Author: Elaine Pagels
At a recent social gathering one of my friends mentioned the Gnostic Gospels and a potential link to Indian religions. I was reading Reza Aslan's "Zealot" at the time and was intrigued with this possibility. I scoured the internet to find a book that would enlighten me on this prospect and Elaine Pagel's book was highly acclaimed. I have to confess that I had high expectations when I started reading this book and was quickly disappointed as much of this was covered in Reza's highly readable book. Elaine writes a scholarly treatise on the gospels that were unearthed in Nag Hammadi. It offers clear proof that early Christianity -- if you may even call it that -- was not a united religion. There were folks with divergent views. The Gnostics emphasized self-knowledge above worship of divine powers and bears much similarity with some Asian religions. I was hoping to find out more about who influenced whom, and that is not clear from this book. Read this only if you are a religious scholar, or wanna-be.
At a recent social gathering one of my friends mentioned the Gnostic Gospels and a potential link to Indian religions. I was reading Reza Aslan's "Zealot" at the time and was intrigued with this possibility. I scoured the internet to find a book that would enlighten me on this prospect and Elaine Pagel's book was highly acclaimed. I have to confess that I had high expectations when I started reading this book and was quickly disappointed as much of this was covered in Reza's highly readable book. Elaine writes a scholarly treatise on the gospels that were unearthed in Nag Hammadi. It offers clear proof that early Christianity -- if you may even call it that -- was not a united religion. There were folks with divergent views. The Gnostics emphasized self-knowledge above worship of divine powers and bears much similarity with some Asian religions. I was hoping to find out more about who influenced whom, and that is not clear from this book. Read this only if you are a religious scholar, or wanna-be.
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