The unveiling of the long-lost Gospel of Judas has stirred controversy not just among biblical scholars and those interested in the gospels that were excluded from the New Testament but among all those brought up on the story of Judas as the ultimate betrayer. Now two leading experts on the Gnostic gospels tackle the important questions posed by this exciting discovery. The answers lead deep into the agonizing disputes and exultant visions of God that ultimately came to shape Christianity.
Working from Karen King’s brilliant new translation of the fragmentary gospel, Elaine Pagels and King give us the context we need for considering its meaning. The Gospel of Judas, along with other newly discovered writings, restores the vibrant and tumultuous picture of early Christianity, a time of intense reflection, experimentation, and struggle involving every fundamental issue of human life.
READING JUDAS raises compelling issues––about the nature of God, the meaning of Jesus’s death, the suffering of martyrs, and much else––issues as important today as they were nineteen centuries ago.
Elaine Pagels is the Harrington Spear Paine Foundation Professor of Religion at Princeton University. She is the author of several books, including Reading Judas: The Gospel of Judas and the Shaping of Christianity, the New York Times bestseller Beyond Belief: The Secret Gospel of Thomas, and The Gnostic Gospels, winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award and the National Book Award. Professor Pagels lives in Princeton, New Jersey.
View titles by Elaine Pagels
The unveiling of the long-lost Gospel of Judas has stirred controversy not just among biblical scholars and those interested in the gospels that were excluded from the New Testament but among all those brought up on the story of Judas as the ultimate betrayer. Now two leading experts on the Gnostic gospels tackle the important questions posed by this exciting discovery. The answers lead deep into the agonizing disputes and exultant visions of God that ultimately came to shape Christianity.
Working from Karen King’s brilliant new translation of the fragmentary gospel, Elaine Pagels and King give us the context we need for considering its meaning. The Gospel of Judas, along with other newly discovered writings, restores the vibrant and tumultuous picture of early Christianity, a time of intense reflection, experimentation, and struggle involving every fundamental issue of human life.
READING JUDAS raises compelling issues––about the nature of God, the meaning of Jesus’s death, the suffering of martyrs, and much else––issues as important today as they were nineteen centuries ago.
Author
Elaine Pagels is the Harrington Spear Paine Foundation Professor of Religion at Princeton University. She is the author of several books, including Reading Judas: The Gospel of Judas and the Shaping of Christianity, the New York Times bestseller Beyond Belief: The Secret Gospel of Thomas, and The Gnostic Gospels, winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award and the National Book Award. Professor Pagels lives in Princeton, New Jersey.
View titles by Elaine Pagels
