“ When John accuses evildoers of leading gullible people into sin, what troubles him is what troubled the Essenes: whether—or how much—to accommodate pagan culture. And when we see Jesus' earliest follo… Elaine Pagels
“ No longer married, suddenly I was . From Latin, the name means emptied. Far worse; it felt like being torn in half, ripped apart from the single functioning organism that had been our family, our live… Elaine Pagels
“ Why do we feel guilty, even when we've done nothing to bring on illness or death--even when we've done everything possible to prevent it? Suffering feels like punishment, as cultural anthropologists o… Elaine Pagels
“ I did not want to die, but desperately wanted to be anywhere but there; the pain was unbearable. Yet in that vision, or whatever it was, I felt that the intertwined knots were the connections with the… Elaine Pagels
“ I have sympathy for anyone who finds consolation anywhere we can. And many people do find it in religious tradition as it has been. I mean, I love much of that tradition. But somehow, that just didn't… Elaine Pagels
“ What clear is that meaning may not be something we . We found no meaning in our son's death, or in the deaths of countless others. The most we could hope was that we might be able to meaning. Elaine Pagels
“ Shaken by emotional storms, I realized that choosing to feel guilt, however painful, somehow seemed to offer reassurance that such events did not happen at random.... If guilt is the price we pay for… Elaine Pagels
“ The Gospel of Philip takes up the same theme: Jesus took them all by stealth, for he did not reveal himself in the manner [in which] he was, but in the manner in which [they would] be able to see him.… Elaine Pagels
“ The Secret Revelation of John opens, again, in crisis. The disciple John, grieving Jesus' death, is walking toward the temple when he meets a Pharisee who mocks him for having been deceived by a false… Elaine Pagels
“ People who study the way religions develop have shown that if you have a charismatic teacher, and you don't have an institution develop around that teacher within about a generation to transmit succes… Elaine Pagels
“ Rediscovering the controversies that occupied early Christianity sharpens our awareness of the major issue in the whole debate, then and now: What is the source of religious authority? For the Christi… Elaine Pagels
“ By the beginning of the fifth century Catholic Christians lived as subjects of an empire they could no longer consider alien, much less wholly evil.[...] By the beginning of the fifth century few who… Elaine Pagels
“ The controversy over resurrection, then, proved critical in shaping the Christian movement into an institutional religion. All Christians agreed in principle that only Christ himself—or God—can be the… Elaine Pagels
“ I study religion because I find it fascinating and problematic. But I struggle with the idea of what religion is, what being religious means. A lot of people assume that if you write about early Chris… Elaine Pagels
“ What Christians see, or claim to see, in Genesis 1-3 changed as the church itself changed from a dissident Jewish sect to a popular movement persecuted by the Roman government, and changed further as… Elaine Pagels
“ What interested these gnostics far more than past events attributed to the historical Jesus was the possibility of encountering the risen Christ in the present.49 The Gospel of Mary illustrates the co… Elaine Pagels
“ So long as Christians remained members of a suspect society, subject to death, the boldest among them maintained that, since demons controlled the government and inspired its agents, the believer coul… Elaine Pagels
“ This debate over Genesis revealed a major disagreement among second-century Christians, a disagreement whose outcome would shape church doctrine ever after. Elaine Pagels
“ Are we to believe that Adam and Eve actually heard God’s footsteps rustling in the garden of Eden, as the text suggests, when it says that Adam and Eve hid themselves, Elaine Pagels
“ The gnostic understands Christ’s message not as offering a set of answers, but as encouragement to engage in a process of searching: seek and inquire about the ways you should go, since there is nothi… Elaine Pagels
