Gnostic Gospels By Elaine Pagels Summary

Gnostic Gospels Précises

Elaine Pagels uses The Gnostic Gospels to consider the relation between gnostic teachings and what would become orthodox teaching, also known as Catholicism. Pagels uses both texts to analyze the difference in the way authority of questioned/obeyed. She disposes the belief that theoretical ideas get dispersed and thrown under the rug for the idea that seem to be stronger or more valid. The fact of an idea being measurable by the ability to create or sustain the idea rather determining which idea would be the most valid. Orthodox teachings favor over gnostic teaching because the orthodox teaching has formed into a mass religion. They established relationships with people and created rituals to give people something to believe in. Gnostic teachings didn’t work because it focused on internal goals and perspectives. Pagels states that she is sympathetic to Christianity, and believes that the establishment of the orthodox teachings and a strong church organization were imperative for the survival of the new religion.
The orthodox view continued the Jewish innovation of an all-male godhead while other religious groups help both male and female Gods. The Gnostics viewed God as a creator who possessed both male and female aspects. The Gnostics pointed out that in Genesis, God made humanity “both male and female,” and since he made them “in our image, in our likeness,” that there must be a feminine element in the God. Orthodox Christians had a strong belief that everything about the God was masculine and masculine only. Pagels expresses the belief that the prime reason for the orthodox rejection of texts suggesting a feminine god was that these were a scriptural basis for the Gnostic practice of admitting women as full equals in the churches, taking priestly, episcopal, and even prophetic roles within Gnostic