Product Description

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.”

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #31201 in Books
• Published on: 2004-05-04
• Released on: 2004-05-04
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 272 pages

Amazon.com
Shortly after Elaine Pagels’ two-and-half-year-old son was diagnosed with a rare lung disease, the religion professor found herself drawn to a Christian church again for the first time in many years. In Beyond Belief: The Secret Gospel of Thomas Pagels, best know for her National Book Award-winning The Gnostic Gospels, wrestles with her own faith as she struggles to understand when--and why--Christianity became associated almost exclusively with the ideas codified in the fourth-century Nicene Creed and in the canonical texts of the New Testament. In her exploration, she uncovers the richness and diversity of Christian philosophy that has only become available since the discovery of the Nag Hammadi texts.

At the center of Beyond Belief is what Pagels identifies as a textual battle between The Gospel of Thomas (rediscovered in Egypt in 1945) and The Gospel of John. While these gospels have many superficial similarities, Pagels demonstrates that John, unlike Thomas, declares that Jesus is equivalent to "God the Father" as identified in the Old Testament. Thomas, in contrast, shares with other supposed secret teachings a belief that Jesus is not God but, rather, is a teacher who seeks to uncover the divine light in all human beings. Pagels then shows how the Gospel of John was used by Bishop Irenaeus of Lyon and others to define orthodoxy during the second and third centuries. The secret teachings were literally driven underground, disappearing until the Twentieth Century. As Pagels argues this process "not only impoverished the churches that remained but also impoverished those [Irenaeus] expelled."

Beyond Belief offers a profound framework with which to examine Christian history and contemporary Christian faith, and Pagels renders her scholarship in a highly readable narrative. The one deficiency in Pagels’ examination of Thomas, if there is one, is that she never fully returns in the end to her own struggles with religion that so poignantly open the book. How has the mysticism of the Gnostic Gospels affected her? While she hints that she and others have found new pathways to faith through Thomas, the impact of Pagels’ work on contemporary Christianity may not be understood for years to come. --Patrick O’Kelley

From Publishers Weekly
In this majestic new book, Pagels (The Gnostic Gospels) ranges panoramically over the history of early Christianity, demonstrating the religion's initial tremendous diversity and its narrowing to include only certain texts supporting certain beliefs. At the center of her book is the conflict between the gospels of John and Thomas. Reading these gospels closely, she shows that Thomas offered readers a message of spiritual enlightenment. Rather than promoting Jesus as the only light of the world, Thomas taught individuals that "there is a light within each person, and it lights up the whole universe. If it does not shine, there is darkness." As she eloquently and provocatively argues, the author of John wrote his gospel as a refutation of Thomas, portraying the disciple Thomas as a fool when he doubts Jesus, and Jesus as the only true light of the world. Pagels goes on to demonstrate that the early Christian writer Irenaeus promoted John as the true gospel while he excluded Thomas, and a host of other early gospels, from the list of those texts that he considered authoritative. His list became the basis for the New Testament canon when it was fixed in 357. Pagels suggests that we recover Thomas as a way of embracing the glorious diversity of religious tradition. As she elegantly contends, religion is not merely an assent to a set of beliefs, but a rich, multifaceted fabric of teachings and experiences that connect us with the divine. Exhilarating reading, Pagels's book offers a model of careful and thoughtful scholarship in the lively and exciting prose of a good mystery writer.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From AudioFile
A Princeton religion professor and author of scholarly books on the Bible brings the story of Thomas's gospel to bear on the historical issues that were contested during the early centuries of Christianity. Discover-ed in a cave 60 years ago, Thomas's Gospel contradicted the gospel of John and portrayed a Christianity that was too ambiguous about Jesus's divinity and too populist for the doctrinaire Catholic hierarchy. Lyrical writing and fascinating historical details make this an enchanting and compelling look at early church politics. A must hear for listeners wanting uncensored history and more flexibility in their own discernment of what Jesus can teach us about the spiritual life. T.W. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award © AudioFile 2004, Portland, Maine-- Copyright © AudioFile, Portland, Maine

Customer Reviews

A jewel of intellectual and spiritual enlightenment
I try very hard to read 12 books each year, and there are so many to choose from that narrowing down my annual list is difficult. Elaine Pagels Book "Beyond Belief" was released in 2003, but did not get onto my own book reading to-do list for 3 years, by which time it was surprisingly gone from bookstore shelves. Fortunately, I was able to pick up a used copy here at Amazon. Absolutely sensational, is how I would describe this book, exceeding Elaine's well deserved reputation as researcher, historian and author of the early epoch of Christianity. John Traveler puts it best in his own review of this book on Helium.com "I can promise you this: that whether your appetite is theological, philosophical, spiritual or intellectual, Elaine Pagels and Beyond Belief will not let you down but may leave you hungry for more."

Great Author
I loving learning all I can about the time of Jesus. Elaine Pagels is a great author. I highly recommend this CD set.

Excellent work
As with all of Ms. Pagels' books, this is an excellent work. This book reviews the significance of one of the books of early Christianity that was excluded from the Bible, because it did not follow the general theme and orthodoxy that was deemed to be acceptable by the council at Nicene. This is a review of the Gospel of St. Thomas. The Gospel of St. Thomas is an early Christian Gnostic work. According to the work, St. Thomas was a favored disciple of Jesus. After Jesus' death, Thomas went on a mission to India and found a deeper spirituality through meditation and introspection. This book deals with the differences between the Gnostic viewpoints put forward in The Gospel of St. Thomas and the accepted books of the Bible, in particular the Gospel of St. John.