution to the so-called re-entry problem for space flight. After receiving a Ph.D. in mathematics from Columbia University, Dr. Smith pursued a professorial career in that field. Soon however his center of interest shifted from the pursuit of science to the critique of scientism and the rediscovery of metaphysics as a theological discipline. He has authored six books and numerous articles, and is today widely recognized as a leading authority in these twin fields."
Download or read book The Language of Heaven written by Sam Storms and published by . This book was released on 2019 with total page 276 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Few other issues have separated the church more than the issue of tongues. Sam Storms focuses on this controversial subject with his signature insights to theology and the gifts of the spirit. What does the gift giver say about the gift He gave? Storms seeks to bring balance to this subject in The Language of Heaven as he wrestles with this s...
Download or read book What is Gnosticism written by Karen L. King and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2003 with total page 372 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A study of gnosticism examines the various ways early Christians strove to define themselves in a pluralistic Roman society, while questioning the traditional ideas of heresy and orthodoxy that have previously influenced historians.
Download or read book Gnosticism in Corinth written by Walter Schmithals and published by . This book was released on 1971 with total page 422 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Mythmaker written by Hyam Maccoby and published by Barnes & Noble Publishing. This book was released on 1986 with total page 268 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The author presents new arguments which support the view that Paul, not Jesus, was the founder of Christianity. He argues that Jesus and also his immediate disciples James and Peter were life-long adherents of Pharisaic Judaism. Paul, however, was not, as he claimed, a native-born Jew of Pharisee upbringing, but came in fact from a Gentile background. He maintains that it was Paul alone who created a new religion by his vision of Jesus as a Divine Saviour who died to save humanity. This concept, which went far beyond the messianic claims of Jesus, was an amalgamation of ideas derived from Hellenistic religion, especially from Gnosticism and the mystery cults. Paul played a devious and adventurous political game with Jesus' followers of the so-called Jerusalem Church, who eventually disowned him. The conclusions of this historical and psychological study will come as a shock to many readers, but it is nevertheless a book which cannot be ignored by anyone concerned with the foundations of our culture and society. -- Book jacket.
Download or read book Thomas and the Gospels written by Mark Goodacre and published by Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing. This book was released on 2012-09-24 with total page 237 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Gospel of Thomas -- found in 1945 -- has been described as "without question the most significant Christian book discovered in modern times." Often Thomas is seen as a special independent witness to the earliest phase of Christianity and as evidence for the now-popular view that this earliest phase was a dynamic time of great variety and diversity. In contrast, Mark Goodacre makes the case that, instead of being an early, independent source, Thomas actually draws on the Synoptic Gospels as source material -- not to provide a clear narrative, but to assemble an enigmatic collection of mysterious, pithy sayings to unnerve and affect the reader. Goodacre supports his argument with illuminating analyses and careful comparisons of Thomas with Matthew and Luke. Watch the trailer:
Download or read book The Lost Books of the Bible and The Forgotten Books of Eden written by Rutherford Hayes Platt and published by Nelson Bibles. This book was released on 1927 with total page 660 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Presented here are two volumes of apocryphal writings reflecting the life and time of the Old and New Testaments. Stories told by contemporary fiction writers of historical Bible times in fascinating and beautiful style.
Download or read book The Gnostics written by Tobias Churton and published by Barnes & Noble Publishing. This book was released on 1997 with total page 216 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Greek word 'gnosis' means knowledge; the Gnostics themselves used it to refer to the spiritual knowledge they believed would redeem them from what they regarded as the inherent evil of the material universe. As a mystical alternative tradition within Christianity, Gnosticism suffered the hostility of the official church and, as a result, remains largely unknown or misunderstood to this day.
Download or read book Gospel Writing written by Francis Watson and published by Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing. This book was released on 2013-05-26 with total page 680 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: That there are four canonical versions of the one gospel story is often seen as a problem for Christian faith: where gospels multiply, so too do apparent contradictions that may seem to undermine their truth claims. In Gospel Writing Francis Watson argues that differences and tensions between canonical gospels represent opportunities for theological reflection, not problems for apologetics. Watson presents the formation of the fourfold gospel as the defining moment in the reception of early gospel literature -- and also of Jesus himself as the subject matter of that literature. As the canonical division sets four gospel texts alongside one another, the canon also creates a new, complex, textual entity more than the sum of its parts. A canonical gospel can no longer be regarded as a definitive, self-sufficient account of its subject matter. It must play its part within an intricate fourfold polyphony, and its meaning and significance are thereby transformed. In elaborating these claims, Watson proposes nothing less than a new paradigm for gospel studies — one that engages fully with the available noncanonical material so as to illuminate the historical and theological significance of the canonical.
