Posted by Karen on: 04.03.2007 /
Religious historian and gnostic gospels expert Elaine Pagels did an interview this week over at Salon.com:
As always, she’s thoughtful and controversial. A few excerpts that I found particularly interesting:
Q: Can you put the Gospel of Judas in perspective, alongside some of the other Gnostic texts that have come to light in recent decades — the Gospel of Thomas, the Gospel of Mary Magdalene? Do these really change our understanding of early Christianity?
A: Before, we had a puzzle with just a few pieces. Now we have many more pieces. We begin to see that in the early Christian movement, people discussed and struggled with all the issues that we now think of as normative Christianity, like, What does the death of Jesus mean? There wasn’t one kind of understanding of Jesus in the early Christian movement. Actually, there were many.
Q: In recent years, there’s been a huge debate over what to make of the Gnostic Gospels. And plenty of Christian scholars and theologians say there’s good reason they were not admitted into the Christian canon. They say the Bible presents the most reliable story of Jesus based on eyewitness accounts. For instance, Ben Witherington has written, “The four canonical gospels have stood the test of time and other apocryphal gospels and texts have not … This is because the canonical gospels are our earliest gospels and have actual historical substance, while the later gospels have none.”
A: Well, Witherington has a particular point of view to prove. I would say it’s very hard to date these other texts. Some of them are as early as the gospels of the New Testament, like the Gospel of John. But what’s different is the emphasis. Let me give you an example. The Gospel of Thomas says that all who recognize that they come from God are also children of God, instead of teaching that Jesus is the only son of God through whom one must be saved. It’s a teaching that is akin to what the Quakers and some other Christian groups teach, including some Greek and Russian Orthodox groups. The divine is to be found in everyone, and we can discover, at some level, that we’re like Christ. It’s not a complete contradiction, but it is somewhat different.
She also talks about how she is a Christian herself:
Q: This has huge implications for so many people today, especially those who simply can’t accept these kinds of miracles. It does raise the question of whether you can be a Christian if you don’t believe any of the Bible’s supernatural stories.
A: I don’t think you have to discard all the supernatural stories. The Bible is really about what is beyond the natural. But there are other ways of understanding. For example, the Gospel of Philip, which some people called a heretical text, actually says Jesus had human parents as you and I do. His parents were Mary and Joseph. But when he was born of the spirit, he became the son of the Heavenly Father and the Holy Spirit. In Syriac and Hebrew, the spirit is spoken of in feminine forms, so metaphorically, one could speak of her as a divine mother, just as one speaks of God as a divine father. So there are Christians who didn’t reject the Virgin Birth, but said wait a minute, why would you take it literally? Why don’t you take it as an image for spiritual reality?
Q: You have spent decades studying early Christian history. Do you consider yourself a Christian?
A: Yes, I do. And the reason I can is that I understand that there are countless people who’ve been Christians for 2,000 years, in many different ways. It’s not a matter of one version, you must believe this exactly the way I tell it to you. Christian theologians have always said that the truth of God is beyond our understanding. And so we speak in metaphors. Paul said we see through a glass darkly.
She also comments unfavorably on atheist Richard Dawkins:
Q: What do you make of the recent claim by the atheist Richard Dawkins that the existence of God is itself a scientific question? If you accept the idea that God intervenes in the physical world, don’t there have to be physical mechanisms for that to happen? Therefore, doesn’t this become a question for science?
A: Well, Dawkins loves to play village atheist. He’s such a rationalist that the God that he’s debunking is not one that most of the people I study would recognize. I mean, is there some great big person up there who made the universe out of dirt? Probably not.
Q: Are you saying that part of the problem here is the notion of a personal God? Has that become an old-fashioned view of religion?
A: I’m not so sure of that. I think the sense of actual contact with God is one that many people have experienced. But I guess it’s a question of what kind of God one has in mind.
Q: So when you think about the God that you believe in, how would you describe that God?
A: Well, I’ve learned from the texts I work on that there really aren’t words to describe God. You spoke earlier about a transcendent reality. I think it’s certainly true that these are not just fictions that we arbitrarily invent.
Biologist and atheist P.Z. Myers has criticised Pagels on his blog, referring to the beliefs of evangelical pastor Rick Warren:
This concept that Pagels finds so unlikely, that there is “some great big person up there who made the universe out of dirt” is precisely what Warren and many millions of Americans believe. I agree that it is absurd, but far from being a “village atheist”, Dawkins seems to be far more aware of what people actually believe than a professional historian of Christianity. I find myself intensely disgusted by the continued and frequent denial of the obvious by the very people who purport to be the experts on the subject — it’s as if they have their eyes firmly closed and refuse to even consider the reality of religious practice.
As someone who grew up in a fundamentalist religious tradition, with a strong belief that the bible was inerrant and divinely inspired, I find the gnostic gospels fascinating.
What do you think of Pagels’ comments? Should the gnostic gospels inform a modern understanding of Christianity, or be disregarded as heretical? Are Myers’ criticisms of Pagels unfair?
I’m taking off for spring break today, so I can’t stick around for the conversation, but I hope you’ll enjoy the interview and discuss it amongst yourselves!
Comment by: Helen
1 04/3/07 6:59 PM | Comment Link |It seems plausible to me that there have always been a variety of opinions about Jesus. I mean, when has there ever not been a variety of opinions on anything some people find significant?
I don’t have a reason to question Elaine Pagels statement that most people she studies don’t believe in a big person who made the universe of dirt. I don’t see such a statement in itself constituting a denial of the reality that many people do believe in a personal God who made the universe out of dirt so I’m not sure how PZ Myers came up with that.
Comment by: Mike Clawson
2 04/3/07 8:35 PM | Comment Link |NT Wright has an excellent little book about the Gospel of Judas and the Gnostic gospels in general. In it he is rather critical (and rightly so, IMHO) of Pagels and others who try to make more out of the Gnostic texts than is historically warranted. The Gnostic gospels can tell us a lot about the history of early Christianity and the groups that spun off from the orthodox church. However, they tell us next to nothing about Jesus himself or actual first century events. They were written far too late (2nd and 3rd Century) and have far too obvious of a Greek philosophical slant (e.g. sharp dichotomy of the material vs. spiritual worlds etc.)
As Wright puts it, what is more likely: that Jesus, who lived and died (and rose again?) as a Jew in first century Palestine, really did proclaim the obviously Jewish message described in the canonical gospels (all of which were written within 20-60 years of his death) - and that later aspects of this story was absorbed and adapted into the Greek mystery cults common to Gentiles of this era, resulting in the Gnostic gospels written 150-300 years after his death?
OR
That Jesus, the first century Jew, really did teach a Judaized version of a Greek mystery cult (that would have had almost no relevance to first century Jews whose primary longing was for liberation from Roman oppression - not for the liberation of the spirit from the confines of corrupt matter) but that somehow, within a generation of his death, the mainstream of his followers had reinterpreted his message back into a Jewish mode and managed to suppress the accounts of his true Gnostic teachings for another couple of centuries?
I suppose the second theory is possible, but frankly, I don’t find it very plausible - and yet this is the scenario that scholars like Pagels (and Bart Ehrman to name another) imply really happened. I just don’t buy it.
Just my .02…
Comment by: trissa
3 04/3/07 9:25 PM | Comment Link |Like Karen, I grew up in a fundamentalist evangelical church whose leaders believed the Bible was literal. It was not until I was 18 that I learned about the Gnostic gospels. I was shocked when I learned about the Council of Nicaea. That several people came together and arbitrarily decided which letters would and would not be included in the Bible.
At the time, I was working at a summer camp. As soon as I got home I asked my pastor about his thoughts on the Council of Nicaea and the Gnostic gospels. He told me that he believed that God gave wisdom to those on the council. He stated that I needed to have faith that the right books were in the bible.
That conservation is a large mile marker on my journey away from Christianity. Still to this day I find his answer flippant and somewhat disrespectful. Where is the honest consideration that the Gnostic gospels could provide further insight into the life of Jesus?
Comment by: Karen
4 04/3/07 9:37 PM | Comment Link |Trissa,
I only learned of the gnostic gospels a few years ago, after I’d already moved quite far from Christianity. I may have heard of them vaguely at some point earlier, but because pastors totally discounted them, I did also.
What’s fascinating to me is not necessarily whether they’re “true” or not, but just the fact that they exist at all.
The churches I attended praised the early Christians as depicted in the book of Acts for their unity and love and charity, they shared everything, they were martyred, etc. We were all supposed to emulate them and think of them with a near-reverence.
To find out that there were wildly varying ideas about Jesus, his divinity, and his message - and that there were rival sects fighting over all these things was quite a shock, for me! Is the “standard” explanation just the one that won out (history’s written by the winners) - or is it the only true depiction of Christ’s life and message? I dunno, but it’s an eye-opener to find out that that’s even a question! :-)
Comment by: Karen
5 04/3/07 9:45 PM | Comment Link |Mike, just pointing out that you are relying on dates for the writing of the canonical gospels that are earlier than some scholars date them. Here’s what Wikipedia says about the controversy over dating the gospels:
Comment by: Pete S.
6 04/3/07 10:30 PM | Comment Link |I have read the Gospel of Judas a couple times in the past year. There isn’t really anything in there that tells much about Jesus, except getting very….well….”spacey”. You may think I am merely being perjorative. Please, read it for yourself if you haven’t yet. I really have a hunch you’ll see what I mean.
The Gnostics focused on “secret knowledge” that, simply put, made them better than the other simple-minded people out there. Gnosticism was exclusive, and the writers who promoted it, with Gospels such as that attributed to Judas try to make everyone of the disciples (except Judas) as idiots and clueless—which, at times, some of the other canonical gospels allude to with far more mercy and balance. And Jesus is….well, Seth and a eon of light and…I ramble. Please, if you haven’t googled “Gospel of Judas” do so: National Geographic has a translation. If after you read it, you are impressed, then maybe you are one of the adepts and you can just wag your head at a fool and simpleton like me. Truly, I don’t see why anyone was attracted to Gnosticism. But not only could I be wrong, I could also just be ignorant (not privy to the secret knowledge.)
Comment by: Helen
7 04/4/07 3:47 AM | Comment Link |Karen wrote:
Exactly. If the Bible is true then Christians needn’t be afraid to admit that there were ‘other opinions’ around at the time of the early church. Yet it does sometimes seems like some Christians are afraid to admit it.
Comment by: Helen
8 04/4/07 3:59 AM | Comment Link |By the way, here’s another recent interview with Elaine Pagel on this and related topics:
Finding My Religion
Pete I commend you for reading it for yourself (it disappoints me when people rely on second-hand sources and impresses me when they check things out for themselves). Here’s a link to National Geographic’s translation:
The Gospel of Judas
Comment by: Mike Clawson
9 04/4/07 1:28 PM | Comment Link |Me either… maybe it’s because I studied ancient philosophy in college and got used to respecting the opinions of people several millenia my elders, but when I read stuff like the gnostic gospels I’m not just reading them for historical value. I’m asking myself whether they have merit as a worldview, whether they have anything to teach me.
And when it comes to Gnosticism, my response is “not much”. I don’t like their exclusivism, I don’t like their belief that salvation comes through knowledge, and I don’t like their whole dichotomy between evil matter and good spirit.
From a historical standpoint I find Gnosticism interesting, but as a belief system, I don’t find much that is relevant to my own life.
Comment by: Mike Clawson
10 04/4/07 1:37 PM | Comment Link |Even based on those dates listed at Wikipedia I wasn’t too far off. They give a range of ~40-80 years - which doesn’t really do much to my overall point.
Though I think I’ve already explained over at the OTM boards (was it to you or Eliza?) why I’m skeptical about the methods of higher criticism - especially when it comes to dating these books.
For instance, one of the primary reasons for dating most of the gospels after AD 70 is because of an anti-supernaturalist bias which holds that Jesus couldn’t have possibly predicted the destruction of the Temple in AD 70 prior to it actually happening and therefore the gospels must have been written after the event.
But that is just bad reasoning. Even if one doesn’t believe predictive prophecy is possible, there is still no reason to assume that Jesus couldn’t have been warning about something that was likely to happen unless the Jews turned from their rush towards violent rebellion against Rome. Indeed, that very warning is a major theme of Christ’s whole gospel message.
There are other methods and assumptions used in “higher criticism” that I think are equally suspect, but regardless, even liberal scholars will date the writing of the canonical gospels to well before the Gnostic texts - which was my point above.
Comment by: Mike Clawson
11 04/4/07 1:39 PM | Comment Link |Indeed. But you don’t even have to look outside of the Bible for evidence of that. Paul’s letters and John’s letters give indication that there were already splinter groups forming, and according to church tradition, Gnosticism got it’s start with Simon Magus, whose story is recorded in Acts 8. Those conservative churches who acted like early Christianity was completely unified are apparently not even paying much attention to their own Bibles.
Comment by: Doreen
12 04/4/07 2:47 PM | Comment Link |I might argue that Christianity, at least as it is practiced by some, is also exclusive. Gnostics also placed a higher value on women than some current branches of Christianity do.
The Gospel of Judas did not do a whole lot for me, but I enjoyed reading the Gospel of Thomas (see http://www.gnosis.org/naghamm/gosthom.html).
A useful website if you want to read additional Gnostic writings:
http://www.gnosis.org/library.html
Elaine Pagels is one of my favorite authors.
Comment by: Gospel of Judas & Elaine Pagels | Songs of Unforgetting
13 04/4/07 7:51 PM | Comment Link |[...] is a great conversation going on over at The Edge about Elaine Pagels, The Gospel of Judas, and Gnosticism in general. [...]
Comment by: Mike Clawson
14 04/4/07 11:54 PM | Comment Link |Well, depends on what you mean by “higher”. For instance, according to the Gospel of Thomas, women should only be allowed to live if they reject their feminine nature and become like men.
The last verse of Thomas (according to my copy of the Nag Hammadi texts) reads:
Personally that’s not what I would consider a high view of women, but YMMV.
Comment by: Ann
15 04/5/07 4:38 PM | Comment Link |NT Wright had an interesting take on the Mary & Martha story.
The issue that Mary wasn’t helping with kitchen work was a pretext for what was really bugging Martha –that Mary was in a living space designated for men, sitting at the foot of Jesus like a man, and learning about God in a setting reserved for men. Mary was not living up to her end of the feminine script for that culture.
By affirming Mary’s choice, Jesus opened the door for women to become full participants with men in seeking God. He restored what was lost in the fall–women were made to know God for themselves just as much as men were.
I had not heard this perspective on Martha & Mary before, but I like it. To me, it means I don’t have to change my gender to follow Jesus.
As far as the Gospel of Thomas goes, I can’t imagine Jesus showing gender preferences that were so culturally bound (e.g. making Mary become a man because males were the favored gender).
Comment by: Mike Clawson
16 04/5/07 9:17 PM | Comment Link |I read Wright’s commentary on that story too, and I like it so much that we did a whole sermon on it at church when we got to that part of Luke. Good stuff…
Comment by: Kathleen
17 04/6/07 1:08 PM | Comment Link |There really was no concept of orthodoxy as opposed to heresy until the Council of Nicea, which was in 325. Since I see from Wikipedia that the Gospel of Judas has been dated to possibly as early as 130, it wouldn’t have been contemporarily unorthodox - there was no such thing.
I figured I’d skim it before responding, and I guess I’ll need to do more than skim, because I didn’t find it an easy read. I guess I didn’t really “get” it, so I’m not really in a position to comment.
I think that what you go was a pretty standard answer. If you can believe that the Bible is the divinely-inspired Word of God, though written by human hands, surely you can believe that God would have given the necessary inspiration to the Council of Nicea. As I said, I don’t feel qualified to comment on the usefulness/validity of the Gospel of Judas in determining anything about the life and/or ministry of Jesus, but I think that for anyone who accepts that the words written by the Biblical authors were inspired by God would have to assume that God took care to make sure that the choices of the council were similarly inspired. If I’m going to have any faith at all in the Bible, I’ve got to have faith in the Council of Nicea, right?
Comment by: Mike Clawson
18 04/6/07 3:13 PM | Comment Link |I think there probably a lot of misconceptions about how prevalent and “mainstream” the Gnostic groups were. There seems to be this assumption that just because we’ve now found their books, they must have been a totally legitimate and common expression of Christianity that just happened to lose out at Nicea or whatever. But that’s really not the case. Gnosticism shouldn’t be considered just another variation of Christianity that happened to lose out in the battle of which version was ultimately declared orthodox. It’s really more like a whole other religion that happened to borrow some Christian stories and symbols to back up their pre-existing Greek mystery religion.
The closest analogy to today’s world is the difference between Mormons and the rest of Christianity - they use a lot of the same stories and language as mainstream Christians - but when you really look at what they believe it’s like an entirely different religion.
There were a lot of competing theologies in early Christianity, but most of them (e.g. Arianism, Nestorianism, Pelagianism, etc.) were far closer to what became orthodox beliefs than Gnosticism ever was. There has always been a consistent tradition of Christian belief handed down from the Apostles to each succeeding generation (some of my Catholic and Eastern Orthodox friends can provide detailed lists of their unbroken chain of apostolic succession from bishop to bishop all the way to the original Apostles), but the Gnostics were never in that flow. They represent an entirely different stream altogether.
Comment by: Ann
19 04/6/07 6:35 PM | Comment Link |Mike,
I think part of the confusion is the various flavors of legitimate Christianity, like Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, Protestant, and the what each feels belongs in their official cannon–and how each determined that they had the “official” version. For example, why are the apocryphal books accepted as inspired by the Catholics and Orthodox community (and some additional texts are in Orthodox bibles and not in Catholic bibles) and yet refuted at the Reformation –a later period of time. I mean, wouldn’t they have agreed and gotten it right a lot earlier (if earliest agreed upon texts is the test for authenticity)?
Or, is there another test, objective or subjective, that relates authenticity? I went to Wheaton (IL) and couldn’t get a straight answer. At the time I went, I noticed that evangelicals had no problem “borrowing” from the other branches — such as quoting St John of the Cross — when he makes a few allusions in his writings that are clearly referring to something in the apocryphal cannon and with a Traditional Catholic view.
Comment by: Mike Clawson
20 04/6/07 6:43 PM | Comment Link |Hey Ann,
I went to Wheaton too. When were you there?
I’m not Catholic, but as I understand it they don’t hold the apocrypha to be inspired in the same way either. I’m not sure why they still include them in their Bibles, but I do know that even for Catholics they are not on the same level as the rest of the Bible.
But regardless, there is still a lot more in common between Catholic, Protestants and Orthodox than there ever will be between these groups and Gnosticism. I’m fine with family disagreements and I’m not going to condemn any of these groups as “non-Christian” - but Gnosticism is something different entirely. They’re not “part of the family” as it were, and I’m going to interact with their beliefs differently than I would with those of simply another Christian denomination.
Comment by: Kathleen
21 04/7/07 8:51 AM | Comment Link |I’ve never heard anything like that. (And neither does this guy though I have no idea who he is and I haven’t read past the first paragraph where he says that Catholics do consider them inspired.) Unfortunately, I’m not in a position to ask anyone better informed than Google right now, but I can’t remember ever hearing anything to suggest that the Deuterocanonical books aren’t considered inspired but are in the Bible anyway.
Comment by: Mike Clawson
22 04/7/07 9:37 AM | Comment Link |I think they’re considered “inspired” but not in the same way or on the same level. But I could be wrong. I don’t really know the Catholic perspective on it first hand.
Anyway, the deuterocanonical books are simply the ones that were in the Septuagint (i.e. Greek translation) of the Old Testament but not in the original Hebrew versions of the OT. Ever since the early church there has been debate among Christians about whether to include those books or not.
Comment by: Ann
23 04/7/07 3:31 PM | Comment Link |Hi Mike, went to grad school in 96. One theory that I’ve read was that the council that determined that the gnostic texts were not to be included was not driven so much as a top down hierarchial process, but more of an affirmation of what the majority of what the early church understood as the nature and purpose of Jesus.
And what helped ground that was the understanding of the connectedness of this new faith in relation to the Jewish faith…Jesus’ claims had to include a physical reality. To say Jesus was only spirit, which meant humans had to change more into spirits, was not what the Jewish mindset would have understood. They knew the phrase “the God of Abraham” was referring to a real person, Abraham. The Jewish mindset had an “earthiness” to it — think of the phrase “the land of milk and honey”.
Jesus said that salvation is from the Jews. I think once we divorce ourselves from our Jewish roots, that errors occur.
Comment by: Mike Clawson
24 04/7/07 10:54 PM | Comment Link |Ann,
I started undergrad at Wheaton in ‘96. We might have crossed paths and not even known it!
I think you’re right on about the Jewish nature of the gospel. NT Wright does an excellent job of showing this in Jesus’ teachings and Paul’s as well. As you said, the problem with viewing Gnosticism as just another possibly valid interpretation of Jesus’ message is that it is far too Greek. It clearly imports concepts that would have been completely foreign to a first century Jewish mindset. If Jesus had preached the message the Gnostics put in his mouth, no one in first century Palestine would have bothered to listen much less follow him.
This is further revealed in how anti-Semitic some of the gnostic texts are. I can’t recall chapter and verse anymore, but I remember being struck by this as I was skimming through my copy of the Nag Hammadi texts a while ago. Gnosticism wasn’t just non-Jewish. It was actively anti-Jewish.
Comment by: Helen
25 04/8/07 6:24 AM | Comment Link |Maybe this is an egregious over-generalization, but it seems to me that conservative evangelical Christianity today tends to be too Greek and not Jewish enough - and one thing the emerging church is trying to do is restore the Jewishness that Jesus’ message originally had.
I’ve heard that anti-semitism was in large measure responsible for Christianity becoming too Greek and not Jewish enough. That seems quite plausible to me even though most trends have multiple causes.
Comment by: Mike Clawson
26 04/8/07 2:04 PM | Comment Link |I think you’re right on about that. I was complaining about contemporary evangelicalism being too “neo-gnostic” before I had ever even heard of the emerging church (actually, before it even existed).