Elaine Pagels sifts through history in search of Jesus

Ron Charles in The Washington Post:

It sounds like a strategy meeting with the campaign team: “Whom do men say that I am?”

Staff members start tossing out responses from the latest polling: “Some say that thou art John the Baptist: some, Elias; and others, Jeremias, or one of the prophets.”

But when Jesus presses them for their own thoughts, Simon Peter nails it: “Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God.”

So there it is — settled.

Except, no. As 2,000 years of theological turmoil attests, the identity of that man remains so contentious that even suggesting the possibility of continuing debate is heretical. Into this lion’s den ventures Elaine Pagels — Princeton professor, MacArthur “genius,” National Book Award winner and arguably the country’s most well-known scholar of religion. Since publishing “The Gnostic Gospels” in 1979, Pagels has been a voice crying in the wilderness of academia but heard in the homes of lay readers. Her vast knowledge has always been tempered by deep humility.

More here.

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