![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
uberreinigerI have wanted to read this book for a long time. Recently Mel was kind enough to check out the audiobook for me. Gnosticism has long interested me. The patchwork of information I had on it formed the basis for the fictional church I created while writing Apocalypse Woman - essentially what the medieval Catholic church might have looked like had it acknowledged the Gnostic tennet of the divine feminine. Reading about actual gnosticism, however, I'm finding that the much-talked about divine feminine concept was simply one part of a very diverse set of beliefs, and not necessarily a very large one at that.
I once heard it summed up that during the early days of the Christian church you had Paulinism (what most people would recognize as Christian doctrine today,) on one end of the spectrum, Arianism on the other, and Gnosticism tended to comprise most of what was in the middle. Pagels, through the writings of early anti-Gnostic church leaders such as Iraneus and Tertullian, and the writings of the Gnostics themselves, pretty much reveals this to be more or less true. Apparently the key difference between Gnostics and mainstream Christians (and one thing that the various strains of Gnosticism apparently had in common,) is that Gnostics did not believe in the bodily resurrection of Jesus Christ, but saw it as a transcendence of physical reality. To support this Pagels points out scenes from the four traditional gospels such as him having the ability to make the apostles not recognize him following his resurrection and to disappear in the blink of an eye. Personally, I think this displays a sad lack of imagination on Pagels part, (if the actual Gnostics themselves used these Biblical scenes to support their beliefs I haven't gotten to it yet.) I mean, as far as I'm concerned if the guy can resurrect, he can do whatever he wants - including do super spirit teleportation WHILE HAVING A PHYSICAL BODY. Oh well. The book does make an interesting point about how the doctrine of the bodily resurrection was subtley used to reinforce the notion of a papal structure.
I'm only two discs into the book so far. It's very interesting, although I do think I'm not finding in Gnosticism what I'd hoped to find. I believe the Gnostics were hurt by their refusal to codefy their beliefs - the very thing they believed made them strong vs. the codefied (and from their viewpoint, controlled,) mainstream Christians. I'm getting the impression that as is often the case both sides were half right and if they could have just swallowed their pride and put both halves together everything would have been fine. I've still got a lot of book to go, however, so who knows where I'll end up in my views by then. It's interesting.
x-posted to![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
tq_kimber. 'Cause you know. Any excuse to talk about my writing.
I once heard it summed up that during the early days of the Christian church you had Paulinism (what most people would recognize as Christian doctrine today,) on one end of the spectrum, Arianism on the other, and Gnosticism tended to comprise most of what was in the middle. Pagels, through the writings of early anti-Gnostic church leaders such as Iraneus and Tertullian, and the writings of the Gnostics themselves, pretty much reveals this to be more or less true. Apparently the key difference between Gnostics and mainstream Christians (and one thing that the various strains of Gnosticism apparently had in common,) is that Gnostics did not believe in the bodily resurrection of Jesus Christ, but saw it as a transcendence of physical reality. To support this Pagels points out scenes from the four traditional gospels such as him having the ability to make the apostles not recognize him following his resurrection and to disappear in the blink of an eye. Personally, I think this displays a sad lack of imagination on Pagels part, (if the actual Gnostics themselves used these Biblical scenes to support their beliefs I haven't gotten to it yet.) I mean, as far as I'm concerned if the guy can resurrect, he can do whatever he wants - including do super spirit teleportation WHILE HAVING A PHYSICAL BODY. Oh well. The book does make an interesting point about how the doctrine of the bodily resurrection was subtley used to reinforce the notion of a papal structure.
I'm only two discs into the book so far. It's very interesting, although I do think I'm not finding in Gnosticism what I'd hoped to find. I believe the Gnostics were hurt by their refusal to codefy their beliefs - the very thing they believed made them strong vs. the codefied (and from their viewpoint, controlled,) mainstream Christians. I'm getting the impression that as is often the case both sides were half right and if they could have just swallowed their pride and put both halves together everything would have been fine. I've still got a lot of book to go, however, so who knows where I'll end up in my views by then. It's interesting.
x-posted to
tq_kimber. 'Cause you know. Any excuse to talk about my writing.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2007-02-20 04:19 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-02-21 06:16 am (UTC)Gnostic Gnosh
Date: 2007-02-22 02:19 pm (UTC)A+ on your book report so far.
no subject
Date: 2007-02-24 03:35 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-02-25 12:04 am (UTC)