The Gnostic Religion

The Gnostic Religion PDF Author: Hans Jonas
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
ISBN: 9780415080200
Category : Gnosticism
Languages : en
Pages : 358

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Book Description

The Gnostic Religion

The Gnostic Religion PDF Author: Hans Jonas
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
ISBN: 9780415080200
Category : Gnosticism
Languages : en
Pages : 358

Get Book Here

Book Description


The Gnostic New Age

The Gnostic New Age PDF Author: April D. DeConick
Publisher: Columbia University Press
ISBN: 0231542046
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 515

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Book Description
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.

Gnostic Religion in Antiquity

Gnostic Religion in Antiquity PDF Author: R. van den Broek
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1107031370
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 267

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Book Description
An examination of Gnostic religion in Late Antiquity within its historical and religious context, using Greek, Latin and Coptic sources.

What is Gnosticism?

What is Gnosticism? PDF Author: Karen L. King
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 9780674017627
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 372

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Book Description
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.

Gnosticism and the History of Religions

Gnosticism and the History of Religions PDF Author: David G. Robertson
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1350137715
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 239

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Book Description
Building on critical work in biblical studies, which shows how a historically-bounded heretical tradition called Gnosticism was 'invented', this work focuses on the following stage in which it was “essentialised” into a sui generis, universal category of religion. At the same time, it shows how Gnosticism became a religious self-identifier, with a number of sizable contemporary groups identifying as Gnostics today, drawing on the same discourses. This book provides a history of this problematic category, and its relationship with scholarly and popular discourse on religion in the twentieth century. It uses a critical-historical method to show how and why Gnosis, Gnostic and Gnosticism were taken up by specific groups and individuals – practitioners and scholars – at different times. It shows how ideas about Gnosticism developed in late nineteenth- and twentieth-century scholarship, drawing from continental phenomenology, Jungian psychology and post-Holocaust theology, to be constructed as a perennial religious current based on special knowledge of the divine in a corrupt world. David G. Robertson challenges how scholars interact with the category Gnosticism, and contributes to our understanding of the complex relationship between primary sources, academics and practitioners in category formation.

The Gnostic Gospels

The Gnostic Gospels PDF Author: Elaine Pagels
Publisher: Random House
ISBN: 1588364178
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 250

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Book Description
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.

The Gnostic World

The Gnostic World PDF Author: Garry W. Trompf
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317201841
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 833

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Book Description
The Gnostic World is an outstanding guide to Gnosticism, written by a distinguished international team of experts to explore Gnostic movements from the distant past until today. These themes are examined across sixty-seven chapters in a variety of contexts, from the ancient pre-Christian to the contemporary. The volume considers the intersection of Gnosticism with Jewish, Christian, Islamic and Indic practices and beliefs, and also with new religious movements, such as Theosophy, Scientology, Western Sufism, and the Nation of Islam. This comprehensive handbook will be an invaluable resource for religious studies students, scholars, and researchers of Gnostic doctrine and history.

The Gnostic Bible

The Gnostic Bible PDF Author: Willis Barnstone
Publisher: Shambhala Publications
ISBN: 1590301994
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 874

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Book Description
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.

Gnosis

Gnosis PDF Author: Kurt Rudolph
Publisher: A&C Black
ISBN: 9780567086402
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 438

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Book Description
Translated by R. McL. WilsonA full-scale study based on the documents of the Coptic Gnostic library found at Nag Hammadi providing a comprehensive survey of the nature, the teachings, the history and the influence of this religion.

Gnosticism

Gnosticism PDF Author: Stephan A Hoeller
Publisher: Quest Books
ISBN: 0835630137
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 271

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Book Description
Gnosticism developed alongside Judeo-Christianity over two thousand years ago, but with an important difference: It emphasizes, not faith, but direct perception of God--Gnosticism being derived from the Greek word gnosis, meaning "knowledge." Given the controversial premise that one can know God directly, the history of Gnosticism is an unfolding drama of passion, political intrigue, martyrdom, and mystery. Dr. Hoeller traces this fascinating story throughout time and shows how Gnosticism has inspired such great thinkers as Voltaire, Blake, Yeats, Hesse, Melville, and Jung.