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Beyond Belief
- The Secret Gospel of Thomas
- Narrated by: Cassandra Campbell
- Length: 6 hrs and 17 mins
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Publisher's summary
Critic reviews
"Exhilarating reading, Pagels's book offers a model of careful and thoughtful scholarship in the lively and exciting prose of a good mystery writer." (Publishers Weekly)
"A fresh and exciting work of theology and spirituality." (Booklist)
"With the winning combination of sound scholarship, deep insight and crystal-clear prose style that distinguishes all her work, Pagels portrays the great variety of beliefs, teachings and practices that were found among the earliest Christians." (Los Angeles Times)
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New Testament scholar N. T. Wright reveals how we have been misreading the Gospels for centuries, powerfully restoring the lost central story of the scripture: that the coronation of God through the acts of Jesus was the climax of human history. Wright fills the gaps that centuries of misdirection have opened up in our collective spiritual story, tracing a narrative from Eden to Jesus to today.
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Jesus' life matters, not just his death
- By Adam Shields on 03-17-16
By: N. T. Wright
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The Misunderstood Jew
- The Church and the Scandal of the Jewish Jesus
- By: Amy Jill Levine
- Narrated by: Donna Postel
- Length: 11 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
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In The Misunderstood Jew, scholar Amy-Jill Levine helps Christians and Jews understand the "Jewishness" of Jesus so that their appreciation of him deepens and a greater interfaith dialogue can take place. Levine's humor and informed truth - telling provokes honest conversation and debate about how Christians and Jews should understand Jesus, the New Testament, and each other.
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Courageous
- By Tad Davis on 07-27-17
By: Amy Jill Levine
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Catholicism
- A Journey to the Heart of the Faith
- By: Robert Barron
- Narrated by: Robert Barron
- Length: 8 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged
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Fr. Robert Barron's comprehensive work goes straight to the core of the Catholic faith. He first examines the foundations of Christ's incarnation, life and ministry, and then works through the essentials of the Catholic tradition: from sacraments, worship and prayer, to Mary and the saints, and on to salvation, heaven and hell. Throughout this epic journey, Fr. Barron uses art, literature, personal stories, Scripture, theology, philosophy and history to present a complete picture of the Church to the world.
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Beautiful Journey!
- By Echo Juliet on 06-13-12
By: Robert Barron
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Unbelievable
- Why Neither Ancient Creeds nor the Reformation Can Produce a Living Faith Today
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Five hundred years after Martin Luther and his Ninety-Five Theses ushered in the Reformation, best-selling author and controversial bishop and teacher John Shelby Spong delivers 12 forward-thinking theses to spark a new reformation to reinvigorate Christianity and ensure its future. Spong contends that there is mounting pressure among Christians for a radically new kind of Christianity - a faith deeply connected to the human experience instead of outdated dogma.
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great
- By Brian Diffley on 03-27-21
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How Jesus Became God
- The Exaltation of a Jewish Preacher from Galilee
- By: Bart D. Ehrman
- Narrated by: Walter Dixon
- Length: 10 hrs and 35 mins
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In a book that took eight years to research and write, leading Bible scholar Bart D. Ehrman explores how an apocalyptic prophet from the backwaters of rural Galilee crucified for crimes against the state came to be thought of as equal with the one God Almighty Creator of all things. Ehrman sketches Jesus's transformation from a human prophet to the Son of God exalted to divine status at his resurrection. Only when some of Jesus's followers had visions of him after his death - alive again - did anyone come to think that he, the prophet from Galilee, had become God.
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Wishing for a bit more meat on the bones
- By Darwin8u on 04-09-14
By: Bart D. Ehrman
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Lost Christianities
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- By: Bart D. Ehrman
- Narrated by: Matthew Kugler
- Length: 13 hrs and 25 mins
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The early Christian Church was a chaos of contending beliefs. Some groups of Christians claimed that there was not one God but two or twelve or thirty. Some believed that the world had not been created by God but by a lesser, ignorant deity. Certain sects maintained that Jesus was human but not divine, while others said he was divine but not human.
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The Early Church(es)
- By Margaret on 01-06-14
By: Bart D. Ehrman
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Understanding the Bible
- By: John R. W. Stott
- Narrated by: Simon Vance
- Length: 7 hrs and 26 mins
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This book answers foundational questions: Who wrote the Bible? What is its message? Why is it thought to be a 'holy' book? How does one read and interpret it? Best of all, though, you'll broaden your vision of Jesus Christ, the focal point of Scripture. How? By better understanding the geographical, religious, and historical concerns that shaped the world in which he lived.
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Excellent exposition of the Christian faith
- By GW on 02-25-12
By: John R. W. Stott
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Decoding Nicea
- Constantine Changed Christianity and Christianity Changed the World
- By: Paul Pavao
- Narrated by: Alan Sisto
- Length: 5 hrs and 32 mins
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The Council of Nicea was not clerics in a dark and ornate hall. It was brawls in churchyards; it was emperors and governors fighting to save the empire; it was political intrigue as the governments of church and state blended into a volatile stew. It was the way a fringe group of peace-loving communal worshipers of a crucified Palestinian prophet conquered the Roman Empire.
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Who mixes fact with fiction?
- By 3allvalve on 12-28-17
By: Paul Pavao
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David Lynch
- The Man from Another Place (Icons)
- By: Dennis Lim
- Narrated by: Jeff Cummings
- Length: 6 hrs and 45 mins
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At once a pop culture icon, cult figure, and film industry outsider, master filmmaker David Lynch and his work defy easy definition. Dredged from his subconscious mind, Lynch's work is primed to act on our own subconscious, combining heightened, contradictory emotions into something familiar but inscrutable. No less than his art, Lynch's life also evades simple categorization, encompassing pursuits as a musician, painter, photographer, carpenter, entrepreneur, and vocal proponent of Transcendental Meditation.
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Essential listening for Lunch fans
- By Michael P. Mesaros on 08-14-18
By: Dennis Lim
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Swear to God
- The Promise and Power of the Sacraments
- By: Scott Hahn
- Narrated by: Brian Keeler
- Length: 5 hrs and 6 mins
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Written in an accessible style, Swear to God is a testament to the seven sacraments, which Hahn sees not as boring rituals, but as powerful reminders of our covenants with God.
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Revealing
- By Theresa M. Bucy on 02-10-24
By: Scott Hahn
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Must read for all practicing Christians
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Not the Book of a Thomas at all
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Who is Satan in the New Testament, and what is the evil that he represents? In this groundbreaking book, Elaine Pagels, Princeton's distinguished historian of religion, traces the evolution of Satan from its origins in the Hebrew Bible, where Satan is at first merely obstructive, to the New Testament, where Satan becomes the Prince of Darkness, the bitter enemy of God and man, evil incarnate. In The Origin of Satan, Pagels shows that the four Christian gospels tell two very different stories.
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The selections made in this volume shed light on these esoteric doctrines, revealing intimate conversations between Jesus and his disciples. The Gospel of Mary Magdalene throws new light on his relationship with this favorite disciple. The Gospel of Thomas contains concentrated mini-parables, containing deep inward and symbolic meaning, many of which are not found in the New Testament. The texts chosen are relevant to many of the perplexities of contemporary life and deal with the questions of good and evil, sin and suffering, and the path to salvation.
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Perhaps no figure in biblical scholarship has been the subject of more controversy and debate than Mary Magdalene. Although she is discussed in the gospels of Philip, Thomas, Peter, and Bartholomew in the collection of writings known as the Gnostic gospels that were rejected by the early Christian church, there is no better insight into this mysterious and influential woman than Mary's own gospel.
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And the companion (Consort) was Mary of Magdala (Mary Magdalene). The Lord loved Mary more than all the other disciples and he kissed her often on her mouth (the text is missing here and the word "mouth" is assumed). The others saw his love for Mary and asked him: "Why do you love her more than all of us?" The Savior replied, "Why do I not love you in the same way I love her?" (The Gospel of Philip)
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Not a believer
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"These are the hidden sayings that the living Jesus spoke and Didymos Judas Thomas wrote down." With this opening statement, the Gospel of Thomas, legendary Apostle to the East, introduces a startlingly profound list of Jesus' ancient Wisdom sayings. Similar to the collections of quotations copied by the Gospels of Matthew and Luke, Thomas' Gospel contains a hundred and fourteen sayings, half of which don't appear in the New Testament. Once known from only a handful of ancient sources, third-century Greek fragments of this Gospel first turned up at the end of the nineteenth century – but ...
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this is nothing
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The Gospel of Thomas is a non-canonical scripture dating back to around 50-100 CE that was found near Nag Hammadi, Egypt in 1945 CE, buried in a clay jar with many other documents, all in Coptic, that collectively came to be known as the Nag Hammadi Library of Gnostic texts. A few fragments of the Gospel of Thomas in Greek had previously been found in Oxyrhynchus, Egypt at various times between 1897 CE and 1905 CE.
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Too much commentary interrupting the source material
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Beyond Belief
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Elaine Pagels, one of the world’s most important writers and thinkers on religion and history, and winner of the National Book Award for her groundbreaking work The Gnostic Gospels, now reflects on what matters most about spiritual and religious exploration in the twenty-first century. This bold new book explores how Christianity began by tracing its earliest texts, including the secret Gospel of Thomas, rediscovered in Egypt in 1945.
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Jesus and the Lost Goddess
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Drawing on modern scholarship, the authors of the international best-seller The Jesus Mysteries decode the secret teachings of the original Christians for the first time in almost two millennia and theorize about who the original Christians really were and what they actually taught. In addition, the book explores the many myths of Jesus and the Goddess and unlocks the lost secret teachings of Christian mysticism, which promise happiness and immortality to those who attain the state of Gnosis, or enlightenment.
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Great information, however now outdated
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The Way of Thomas
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The Way of Thomas offers a crystal clear, easy-to-understand new version of the Gospel of Thomas. Dr. Mabry, an expert in the mysticism of the world’s religions, then unpacks the core teachings of the gospel in ways that can shift not only how we understand ourselves, but how we view reality.
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Very distracting narrator
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The Gnostic Gospels Collection
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Gnosticism was a wide-ranging religious movement of the first millennium CE—with earlier antecedents and later flourishings—whose adherents sought salvation through knowledge and personal religious experience.
By: Noah Press
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The Gnostic Scriptures: History, Theology, and the Sacred Feminine
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The evolution of the Sacred Worship of Sophia, Mary Magdalene, and Mother Mary are traced through the Gnostic Scriptures. Sophia would come to be considered a force or conduit of the Holy Spirit, in part due to the fact that the Holy Spirit was also considered a feminine and creative force from the Supreme God. As the emerging orthodox church became more and more oppressive to women, later even labeling them "occasions of sin", the Gnostics countered by raising women to equal status.
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GREAT BOOK FOR STARTING A GNOSTIC STUDY
- By KimberlyB on 07-09-18
By: Joseph Lumpkin
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The Lost Gospel of Thomas: The Original Mystical Teachings of Yeshua
- By: Theodore Nottingham
- Narrated by: Virtual Voice
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Among all the astonishing documents accidentally—or fatefully—unearthed in 1945 near the desert village of Nag Hammadi in Upper Egypt, the Gospel of Thomas has made the greatest impact on our understanding of Christianity. Like the Eastern sages, Yeshua speaks in paradoxical aphorisms that invite us to become conscious of our uncreated origin, of our boundless freedom, even in the midst of the most severe difficulties. Thus we awaken to absolute Reality, right in the heart of the ordinary life.
What listeners say about Beyond Belief
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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Overall
- Buford
- 06-08-04
Gospel of Thomas is somewhat a misnomer
The book is less an exploration of the Gospel of Thomas than an exploration of the competing movements and ideas that were present in the early Christian Church. It begins by comparing the gospels of John and Thomas using a unique, to this listener anyway, hypothesis but moves quickly to a broader view of the first three centuries of Christianity. It is none the less an excellent representation of the impeccable research and sensitivity of Elaine Pagels.
The listener is brought to see the importance of the Nag Hammadi texts to the understanding of First-Third Century "Gnosticism" and what would have been lost had these documents not been hidden some 1600 years ago. The question occurs: What documents might not have been preserved and thus lost from these formative years of Christianity? Based on the importance of the Nag Hammadi texts, we are intellectually poorer for any that might have been lost.
The book is very easy to follow. The narrator does an excellent job in reading the text with authority and understanding. It is, technically speaking, a very good presentation.
I certainly recommend it to those who have interests in this area of historical research.
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88 people found this helpful
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Overall
- James
- 07-16-04
Dr. Pagels hits a home run (almost a grand slam)
I am not sure why she did not include the full text of Thomas, perhaps in deference to her friends who have published the Gospel of Thomas already. I am sure her book has led to many purchases. I was expecting the Gospel of Thomas to be a part of the book, based on the title. She compares and contrasts Thomas to the Gospel of John. So, read these books first and keep them by your side as you read or listen to this book. I found the book a great read, with some pretty good insight into the mind and culture of early Christians and the way they approached and developed the canon. Her creativity and style are very engaging and you forget you are actually reading one of the very top scholars of pre-orthodox Christianity. She seems to also have a spiritual grasp of her subject and shares some of her own spiritual trials. This book is more than a history lesson, it is a spiritual lesson which should leave you with a deeper sense of connection to your Higher Power. I can't wait for her next book, it should be a grand slam!
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34 people found this helpful
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Overall
- Royal
- 10-31-05
Compelling
I am a Christian and found this work to be fascinating. Christians whose faith is threatened by works such as this apparently have very little faith to begin with. It is serves all of us to know of the varieties of Christianity in the early years of its existence, and it should also be reassuring to the faithful that what we believe is what won out. Listen to this work carefully: distinguish between the evidence she provides and the conclusions she makes based on such evidence. The former is important, and we need to know about it. As for the latter, make your own conclusions.
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15 people found this helpful
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Overall
- Amazon Customer
- 12-10-06
Pagels vs Irenaeus
This book should have been titled Pagels vs Irenaeus.
The premise that she tries to support is that there was a great deal of diversity in the early Christian church. Irenaeus and Bishop Polycarp, among others, felt that the diversity was threatening the viability of the Christian faith. They moved to remove the diversity to present a more unified front to the very real threats and persecutions. After the Nicean Creeds and the legalization of Christianity the church fathers took this stance further. This evolved into a program to eradicate all divergent philosophies.
I feel the reason that Dr. Pagels chose to write this book was to put words to her own personal struggle. Her struggle is: that she does not want anyone to get in between God and herself. Indeed, this does sound like a valid course of action but I wonder if it really does not speak to a notion of pride. It is far simpler to live ones spiritual life without comment or interference from others. This is especially true if the other person has an air of authority.
If Pagels accepts the canonical representation created by John and Irenaeus she could only get to God through their Christ. Christ, for her, seems to be the embodiment of their credo and thus filters out all access to God except through their interpretation. Scholars likely love to debate this, but for me it really is less material.
I come away from this book wondering about, how to navigate the complex web of very human individuals - trying to be spiritual. Without these interactions I doubt spirituality can really exist. Now, I am left to reconcile the risk of disingenuous external authorities to the vagaries of self deception.
Would I recommend this book to others? Yes I would. I may not agree with her points and the methods she uses to win the reader to her way of thinking but it is well worth the read.
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13 people found this helpful
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Overall
- Chi-Hung
- 03-04-09
It has very little to do with Thomas!
I actually liked Pagel's work, I read two of her books before, Gnostic gospels and Reading Judas, the problem with this volume is that it is exceedingly misleading, not only that many of the materials here came from researches and arguments from her other books, but only approximately two chapters actually has anything to do with the Gospel of Thomas, the rest are early church history and polemnics. So if you already have the Gnostic Gospel, you can pretty much spare yourself this one.
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11 people found this helpful
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Overall
- Brian Michael Fielding
- 10-01-09
Get Over "Belief"
This is an excellent book to help understand that the fundamental doctrines of the Christian faith, those that must be blindly "believed" in order to be "saved" and get into "heaven", are the product of a few delusional and power-hungry white men and have very little to do with the actual teachings of Jesus. They are simply interpretations by mere mortals - fallible, flawed and weak like everyone else - ,that through the ages have calcified into rigid dogma that "must be believed" in order to be "saved". This book sheds much needed light on the development of early Christianity. Thank you, Elaine Pagels
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10 people found this helpful
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Overall
- Donald Seyfer
- 09-15-04
Questions, Dogma, no hypothesis
I was very disappointed in the content. The author ask questions and then moves on to another subject and asks some more questions. It seems like her own Dogma blocks her ability to suggest reasonable, thoughtful answers to her own questions. Personally, I wouldn't waste your time. If you are a seeker this will not make you any kind of finder. I loved the reader's voice though.
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9 people found this helpful
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
- S. Howell
- 07-03-19
Love This Lady! So Brilliant”
This is the second book of hers I have finished. I have three or more waiting. I was a conservative minister for 20 years and when preparing for the ministry, studied many of the things she talks about. But like Paul Harvey, I never got this side of the story of the early church. I feel like a window has been opened, and fresh air just poured into the room. I have driven my wife crazy reading her sections of one of her books. So very happy that I stumbled upon this diamond. It makes me sad that so many churches Catholic and Protestant, because of their views on women’s place in the church have missed out on so much that women have to offer. It is a wealth of information, from women like her, waiting for all of us to open our eyes to see and learn.
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5 people found this helpful
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- Mick
- 10-27-11
Lack of chapter structure is maddening
Great vocal performance. Easy to listen at normal and 2X speed. Book chapters not coinciding with audio file divisions makes it extremely difficult to stop, pause, break, and resume without having to scan around for review before proceeding. My main issue with this book is that it is sold as a book on the Gospel of Thomas but spends little time on the book itself and generally bounces around general Gnostic/Orthodox theological and ritualistic differences between early church communities and all the problems Irenaeus found while establishing orthodoxy. The book should be titled "Hey Everybody, Listen to Me!: The Story of Irenaeus". Interesting book but Pagel's The Gnostic Gospels is head and shoulders better in so far as it covers gnosticism more thoroughly. The one chapter contrasting the Gospel of John with Thomas does not provide justification for the title.
TL:DR - Not really much Thomas material. Book chapters are aggravating. Good performance though.
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4 people found this helpful
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- John
- 11-01-05
Poorly Organized
While I found the subject an interesting one, the text reads like random thoughts so poorly organized that it was nearly impossible to link paragraph to paragraph. No theme seemed to tie any of the ideas and research together other than the occasional Chapter announcements. The strange thing is that 40 pages after introducing a thought and dropping it suddenly to follow another train of throught, something related to the original idea might suddenly pop up. Best to avoid this headache inducer.
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4 people found this helpful