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Beyond Belief : Secret Gospel of Thomas by Elaine Pagels. Vintage Books,2003
- Sales Rank: #3962783 in Books
- Published on: 2003
- Binding: Paperback
Most helpful customer reviews
144 of 155 people found the following review helpful.
Fascinating look at the early Christian writings and history
By Kindle Customer
Elaine Pagels is an exceptionally engaging writer with a talent for locating and explaining hidden wisdom. She wrote an earlier book, "The Gnostic Gospels: A New Account of the Origins of Christianity," that brilliantly summarized the ancient and rambling Nag Hammadi texts, which describe the teachings of Jesus as captured by early Christian writers. In "Beyond Belief," a title that addresses the audience she wishes to reach, Pagels examines more closely these ancient texts and how they compare to the four gospels. She focus on the "Gospel of Thomas" (90 ce) comparing it to the Gospel of John (100 ce) and current christian beliefs about the teachings of Jesus.
"Beyond Belief" is intensely interesting to the right audience. It is part gospel analysis, which she translates from ancient Greek, part early Christian history and part personal story meant to provide context in understanding the beauty of modern Christianity. One audience for this book is those seeking to understand factually what Jesus taught and what happened to Christianity in the early centuries following his death (30 ce) and how the Gospel of Thomas can shed light on that understanding.
But another audience, the one for whom this book will resonate most deeply, are readers with an intuitive grasp of "transcendence" and the teachings of Jesus that verify the union that can be experienced between God and man. This is what Saint John of the Cross referred to when he wrote "All and Nothing." ("Here I stand alone transcending all knowledge"). Pagels points out that this experience is taught by Jesus in the Gospel of Thomas and expressed in the Vedic literature of India. ("I am That"). It is found in the writings from many religious traditions. One Catholic University scholar has compared the description of the higher states of consciousness from the Upanishads to the rooms described by Saint Theresa of Avila in her "Interior Castle"(Seven states of consciousness; seven rooms in the castle).
There is no doubt that saints the world over have written of union with God. The Christian tradition is no exception (read Alan Watts, "The Supreme Identity."): "It seemed to me, as if [my soul] was wholly and altogether passed into its God, to make but one and the same thing with Him; even as a little drop of water, cast into the sea, receives the qualities of the sea. Oh, union of unity, demanded of God by Jesus Christ for men and merited by him!" -Jeanne-Marie Bouvier de la Motte-Guyon. Or "Blessedness consists primarily in the fact that the soul sees God in herself. Only in God's knowledge does she become wholly still. Therefore it is in Oneness that God is found and they who would find God must themselves become One." And the famous "My eye and God's eye are one eye, one seeing, one knowing, one love." -Meister Eckhart.
I wonder sometimes how we got from these sublime expressions to the crap that is dispensed by our Churches. Nobody explains this better than Pagels. She attempts to explain why, if the experience of union with God is universal, it is not prominently recognized in the four gospels and most Christian teaching.
The problem, Pagels explains as she accounts for the development of early church othodoxy, is that the apostles and the early Christian writers built Church teaching upon revelation and visions. "Without visions and revelations, the Christian movement would not have begun. But who can tell the holy spirit when to stop?..."And when so many people--some of them rivals and even antagonists--all claim to to be divinely inspired, who knows who has the spirit and who does not? She claims that Irenaeus, the promoter of the four gospels, and only those four, was confronted not by "a lack of spiritual revelation but an overwhelming surplus. 'How' he asked 'can we tell the difference between the word of God and mere human words?'" It is in this climate the first attempt to unify Christian believers began.
Hericlitus, the great Greek philosopher, said "All is One." If you recognize the wisdom of this ancient expression and you understand that, consciousness, the source of thought, is divine and that the inner experience of Jesus is available to all, you will enjoy this book. Jesus says in Thomas "I am all: From me all came forth, and to me all attained. Split a piece of wood; I am there. Lift up the stone, and you will find me there.". Or in the words of the Vedas "I am That, Thou art That, All this is That."
Understanding the Transcendent may be the key to appreciating this book. I had been practicing meditation for only about seven years when I discovered Pagels' first book over twenty years ago. The Gospel of Thomas and these gnostic writings from the earliest christians resonated immediately for I could validate it by my experience. Pagels quotes the gospel of Mary Magdalene, "The Son of Man is within you."
In the end, the orthodox view, the Church view, prevailed and the Gnostic writings were suppressed. Perhaps for this reason Hericlitus had another saying for which he was known: "People who follow religions are like cattle."
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful.
Sort of about the Gospel of Thomas
By Christopher Nelson
A pretty good, but light and unfocused introduction to the Gospel of Thomas (which hardly achieves the right to the book's subtitle). Pagels never seems to commit to her declared topic, and comes off "too unbiased" in my opinion. Her research contributes to gnostic studies in almost revolutionary ways, but she never seems to realize the magnitude of her subject matter, and takes an irritatingly bland middle-ground throughout. Is she a modern gnostic or not?
I liked Pagel's earlier book on "The Gnostic Gospels" better, and was expecting a more detailed, in-depth discussion of the Thomas gospel in this brief tome. For the lay-reader and simply curious, this is a decent starting point. If you're looking for more details about gnosticism, she has contemporary recommendations of more recent publications in her bibliography. Personally, I'd highly recommend the following: "Gnosis", by Kurt Rudolph; "The Gnostic Religion," by Hans Jonas, & the older, more obscure "Fragments of a Faith Forgotten," by GRS Mead. And, of course, the actual Nag Hammadi Library printed & edited by James Robinson is "the source" (along with the syntopic Bible).
As for "Beyond Belief", I have to agree with the reviewer responding to "Peculiar Reviewers" in that there are a handful of seemingly offended people out there who just don't get it when it comes to what gnosticism represents. It's very much alive and growing world-wide, and many would argue that it's never really disappeared, only taken on new forms. Pagels illustrates more specifically where and how Catholicism as we know it today came to be, and on what foundations (by ignoring discrepencies between many so-called "gnostic" texts in favor of the gospel of John, Matthew, Mark and Luke). She focuses more on John and its similarities and differences with the discarded Thomas gospel, which didn't jibe with the political direction the early church fathers such as Irenaeus were pushing so hard for.
"Beyond Belief" seems to really be a blend of biblical history, and Pagel's personal philosophy of "practicing" faith instead of simply "believing"; or reading about it. Jesus would be proud.
0 of 0 people found the following review helpful.
She is a fine and lucid writer
By Andrew Dickos
Elaine Pagels is one of the true guideposts for spirtitual Christian exploration. As an accomplished religion scholar, her examination of early church history has been cogently applied to the personal experiences that have shaped her life and approach to faith. She is a fine and lucid writer, and I've learned much from her.
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