The Gnostics

The Gnostics PDF Author: David Brakke
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 0674058895
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 181

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Book Description
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.

The Gnostics

The Gnostics PDF Author: David Brakke
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 0674058895
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 181

Get Book Here

Book Description
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.

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.

Gnostic Truth and Christian Heresy

Gnostic Truth and Christian Heresy PDF Author: A. H. B. Logan
Publisher: A&C Black
ISBN: 9780567097330
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 414

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Book Description


The Rediscovery of Gnosticism (2 vols.)

The Rediscovery of Gnosticism (2 vols.) PDF Author: Bentley Layton
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9004378596
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 926

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Book Description
Preliminary Material /Bentley Layton -- The Domestication of Gnosis /Henry Chadwick -- Gnosis and Psychology /Gilles Quispel -- The Challenge of Gnostic Thought for Philosophy, Alchemy, and Literature /Carsten Colpe -- Lying Against Time: Gnosis, Poetry, Criticism /Harold Bloom -- In Search of Valentinus /G. C. Stead -- Religio-Historical Observations on Valentinianism /Ugo Bianchi -- Valentinian Gnosis and the Apocryphon of John /Gilles Quispel -- Valentinianism and the Gospel of Truth /R. McL. Wilson -- The Dog and the Mushrooms /Rowan A. Greer -- Self-Generating Principles in Second-Century Gnostic Systems /John Whittaker -- La Gnose Valentinienne et les Oracles Chaldaïques /Michel Tardieu -- Gnostic Writings as Witnesses for the Development of the Sayings Tradition /Helmut Koester -- Gnostic and Orthodox views of Christ's Passion: Paradigms for the Christian's Response to Persecution? /Elaine H. Pagels -- Gnosis and the Piety of Metaphor: The Gospel of Truth /Joel Fineman -- Gnosis und Christentum /Barbara Aland -- Concluding Discussion -- The Descent of the Soul in Middle Platonic and Gnostic Theory /John Dillon -- Gnosticism and the Making of the World in Plotinus /Dominic J. O'meara -- Gnostic Monism and the Gospel of Truth /William R. Schoedel -- Valentinisme italien et valentinisme oriental: leurs divergences à propos de la nature du corps de Jésus /Jean-Daniel Kaestli -- Conflicting Versions of Valentinianism? Irenaeus and the Excerpta ex Theodoto /James F. Mccue -- Les «Mythes» Valentiniens de la création et de l'eschatologie dans le langage d'Origène: le mot hypothesis /Marguerite Harl -- «Vraie» et «fausse» gnose d'après Clément d'Alexandrie /Andre Mehat -- Did Gnostics Make Pictures? /Paul Corby Finney -- Preliminary Material /Bentley Layton -- Philo on Seth /Robert Kraft -- Report on Seth Traditions in the Armenian Adam Books /Michael E. Stone -- The Figure of Seth in Gnostic Literature /Birger A. Pearson -- Discussion /Bentley Layton -- Some Related Traditions in the Apocalypse of Adam, the Books of Adam and eve, and 1 Enoch /George W. E. Nickelsburg -- Sethian and Zoroastrian Ages of the World /Carsten Colpe -- Discussion /Bentley Layton -- Stalking Those Elusive Sethians /Frederik Wisse -- Die “Sethianische” Gnosis--Eine häresiologische Fiktion? /Kurt Rudolph -- Discussion /Bentley Layton -- The Phenomenon and Significance of Gnostic Sethianism /Hans-Martin Schenke -- Triade uno Trinität in den Schriften von Nag Hammadi /Alexander Böhlig -- Discussion /Bentley Layton -- Sethians and Johannine Thought /James M. Robinson -- Discussion /Bentley Layton -- Concluding Discussion /Bentley Layton -- The Arrogant Archon and the Lewd Sophia /Nils A. Dahl -- Aspects of the Jewish-Gnostic Controversy /Ithamar Gruenwald -- Literary Criticism of the Cologne Mani Codex /Albert Henrichs -- From Baptism to the Gnosis of Manichaeism /Ludwig Koenen -- Gnostic Instructions on the Organization of the Congregation /Klaus Koschorke -- The Naassene Psalm in Hippolytus (Haer. 5. 10.2) /M. Marcovich -- Le cadre scolaire des traités de l'Ame et le Deuxième Traité du Grand Seth (CG VII, 2) /Louis Painchaud.

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.

The Gnostic Jung and the Seven Sermons to the Dead

The Gnostic Jung and the Seven Sermons to the Dead PDF Author: Stephan A Hoeller
Publisher: Quest Books
ISBN: 0835630242
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 269

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Book Description
Jungian psychology based on a little known treatise he authored in his earlier years.

The Gnostic Jung

The Gnostic Jung PDF Author: C.G. Jung
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317761960
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 284

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Book Description
Gnosticism was for C.G. jung the chief prefiguration of his analytical psychology. In this volume Robert Segal, an authority on theories of myth and Gnosticism, has searched the Jungian corpus for Jung's main discussions of this ancient form of spirituality. The progression in Gnosticism from sheer bodily existence to the release of the immaterial spark imprisoned in the body - and the reunion of that spark with the godhead - represents for Jung the psychological progression from ego consciousness to the ego's rediscovery of the unconscious, and the ego's integration with the unconscious to forge the self. Included in this volume are both Jung's sole work devoted entirely to Gnosticism, "Gnostic Symbols of the Self," and his own Gnostic myth, "Seven Sermons to the Dead." The book also contains key essays by Father Victor White and Gilles Quispel, whose "C.G. Jung und die Gnosis" is here translated for the first time. In his extensive introduction Segal discusses the parallel for Jung between ancient Gnostic and contemporary Jungian patients, the Jungian meaning of Gnostic myths and of the Seven Sermons, Jung's possible misinterpretation of Gnosticism, and the common characterization of Jung himself as a Gnostic.

George W.E. Nickelsburg in Perspective, vol. 1

George W.E. Nickelsburg in Perspective, vol. 1 PDF Author: Jacob Neusner
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9004531300
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 327

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Book Description
In these volumes we pays tribute to George W.E. Nickelsburg through acts of engaged, critical scholarship, in which specialists reread articles reproduced in these pages and respond to them, with Nickelsburg then joining issue—a protracted engagement, spanning an entire intellectual career and many of its more important moments. The print edition is available as a set of two volumes (9789004129870).

Gnostic Return in Modernity

Gnostic Return in Modernity PDF Author: Cyril O'Regan
Publisher: SUNY Press
ISBN: 9780791450215
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 326

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Book Description
Gnostic Return in Modernity demonstrates the possibility that Gnosticism haunts certain modern discourses. Studying Gnosticism of the first centuries of the common era and utilizing narrative analysis, the author shows how Gnosticism returns in a select b

The Codex Judas Papers

The Codex Judas Papers PDF Author: April D. DeConick
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9004181407
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 672

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Book Description
This book contains the proceedings from the Codex Judas Congress, the first international conference held to discuss the newly-restored Tchacos Codex. Given that the Tchacos Codex is a newly-conserved ancient book of Christian manuscripts which had yet to be discussed collaboratively by a body of scholars, the research conducted and published within this book by the members of the Codex Judas Congress is nothing less than a landmark in Gnostic studies. Scholars address issues of identity and community, portraits of Judas, astrological lore, salvation and praxis, text and intertext, and manuscript matters. Although the contributions show a variety of interpretations of the Tchacos texts, several points of agreement emerge, including the assessment that the Codex belonged to early Christians in conflict with other Christians who belonged to the apostolic or conventional church. Contributors include: Grant Adamson, Johanna Brankaer, Fernando Bermejo Rubio, Serge Cazelais, April D. DeConick, Ismo Dunderberg, Niclas Förster, Wolf-Peter Funk, Simon Gathercole, Matteo Grosso, Lance Jenott, Karen King, Nicola Denzey Lewis, Alastair Logan, Antti Marjanen, Marvin Meyer, Elaine Pagels, Birger A. Pearson, Pierluigi Piovanelli, James M. Robinson, Gesine Schenke Robinson, Kevin Sullivan, Franklin Trammel, Johannes van Oort, Bas van Os, Louis Painchaud, Tage Petersen, John D. Turner, and Gregor Wurst.