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The Gnostic Gospels

by Elaine Pagels

I've had this book on my list since reading The DaVinci Code. Not that I'm looking for any justification of the conspiracy posited by the Code, but that book made me a little curious about early Christians and the alternative interpretations of Christ's story.

For those who are similarly curious, Pagels' book is a great place to start. She describes the founding of the established Christian by laying out the issues that divided the early Christians. The Gnostics distinguished themselves from the orthodox groups in their adherence to the concept of gnosis, a particular form of knowledge:

gnosis is not primarily rational knowledge. The Greek language distinguishes between scientific or reflective knowledge ("He knows mathematics") and knowing through observation or experience ("He knows me"), which is gnosis. As the gnostics use the term, we could translate it as "insight," for gnosis involves an intuitive process of knowing oneself. And to know oneself, they claimed, is to know human nature and human destiny.

Only by having this deep understanding of human nature could a person truly understand God and Christ's teachings. This differed sharply from the orthodox churches who (a) promoted the role of bishops and church leaders as the primary conduit of God's teaching and (b) accepting as members of the church body anyone willing to accept the bishop's authority and proclaim a basic faith (i.e., the Apostle's Creed).

In each chapter of her book, Pagels focusses on a single issue of contention between the orthodox and gnostic view and shows how the struggle over these ideas profoundly shaped the course of Western thought and culture for centuries to come.

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