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Review Summary: Complementary readings to Pagel's interesting book |
Date: 2008-11-15 |
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Details: There are already many good reviews to this book, so I will only suggest reading the following books on religion in addition to Pagel's: a) "The Phenomenon of Religion: A Thematic Approach," by Moojan Momen (astonishingly encyclopedic); b) "Shamans, Sorcerers, and Saints: A Prehistory of Religion" by Brian Hayden (great overview of religion origins and development); c) "Life after Death. A History of the afterlife in Western Religion" by Alan F. Segal; d) "Alternative Tradition: A Study of Unbelief in the Ancient World (Religion and Society)" by James A. Thrower; e) "How to Read the Bible: A Guide to Scripture, Then and Now" by James L. Kugel; and f) "The Closing of the Western Mind: The Rise of Faith and the Fall of Reason" by Charles Freeman. |
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Review Summary: Another excellent work by Elaine Pagels |
Date: 2008-04-01 |
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Details: In this book Elaine Pagels gives a review of the story of Adam and Eve and the Garden of Eden. This treatment includes early Orthodox thought, primarily from Augustine, as well as Gnostic beliefs about the story from Genesis.
The book explains how the fruit of the tree of life became sex and where original sin and the concept of the natural man being an enemy of God. These beliefs hit their peak in the 17th - 19th centuries with religions like the Calvinists, Campbellites, Puritans and Mormons. This book gives a clear explanation of where these beliefs originally came from and how they became imbedded in mainstream Christian beliefs.
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Review Summary: At the root of our fears concerning freedom |
Date: 2008-02-23 |
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Details: Pagels unravels a tangle of collective feelings about good and evil, like an archaeologist of the Western mind. She explores the history of ancient concerns - What dangers must we fear? What limits on ourselves must we observe, or lose our souls? To these fearful questions, answers have accumulated in our minds for at least 4,000 years. Pagels sifts the residue of ancient texts, exposing the choices we have made. In the growing legend of Adam, Eve, and the Serpent, she finds a powerful cautionary tale. If the original sin was seeking knowledge of good and evil, what does that say about sanity? There are many ways to interpret this tale, but how was it actually interpreted by religious and political leaders over the course of history? Pagels documents the rise of a religious doctrine against the perils of freedom.
For peace and unity to prevail, most leaders of Jewish, Christian, or Muslim communities have felt it essential that ordinary people must doubt their own ability to know right from wrong. They needed to see that free will was the root of evil, and obedience the cardinal virtue of religion. As Augustine put it,
"... obedience ... is, so to speak, the mother and guardian of all the virtues of a rational creature. The fact is that a rational creature is so constituted that submission is good for it, while yielding to its own rather than its Creator's will is, on the contrary, disastrous." (The City of God, 14:12)
So the people must cease trusting their own minds, and turn for guidance to a higher authority. But which external authority should they follow?
In this great inquiry, as usual, Pagels combines the roles of textual analyst, literature critic, anthropologist, and even social therapist. Her work remains important and relevant decade after decade.
--author of "Different Visions of Love" |
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Review Summary: Ugh, not again. |
Date: 2007-05-27 |
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Details: That's it, last time I buy a book buy Pagels no matter how enlightened she is. This is the second time I've wasted money on a Pagels book because of a misleading title and synopsis. I'm tired of her misrepresentation, and the wtf look on my face after reading is simply not attractive. This is supposed to be a book about how Christians came up with the idea that sex is inherently evil and ended up being about beavers in their natural habitat. For all you literal people, that was called sarcasm. |
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Review Summary: The design of Genesis |
Date: 2005-11-12 |
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Details: Two creation accounts were later joined in GENESIS. In the first four hundred years Christians regarded freedom as the primary message of GENESIS. In Jesus's time anti-pagan feelings were strong among the pious and rural Jews. John the Baptist may lived with the Essenes. Jesus warned of the coming day of judgment. Rabbis, teachers, came to replace the hereditary caste of priests.
GENESIS commands be fruitful and multiply. Jesus reversed traditional priorities. He celebrated the single and childless. Within a century of Paul's death ascetic aspects of Jesus's message spread rapidly. Chrisitians attacked the gods and the imperilled pagans.
Christians in different provinces showed great diversity. Christians were distinguished for their moral rigor. Some Christians resented being told what to think and how to behave by the bishops. Some sought to know God directly through gnosis. Gnostics constituted an institutional threat.
After Constantine, heresy became a crime against the state. Jesus had said there were no grounds for divorce. Paul spoke of marriage in negative terms. Paul and Jesus sought to prepare for the end of the world. As the religious basis of society, Christians were to look to one another. They claimed moral equality. Some Gnostics believed in an internal source of desire and action.
Augustine was joyful when he gave up ambition and embraced celibacy. The ascetics were athletes for God. Augustine de-emphasized free-will and affirmed secular government in qualified fashion. He offered a theology of politics. The Christian view of freedom changed as Christianity became the religion of emperors. |
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out of 26 Reviews
