Beyond Belief: The Secret Gospel Of Thomas

Beyond Belief: The Secret Gospel Of Thomas

InBeyond 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.?Review?Pagels has accomplished a very rare thing, an examination of early religious writings that is a good read, accessible, and at times even dramatic and poignant.? -The Columbus Dispatch?This remarkable book will stir and provoke thought. It offers rewards to any reader concerned with the promise and power of faith, and the hunger for spiritual discovery.? -The Christian Science Monitor?Lucid . . . a spiritual as well as an intellectual exercise. . . . [Pagels] seems to rejoice that in the earliest years of Christianity there existed these strange, dissident doctrines.? -Frank Kermode,The New York Times Book Review"With the winning combination of sound scholarship, deep insight and a crystal clear prose style . . . [Beyond Belief] portrays the rich and beautiful heritage that was lost when champions of religious orthodoxy turned on many of their fellow Christians and declared them 'heretics'." -Los Angeles Times?Brilliantly lucid, elegantly written . . . [Pagels?] book is so readable you can?t put it down.? -Providence Journal-Bulletin?Just as topical today as it was nearly two thousand years ago. . . . Pagels is great at pulling together the details that allow us to understand not only what people were arguing about but why.? -San Jose Mercury News?Majestic. . . . Exhilarating reading, Pagel?s book offers a model of careful and thoughtful scholarship in the lively and exciting prose of a mystery writer.? -Publishers Weekly?This luminous and accessible history of early Christian thought offers profound and crucial insights on the nature of God, revelation, and what we mean by religious truth.? -Karen Armstong?As relevant as today's front page.? -The Washington Post Book WorldFrom the Inside FlapSpecial edition including the complete text of the Gospel of ThomasElaine Pagels, one of the world?s most important writers and thinkers on religion and history, and winner of the National Book Award for her groundbreaking workThe Gnostic Gospels, now reflects on what matters most about spiritual and religious exploration in the twenty-first century. This bold new book explores how Christianity began by tracing its earliest texts, including the secret Gospel of Thomas, rediscovered in Egypt in 1945.When her infant son was diagnosed with fatal pulmonary hypertension, Elaine Pagels?s spiritual and intellectual quest took on a new urgency, leading her to explore historical and archeological sources and to investigate what Jesus and his teachings meant to his followers before the invention of doctrine?and before the invention of Christianity as we know it.The astonishing discovery of the Gospel of Thomas, along with more than fifty other early Christian texts unknown since antiquity, offers startling clues. Pagels compares such sources as Thomas?s gospel (which claims to give Jesus? secret teaching, and finds its closest affinities with kabbalah) with the canonic texts to show how Christian leaders chose to include some gospels and exclude others from the collection we have come to know as the New Testament. To stabilize the emerging Christian church in times of devastating persecution, the church fathers constructed the canon, creed, and hierarchy?and, in the process, suppressed many of its spiritual res