Customer Reviews

GNOSTICISM and the NEW TESTAMENT

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Gnosticism and the New Testament are two of my favorite subjects, and I'm glad this book was written. The writer does a good job of providing an overview of what is surely a broad subject. My favorite scholar of early Christian Gnosticism is Margaret Barker, and Pheme Perkins is not as exhaustive in the presentation of the ancient sacred writings as she, but still I found quite a few insights to be gleaned here. The author's viewpoint comes across as somewhere between orthodox and heterodox, but I did not find it to pollute the conclusions in the book in the manner of the so-called pious scholars. Occasionally I found claims made I did not agree as proven, but this seems to be the case with almost all scholarship on Gnosticism. My personal bias of the materials examined would conclude the writer has avoided a deeper examination of the angelomorphic context of the New Testament writings, or perhaps doesn't agree with that viewpoint.
I became interested in reading this book after I found sections of it available for reading through a popular search engine's "books" function; that is to say, large portions of this text can be found for free on the internet. My favorite aspect of the book was the overview of other scholar's viewpoints on the points examined. Her strongest writing, in my opinion, was her dissection of The Gospel of Truth and how its ideas relate and differ to the Gospel of John. My least favorite aspect of this book was how the binding literally came apart the first instance I opened it. By the time I reached the final chapter the pages were in dozens of peices. Was cheap binding to blame? Or, was it stored on the shelf too long? Maybe both, I'm not sure, but needless to say it was disappointing, especially for a book in this price range. With that as my main reservation, I would recommend this book as a good starting point for students and curious lay-persons.

The truth hurts thats why the greeks are christians not gnostics. If you want history not speculation and heresay buy this book.
It appears that some people don't want people to read both sides and draw their own conclusions. These people are never ever "open minded". They are cultists looking to sell their "knowledge" and slander the truth. Remember St Paul-wolves with perverse teachings. These are "pagels' gnostics". I would also suggest V Lossky for the byzantine angle and clarification from the ancient Greeks themselves. It's kinda like "not out of africa" for the gnostics greek haters.

A tedious and rather biased rehash of Hans Jonas' "The Gnostic Religion: The Message of an alien God and the beginnings of Christianity." Although Jonas' view of Gnosticism is outdated, it contains much useful background information on the various Gnostic movements. Pheme Perkins has successfully drained away all the gold from Jonas and kept only the dross. Elaine Pagel's book, the Gnostic Gospels, is far more open-minded, far more original,and far better researched. Buy Pagels, not this!