Podcast appearances and mentions of Elaine Pagels

Today we get to chat again with author Keith Giles! We talk about his latest book, "The Quantum Gospel of Mary." Keith delves deep into the intriguing intersection of spirituality and quantum physics, explaining complex concepts in an easy to understand way. We also discuss the misunderstood figure of Mary Magdalene, her significant, often overlooked role within early Christianity, and how her portrayal was historically altered. The conversation illuminates how embracing an interconnected, mystical spirituality can offer profound insights and transform one's worldview. This rich discussion challenges traditional religious perspectives, encouraging listeners to explore and expand their spiritual understanding. If you've ever wondered what the Quantum Field means, or why this incredible Gospel was left out of the Bible as we know it today, this is the episode for you!Get your copy of The Quantum Gospel of Mary HERE!Also, pick up Keith's other book, The Quantum Sayings of Jesus HERE!Keith highly recommends THIS BOOK by Elaine Pagels. Honoring the Journey is hosted, produced and edited by Leslie Nease and the artwork for the show is also created by Leslie Nease.Want to get updates/announcements and a FREE Deconstruction Journaling Prompt PDF? Sign up for Leslie's Monthly Newsletter! You can do that HERE.Pick up Leslie's new book, Honoring the Journey: The Deconstruction of Sister Christian here.Interested in working with Leslie as your Life/Faith Transitions Coach? Check out her website and learn more about what she offers! https://www.leslieneasecoaching.comIf you'd like to be a part of the Honoring the Journey Team as a Patreon Supporter, please check it out at this link!Would you like to leave a voicemail for Leslie? Click here!If you are looking for community as you deconstruct or just a place to go and enjoy the company of people who are seekers, learners and who are looking to connect with the Divine without religious baggage, please join the Private Facebook Community! Leslie is very passionate about connection and community, so if that sounds like you, please come join us!https://growx.podkite.com/https/PKricy1col/

In this podcast—Part 1 of our summer reading series—TNC Pastor David Bryan teaches from Elaine Pagels's newest book, “Miracles and Wonder,” on important reasons to embrace the historical mystery of Jesus.

With the recent death of Pope Francis and the election of Leo XIV, feels like a good time to talk with best-selling author ELAINE PAGELS about her new book, MIRACLES AND WONDER: The Historical Mystery of Jesus. In it, she asks: Why is Jesus said to have had a virgin birth? Why do we say he rose from the dead? Did his miracles really happen and, if so, what did they mean? And finally, how did a poor young Jewish man and failed Messiah inspire a religion that has persisted and grown for 2000 years? Professor Emeritus of Religion at Princeton, Pagels has won Rockefeller, Guggenheim, and MacArthur Fellowships, as well as the National Book Award. You can learn more at elaine-pagels.com.Elaine Pagels-04-23-2025-Transcript 

Early in her career, Elaine Pagels changed our understanding of the origins of Christianity with her work in The Gnostic Gospels. Now, in the culmination of a decades-long career, she explores the biggest subject of all, Jesus. In Miracles and Wonder:The Historical Mystery of Jesus (Doubleday, 2025) she sets out to discover how a poor young Jewish man inspired a religion that shaped the world.The book reads like a historical mystery, with each chapter addressing a fascinating question and answering it based on the gospels Jesus's followers left behind. Why is Jesus said to have had a virgin birth? Why do we say he rose from the dead? Did his miracles really happen and what did they mean?The story Pagels tells is thrilling and tense. Not just does Jesus comes to life but his desperate, hunted followers do as well. We realize that some of the most compelling details of Jesus's life are the explanations his disciples created to paper over inconvenient facts. So Jesus wasn't illegitimate, his mother conceived by God; Jesus's body wasn't humiliatingly left to rot and tossed into a common grave—no, he rose from the dead and was seen whole by his followers; Jesus isn't a failed messiah, his kingdom is a metaphor: he lives in us. These necessary fabrications were the very details and promises that electrified their listeners and helped his followers' numbers grow.In Miracles and Wonder, Pagels does more than solve a historical mystery. She sheds light on Jesus's enduring power to inspire and attract. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/history

Early in her career, Elaine Pagels changed our understanding of the origins of Christianity with her work in The Gnostic Gospels. Now, in the culmination of a decades-long career, she explores the biggest subject of all, Jesus. In Miracles and Wonder:The Historical Mystery of Jesus (Doubleday, 2025) she sets out to discover how a poor young Jewish man inspired a religion that shaped the world.The book reads like a historical mystery, with each chapter addressing a fascinating question and answering it based on the gospels Jesus's followers left behind. Why is Jesus said to have had a virgin birth? Why do we say he rose from the dead? Did his miracles really happen and what did they mean?The story Pagels tells is thrilling and tense. Not just does Jesus comes to life but his desperate, hunted followers do as well. We realize that some of the most compelling details of Jesus's life are the explanations his disciples created to paper over inconvenient facts. So Jesus wasn't illegitimate, his mother conceived by God; Jesus's body wasn't humiliatingly left to rot and tossed into a common grave—no, he rose from the dead and was seen whole by his followers; Jesus isn't a failed messiah, his kingdom is a metaphor: he lives in us. These necessary fabrications were the very details and promises that electrified their listeners and helped his followers' numbers grow.In Miracles and Wonder, Pagels does more than solve a historical mystery. She sheds light on Jesus's enduring power to inspire and attract. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Early in her career, Elaine Pagels changed our understanding of the origins of Christianity with her work in The Gnostic Gospels. Now, in the culmination of a decades-long career, she explores the biggest subject of all, Jesus. In Miracles and Wonder:The Historical Mystery of Jesus (Doubleday, 2025) she sets out to discover how a poor young Jewish man inspired a religion that shaped the world.The book reads like a historical mystery, with each chapter addressing a fascinating question and answering it based on the gospels Jesus's followers left behind. Why is Jesus said to have had a virgin birth? Why do we say he rose from the dead? Did his miracles really happen and what did they mean?The story Pagels tells is thrilling and tense. Not just does Jesus comes to life but his desperate, hunted followers do as well. We realize that some of the most compelling details of Jesus's life are the explanations his disciples created to paper over inconvenient facts. So Jesus wasn't illegitimate, his mother conceived by God; Jesus's body wasn't humiliatingly left to rot and tossed into a common grave—no, he rose from the dead and was seen whole by his followers; Jesus isn't a failed messiah, his kingdom is a metaphor: he lives in us. These necessary fabrications were the very details and promises that electrified their listeners and helped his followers' numbers grow.In Miracles and Wonder, Pagels does more than solve a historical mystery. She sheds light on Jesus's enduring power to inspire and attract. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network

Early in her career, Elaine Pagels changed our understanding of the origins of Christianity with her work in The Gnostic Gospels. Now, in the culmination of a decades-long career, she explores the biggest subject of all, Jesus. In Miracles and Wonder:The Historical Mystery of Jesus (Doubleday, 2025) she sets out to discover how a poor young Jewish man inspired a religion that shaped the world.The book reads like a historical mystery, with each chapter addressing a fascinating question and answering it based on the gospels Jesus's followers left behind. Why is Jesus said to have had a virgin birth? Why do we say he rose from the dead? Did his miracles really happen and what did they mean?The story Pagels tells is thrilling and tense. Not just does Jesus comes to life but his desperate, hunted followers do as well. We realize that some of the most compelling details of Jesus's life are the explanations his disciples created to paper over inconvenient facts. So Jesus wasn't illegitimate, his mother conceived by God; Jesus's body wasn't humiliatingly left to rot and tossed into a common grave—no, he rose from the dead and was seen whole by his followers; Jesus isn't a failed messiah, his kingdom is a metaphor: he lives in us. These necessary fabrications were the very details and promises that electrified their listeners and helped his followers' numbers grow.In Miracles and Wonder, Pagels does more than solve a historical mystery. She sheds light on Jesus's enduring power to inspire and attract. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/biography

Early in her career, Elaine Pagels changed our understanding of the origins of Christianity with her work in The Gnostic Gospels. Now, in the culmination of a decades-long career, she explores the biggest subject of all, Jesus. In Miracles and Wonder:The Historical Mystery of Jesus (Doubleday, 2025) she sets out to discover how a poor young Jewish man inspired a religion that shaped the world.The book reads like a historical mystery, with each chapter addressing a fascinating question and answering it based on the gospels Jesus's followers left behind. Why is Jesus said to have had a virgin birth? Why do we say he rose from the dead? Did his miracles really happen and what did they mean?The story Pagels tells is thrilling and tense. Not just does Jesus comes to life but his desperate, hunted followers do as well. We realize that some of the most compelling details of Jesus's life are the explanations his disciples created to paper over inconvenient facts. So Jesus wasn't illegitimate, his mother conceived by God; Jesus's body wasn't humiliatingly left to rot and tossed into a common grave—no, he rose from the dead and was seen whole by his followers; Jesus isn't a failed messiah, his kingdom is a metaphor: he lives in us. These necessary fabrications were the very details and promises that electrified their listeners and helped his followers' numbers grow.In Miracles and Wonder, Pagels does more than solve a historical mystery. She sheds light on Jesus's enduring power to inspire and attract. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/religion

Early in her career, Elaine Pagels changed our understanding of the origins of Christianity with her work in The Gnostic Gospels. Now, in the culmination of a decades-long career, she explores the biggest subject of all, Jesus. In Miracles and Wonder:The Historical Mystery of Jesus (Doubleday, 2025) she sets out to discover how a poor young Jewish man inspired a religion that shaped the world.The book reads like a historical mystery, with each chapter addressing a fascinating question and answering it based on the gospels Jesus's followers left behind. Why is Jesus said to have had a virgin birth? Why do we say he rose from the dead? Did his miracles really happen and what did they mean?The story Pagels tells is thrilling and tense. Not just does Jesus comes to life but his desperate, hunted followers do as well. We realize that some of the most compelling details of Jesus's life are the explanations his disciples created to paper over inconvenient facts. So Jesus wasn't illegitimate, his mother conceived by God; Jesus's body wasn't humiliatingly left to rot and tossed into a common grave—no, he rose from the dead and was seen whole by his followers; Jesus isn't a failed messiah, his kingdom is a metaphor: he lives in us. These necessary fabrications were the very details and promises that electrified their listeners and helped his followers' numbers grow.In Miracles and Wonder, Pagels does more than solve a historical mystery. She sheds light on Jesus's enduring power to inspire and attract. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/van-leer-institute

Early in her career, Elaine Pagels changed our understanding of the origins of Christianity with her work in The Gnostic Gospels. Now, in the culmination of a decades-long career, she explores the biggest subject of all, Jesus. In Miracles and Wonder:The Historical Mystery of Jesus (Doubleday, 2025) she sets out to discover how a poor young Jewish man inspired a religion that shaped the world.The book reads like a historical mystery, with each chapter addressing a fascinating question and answering it based on the gospels Jesus's followers left behind. Why is Jesus said to have had a virgin birth? Why do we say he rose from the dead? Did his miracles really happen and what did they mean?The story Pagels tells is thrilling and tense. Not just does Jesus comes to life but his desperate, hunted followers do as well. We realize that some of the most compelling details of Jesus's life are the explanations his disciples created to paper over inconvenient facts. So Jesus wasn't illegitimate, his mother conceived by God; Jesus's body wasn't humiliatingly left to rot and tossed into a common grave—no, he rose from the dead and was seen whole by his followers; Jesus isn't a failed messiah, his kingdom is a metaphor: he lives in us. These necessary fabrications were the very details and promises that electrified their listeners and helped his followers' numbers grow.In Miracles and Wonder, Pagels does more than solve a historical mystery. She sheds light on Jesus's enduring power to inspire and attract. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Early in her career, Elaine Pagels changed our understanding of the origins of Christianity with her work in The Gnostic Gospels. Now, in the culmination of a decades-long career, she explores the biggest subject of all, Jesus. In Miracles and Wonder:The Historical Mystery of Jesus (Doubleday, 2025) she sets out to discover how a poor young Jewish man inspired a religion that shaped the world.The book reads like a historical mystery, with each chapter addressing a fascinating question and answering it based on the gospels Jesus's followers left behind. Why is Jesus said to have had a virgin birth? Why do we say he rose from the dead? Did his miracles really happen and what did they mean?The story Pagels tells is thrilling and tense. Not just does Jesus comes to life but his desperate, hunted followers do as well. We realize that some of the most compelling details of Jesus's life are the explanations his disciples created to paper over inconvenient facts. So Jesus wasn't illegitimate, his mother conceived by God; Jesus's body wasn't humiliatingly left to rot and tossed into a common grave—no, he rose from the dead and was seen whole by his followers; Jesus isn't a failed messiah, his kingdom is a metaphor: he lives in us. These necessary fabrications were the very details and promises that electrified their listeners and helped his followers' numbers grow.In Miracles and Wonder, Pagels does more than solve a historical mystery. She sheds light on Jesus's enduring power to inspire and attract. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/christian-studies

Early in her career, Elaine Pagels changed our understanding of the origins of Christianity with her work in The Gnostic Gospels. Now, in the culmination of a decades-long career, she explores the biggest subject of all, Jesus. In Miracles and Wonder:The Historical Mystery of Jesus (Doubleday, 2025) she sets out to discover how a poor young Jewish man inspired a religion that shaped the world.The book reads like a historical mystery, with each chapter addressing a fascinating question and answering it based on the gospels Jesus's followers left behind. Why is Jesus said to have had a virgin birth? Why do we say he rose from the dead? Did his miracles really happen and what did they mean?The story Pagels tells is thrilling and tense. Not just does Jesus comes to life but his desperate, hunted followers do as well. We realize that some of the most compelling details of Jesus's life are the explanations his disciples created to paper over inconvenient facts. So Jesus wasn't illegitimate, his mother conceived by God; Jesus's body wasn't humiliatingly left to rot and tossed into a common grave—no, he rose from the dead and was seen whole by his followers; Jesus isn't a failed messiah, his kingdom is a metaphor: he lives in us. These necessary fabrications were the very details and promises that electrified their listeners and helped his followers' numbers grow.In Miracles and Wonder, Pagels does more than solve a historical mystery. She sheds light on Jesus's enduring power to inspire and attract. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/book-of-the-day

We’re considering the Jesus story with the historian Elaine Pagels. Her new book is a marvel, crowning a lifetime of bestselling scholarship, sifting the sources and retuning the narrative in and around the Christian Gospels. ...

Philip Gulley, Peterson, and Sweet Miche share their personal journeys of unlearning traditional theological concepts and reflect on what makes Quakerism a meaningful path to a more authentic faith. Gulley highlights fear as a significant motivator for religious beliefs and a tool for control and how the current political moment is a masterfully evil manipulation of human fears. Gulley also offers his perspective on the continued usefulness of organized religion, emphasizing the importance of bringing people together, respecting personal autonomy, and aligning its social efforts with the ethos of Jesus and radical love. Philip Gulley is a Quaker pastor, writer, and speaker from Danville, Indiana.  Gulley has written 22 books, including the Harmony series recounting life in the eccentric Quaker community of Harmony, Indiana, and the best-selling Porch Talk essay series. Gulley's memoir, I Love You, Miss Huddleston: And Other Inappropriate Longings of My Indiana Childhood, was a finalist for the Thurber Prize for American Hor.  In addition, Gulley, with co-author James Mulholland, shared their progressive spirituality in the books If Grace Is True and If God Is Love, followed by Gulley's books If the Church Were Christian and The Evolution of Faith. In  Living the Quaker Way: Timeless Wisdom For a Better Life Today, Gulley offers the opportunity to participate in a world where the values of the Quaker way bring equity, peace, healing, and hope. In his most recently published non-fiction work, Unlearning God: How Unbelieving Helped Me Believe, Gulley describes the process of spiritual growth, especially the re-interpretation of the earliest principles we learned about God. Resources Here are some resources for friends in the process of unlearning and seeking spiritual growth: Therapy Therapy and spiritual growth can be deeply complementary. While therapy doesn't typically provide spiritual direction, it creates fertile ground for unlearning and spiritual development. You can use online therapist directories to find a therapist by location, insurance, specialty, cost, and more at Psychology Today, TherapyDen, or Open Path Psychotherapy Collective. Poets and Authors Audre Lorde is a profoundly influential Black lesbian feminist writer, poet, theorist, and civil rights activist. Her work powerfully explores the intersections of race, class, gender, sexuality, and ability. You can read her essays in Sister Outsider and her "biomythography" Zami: A New Spelling of My Name. Federico Garcia Lorca is one of Spain's most important poets and playwrights of the 20th century. His work is celebrated for its intense lyricism, surreal imagery, and passionate exploration of themes like love, death, desire, oppression, and Andalusian culture, particularly in works like Gypsy Ballads and plays such as Blood Wedding and The House of Bernarda Alba. Walt Whitman is a central figure in American poetry, often called the "Bard of Democracy." Whitman revolutionized poetry with his use of free verse and expansive lines. His lifelong work, Leaves of Grass, celebrates the individual, democracy, nature, the body, spirituality, and the interconnectedness of all life, aiming to capture the diverse spirit of America. Mary Oliver is an American poet who focuses on the natural world, particularly the landscapes of New England.  Her work finds wonder, spirituality, and profound insight in quiet observation and moments of attention to nature, inviting readers to connect more deeply with the world around them. Christian Wiman is a contemporary American poet and essayist known for his unflinching honesty and intellectual rigor in exploring themes of faith, doubt, suffering (often drawing on his own experience with chronic illness), mortality, and love.  Joy Harjo is a member of the Muscogee (Creek) Nation and served as the first Native American U.S. Poet Laureate. Her work weaves together Indigenous history, spirituality, myth, social justice, resilience, and a deep connection to the land, often infused with the rhythms of music and prayer. Akwake Emezi is a non-binary Nigerian writer and artist known for their powerful, innovative, and often genre-bending work. Their novels (like Freshwater and The Death of Vivek Oji) explore complex themes of identity, spirituality (often drawing on Igbo cosmology), gender, mental health, trauma, and the body, challenging conventional Western frameworks of selfhood. Elaine Pagels is a renowned historian of religion, particularly noted for her scholarship on early Christianity and Gnosticism. Her groundbreaking book, The Gnostic Gospels, brought non-canonical early Christian texts to wider attention, revealing the diversity of early Christian thought and exploring how political and social contexts shaped religious history and scripture. LGBTQ+ film festivals are events dedicated to showcasing films by, for, or about queer individuals and communities. They serve as vital platforms for representation, providing visibility for filmmakers and stories often marginalized in mainstream media. These festivals (like Frameline, Outfest, NewFest, and countless others globally) are also important spaces for community building and celebrating queer culture. Quaker Voluntary Service is a year-long program rooted in Quaker values. It brings young adults together to live in an intentional community, work full-time in social justice-focused non-profit organizations, and engage in spiritual exploration and leadership development, putting faith into action. Listener Responses We hear directly from Roxanne, who unlearned the idea that any single group holds the definitive spiritual answer, instead discovering valuable truths across diverse practices and traditions through their continuous seeking. On Facebook, friends shared their experience wrestling with the traditional ideas about God they grew up with. Many people mentioned letting go of a harsh or judgmental image of God, questioning core doctrines, and letting go of feelings of unworthiness. Thank you to Angela, Rae, Tim, Amy, Iris, Christine, Steve, David, Tyler, Joe, Deepak, and Whittier for sharing so openly with our question of the month. Question for Next Month Beyond a roof and four walls, what does the word 'home' mean to you? Share your response by emailing podcast@quakerstoday.org or call/text 317-QUAKERS (317-782-5377). Please include your name and location. Your responses may be featured in our next episode. Quakers Today: A Project of Friends Publishing Corporation Quakers Today is the companion podcast to Friends Journal and Friends Publishing Corporation content. It is written, hosted, and produced by Peterson Toscano and Miche McCall. Season Four of Quakers Today is Sponsored by: Friends Fiduciary Since 1898, Friends Fiduciary has provided values-aligned investment services for Quaker organizations, consistently achieving strong financial returns while upholding Quaker testimonies. They also assist individuals in supporting beloved organizations through donor-advised funds, charitable gift annuities, and stock gifts. Learn more at FriendsFiduciary.org. American Friends Service Committee (AFSC) Vulnerable communities and the planet are counting on Quakers to take action for a more just, sustainable, and peaceful world. AFSC works at the forefront of social change movements to meet urgent humanitarian needs, challenge injustice, and build peace. Learn more at AFSC.org. Feel free to email us at podcast@friendsjournal.org with​​ comments, questions, and requests for our show. Music from this episode comes from Epidemic Sound.  Follow Quakers Today on TikTok, Instagram, and X. For more episodes and a full transcript of this episode, visit QuakersToday.org.

Topics this week:An Atlantic article on Elaine Pagels' new book, "Miracles and Wonder." Is she downplaying the supernatural? This episode dives into her controversial take on New Testament miracles.Florida teacher fired for using a student's preferred name without parental consent. Where do parental rights collide with student support? Scientists have brought back the dire wolf. Is this a cool breakthrough or a recipe for disaster? We debate the ethics of de-extinction.Are embryos property? Are they human life? The Alabama court ruling ignited a firestorm, and we're tackling the tough questions.Listener Question: Martin Luther King Jr.: Hero or flawed figure? We address a listener's challenge and discuss how to reconcile King's legacy with his imperfections.Listener Questions: Psychedelics: Are they safe? We pump the brakes on the hype, exploring potential harms and the principle of double effect. Apologies for the late publishing this week — our production team was busy with a large event on Thursday and Friday. ==========Think Biblically: Conversations on Faith and Culture is a podcast from Talbot School of Theology at Biola University, which offers degrees both online and on campus in Southern California. Find all episodes of Think Biblically at: https://www.biola.edu/think-biblically. Watch video episodes at: https://bit.ly/think-biblically-video. To submit comments, ask questions, or make suggestions on issues you'd like us to cover or guests you'd like us to have on the podcast, email us at thinkbiblically@biola.edu.

For decades, Elaine Pagels's work has been changing the historical landscape of Christian religion. She's also changed the way many people, including myself, see the world. Pagels is a religion professor at Princeton University, and the author of seminal, award-winning books like The Gnostic Gospels, and her newest, Miracles and Wonder. We talked about the surprising things she's learned about Jesus and his followers; what his most radical teaching was; and why Jesus, this essentially unlikely traveling rabbi, emerged as the figure he did in our culture. And why this all still matters today. We talk about Pagels's own story, her personal spiritual pull; as well as a vortex I went down in boarding school that made me understand how susceptible we all are to constraints that explain the world in overly reductive and simple ways. We reflect on how natural it is for us to want some sense of connection with a transcendent being. And how this has shaped the way Elaine approaches her work: not with the intention of destroying a framework, but looking for ways to expand it.  For links to all of Elaine Pagels's book and the (many) show notes, head over to my Substack. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The evidence is clear that Jesus of Nazareth was a real, historical person. But beyond that, says the scholar Elaine Pagels, there are more questions than answers about what kind of person Jesus was and what can be known about his life.

Thirty years ago, David Remnick published “The Devil Problem,” a profile of the religion professor Elaine Pagels—a scholar of early Christianity who had also, improbably, become a best-selling author. Pagels's 1979 book, “The Gnostic Gospels,” was scholarly and rigorous, but also accessible and widely read. She changed how a lot of people thought about the Bible. Pagels went on to write “The Origin of Satan,” as well as works on Adam and Eve and the Book of Revelation. Pagels's upcoming book, “Miracles and Wonder: The Historical Mystery of Jesus,” is a summation of her lifetime of study, as it takes on some of the central historical controversies of Christianity, including the stories of immaculate conception and the resurrection. The daughter of a scientist, Pagels “was living in a world in which science defines what you can see, and there's nothing else.” Then, as a teen-ager, she was born again after seeing the evangelist Billy Graham preach. “This was about opening up the imagination,” she tells Remnick. “I did feel like the sky opened up.” Her time in the evangelical community was brief, but her fascination with belief never faded. “I have a sense that what we think of as the invisible world has deep realities to it that are quite unfathomable.”

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Elaine Pagels is an American historian of religion. She is the Harrington Spear Paine Professor of Religion at Princeton University. Pagels has conducted extensive research into early Christianity and Gnosticism. Buy "The Origin of Satan" by Elaine Pagels here.

“Dark and cheerless is the morn unaccompanied by thee; joyless is the day's return till thy mercy's beams I see, till they inward light impart, glad my eyes and warm my heart.”   Why practice religion? Last week a New York Times journalist asked me a question I frequently hear from my neighbors. “Is religion dying out?” People raising this topic often cite statistics showing a decline in religious participation. Indeed more people went to church in the 1950's and 1960's than at any other time in our country's history. We were a much less diverse country in those days and we were facing the aftermath of the most destructive war in all history. Perhaps there is an ebb and flow when it comes to expressing our spirituality. I always answer by saying that human beings are spiritual beings and we always will be. We are not going to evolve or grow out of religion. We will never stop asking questions like “where did I come from? How should I dedicate my time and energy? What happens after we die?” We are symbolic creatures who depend on constructing meaning for our social lives and for our individual survival. Despair kills us. The twentieth century philosopher Martin Heidegger (1889-1976) calls humans “Dasein” or “being.” He means we are the being for whom being (that is, our very existence), is a problem.   Social scientists tell us that religious people are less depressed and lonely (they have more social connections). They are healthier and live longer. They report being happier. Columbia researcher Lisa Miller points out that children who have a positive active relationship to spirituality are 40% less likely to use and abuse substances, 60% less like to be depressed as teenagers and 80% less likely to have dangerous or unprotected sex.   This is probably not the reason to become religious. Religion is not about believing the unbelievable. At heart religions share something in common: the idea that you are not the center. Religions evolved with human beings who long for a connection to God and cannot be satisfied by anything else. I think we could spend a year talking about this but let me share two immediate responses to the question “why practice a religion,” one primarily from the head and the other from the heart.   1. Why religion? Because, “Be it life or death, we crave only reality.” Henry David Thoreau(1817-1862) wrote this in his book Walden in a section about our deep desire to fathom the depths of “opinion and prejudice, and tradition and delusion” so that we might reach the rock solid bottom “which we can call reality.” True religion involves opening to reality, becoming aware of the extraordinary mystery both of the world and our inner life.   Ed Yong wrote one of my favorite new books. It is called An Immense World: How Animal Senses Reveal the Hidden Realms around us. He begins by asking the reader to imagine an elephant in a room, not a metaphorical “weighty issue” sort of elephant but an actual elephant in a room the size of a high school gymnasium. Now imagine a mouse surrying in with a robin hopping along beside it. An owl sits on a beam and a bat hangs from the ceiling. A rattlesnake slithers on the floor. A spider rests in its web with a mosquito and a bumblebee sitting on a potted sunflower… and a woman named Rebecca who loves animals. They are all in the same room, but they have entirely different sensory experiences of the same space. Certain animals can see ultraviolet shades that are invisible to us. Mosquitos smell carbon dioxide. Snakes sense infrared radiation coming from warm objects. Ticks detect body heat from thirteen feet away. The robin feels the earth's magnetic field. Tiny insects make extraordinary sounds that vibrate through plants. When a fish swims it leaves behind a hydrodynamic wake, a “trail of swirling water.” Did you know that harbor seals can detect this with their whiskers and follow a herring from up to about 200 yards away? No one knew this before the year 2001.   There are whole new forms of sensing the world that human beings are only just discovering. We can barely imagine the experience that other creatures are having. I love the word that describes this. It is Umwelt, the German word for environment. But in this case it means the perceptual world of each creature. The ability of our eyes to see details for instance makes us almost entirely unique among all animals other than eagles and vultures. Our Umwelt is predominantly visual one.   My point is that we encounter truth through symbols which lie deep in our subconscious and areshared in our culture. You might call this way of seeing a kind of unavoidable mythological Umwelt. Our Umwelt determines what we think about loyalty, family, economic growth, impurity, justice, identity, childhood, politics, duty, fairness and nationality. This worldviewdirects us as we try to live a good life.   Why religion? Because we are unfinished creatures made more complete by God and each other. Religion is a way of studying, interpreting, shaping and ultimately embodying values. Participating in religion means more consciously opening ourselves to other people. This includes the diverse people in this room but also those who came before us in history who loved God and wrote hymns, prayers and theologies. Together we pray and listen to the promptings of God's spirit.   During the terrible years of apartheid in South Africa it was dangerous for Desmond Tutu to preach. But this did not stop him. He said “You are love.” “You are the body of Christ that receives the sacraments in order to become more fully the mystical embodiment of love.” God loves us so that we can love another.   2. Why religion? Because of our longing for God and God's longing for us. Religion is how we meet God. It is how we receive help from beyond ourselves. In her memoir the historian Elaine Pagels writes about the way her rationalist parents dismissed religion as something only for uneducated people, as unscientific. But this also led them in an extreme way to avoid thinking or talking about suffering and death.   Mark Twain joked, “I know that everyone dies, but I always thought an exception would be made in my case.” This was how they existed and it left them unprepared for life.   Pagels describes having difficulty getting pregnant and then participating in a kind of fertility ritual. Sitting in a candlelit circle a thought entered her mind, “Are you willing to be a channel?” She answered “Yes!” and soon became pregnant. Her son Mark was born with a hole in his heart that had to be repaired by surgery when he was one year old.   The night before the surgery she was startled by an experience that could have been a dream although she felt like she was awake. An inhuman male presence came near threatening to kill her son. She wanted to run but stood her ground. The threatening presence returned twice more. The last time she felt like she could not stand another moment. She spoke the name, “Jesus Christ” and the dangerous being fled and she was no longer afraid.   Four years later Mark was in Kindergarten when one evening she went into his room to sing him to sleep. Instead he hugged her with his arms around her neck and said, “I'll love you all my life, and all my death.” The next day at the doctor's office when they were drawing blood he stiffened and his eyes rolled up. She sensed that the life had left his body, that their connection was breaking. And she lost consciousness.   Suddenly Pagels seemed, “to be in a brilliant place, vividly green with golden light.” Her husband came in and she felt as if she could feel her son's presence there near the ceiling of the room. The cardiologist came in to say, “I don't want to get your hopes up, but your son's heart stopped and it is beating again.” Pagels had the impression that the boy had heard his parents talking and gone back to his body only to discover it couldn't sustain his life.   The boy died and Pagels writes, “Strangely, I also sensed that he'd felt a burst of joy and relief to leave his exhausted body. Before that moment, I'd taken for granted what I'd learned, that death was the end, any thought of surviving death only fantasy. Although that may be true, what I experienced that day challenged that assumption. I was astonished, seeming to sense that Mark was all right, wherever he was, and that he was somewhere.”   The tragedy deepened terribly a year later when the one person Pagels' depended on most, her beloved husband fell to his death in a climbing accident. Her parents did not visit when her son was born, or when he had open-heart surgery or when he died or for her husband's funeral. They stayed away from suffering. She called it a “pattern of oblivion.”   Elaine Pagels studied ancient gnostic literature written after the Bible was finished. She quotesthe Gospel of Thomas which says, “the kingdom of God is within you, and outside of you. When you come to know yourselves then… you will know that you are children of God.”   Pagels concludes writing, “the kingdom of God is not an actual place… or an event expected in human time. Instead, it's a state of being that we may enter when we come to know who we are, and come to know God as the source of our being… The “good news” is not only about Jesus, it's about every one of us. While we ordinarily identify ourselves by specifying how we differ, in terms of gender, race, ethnicity… recognizing that we are “children of God” requires us to see how we are the same – members… of the same family… [T]he “image of God,” the divine light given in creation, is hidden deep within each one of us, linking our fragile, limited selves to their divine source.”   Why religion? Because in the face of the great mystery of our life we long for reality. We reach beyond our Umwelt to learn from each other. Why religion? Because beyond even the “pattern of oblivion” God meets us here where we receive help from beyond ourselves.

Elise Loehnen is a writer, editor, and podcast host of Pulling the Thread. Ultimately, Elise is a seeker and synthesizer, braiding together wisdom traditions, cultural history, and a deep knowledge of healing modalities to unlock new ways to contextualize who we are and why we're here. She's also the author of the instant New York Times bestseller On Our Best Behavior: The Seven Deadly Sins and the Price Women Pay to Be Good. The book explores the ways patriarchy embeds itself in our consciousness. The Seven Deadly Sins—Sloth, Envy, Pride, Gluttony, Greed, Lust, Anger—reads like a checklist of what it means to be a "good" woman and offers a path forward, moving ourselves and each other toward freedom and balance. Elise is a frequent contributor to Oprah and has written for The New York Times, Elle Decor, Stylist, and more. She has co-written 12 books, including five New York Times Best Sellers. Previously, she was the chief content officer of goop, and co-hosted The goop Podcast and The goop Lab on Netflix. Before goop, Elise was the editorial projects director of Condé Nast Traveler. Before Traveler, she was the editor at large and ultimately deputy editor of Lucky Magazine, appearing regularly on Today, E!, Good Morning America, and The Early Show. She has a B.A. from Yale. In this episode, Nada sits down with Elise to learn what prompted her to write On Our Best Behavior and to unpack how women have contorted themselves to find a place in history. Elise shares anecdotes about how modesty was prioritized and impacted her life. She discusses the importance of women showing up together and gives us context for why collectivism is essential. This cultural therapist (recently coined at a conference and an appropriate title for Elise) is at once a researcher, teacher, student, and friend. Her ability to clearly articulate our cultural condition gives wings to our unnamed inklings and fragmented thoughts. Elise is currently reading The Origin of Satan by Elaine Pagels, Morality by Jonathon Sack, and Integral Psychology by Ken Wilber. You can find additional recommendations at Bookshop, or Goodreads. Check out Elise's website, book, and podcast.Please follow us at @thisislibertyroad on Instagram; we want to share and connect with you and hear your thoughts and comments. Please rate and review this podcast. It helps to know if these conversations inspire and equip you to consider your possibilities and lean into your future with intention. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Premiered May 3, 2024 Christopher Knowles, aka Secret Sun Speaks, is the owner of the Secret Sun Blog, and the author of Our Heroes Wear Spandex, Endless American Midnight, He Will Live Up in the Sky, The Spandex Files, The Secret Sun Synchromystic Handbook, and The Secret History of Rock 'n' Roll Topics: - His Background in the Church - Pagan Symbolism All Around Us - Lucifer, Mithras, and Perseus - The Meaning of a Church Sanctuary - Why Strong Men Are a Threat To the Empire - Watcher Worship and the Ruling Elites - Human Misery in the Collapse of Civilization - The Happy Ending of the Book of Revelation [⁠00:00:00⁠] Intro [⁠00:04:46⁠] Christopher's Background in the Church [⁠00:07:25⁠] Pagan Symbolism All Around Us [⁠00:11:54⁠] Lucifer, Mithras, and Perseus [⁠00:39:38⁠] The Meaning of a Church Sanctuary [⁠00:52:04⁠] Strong Men Are A Threat To the Empire [⁠01:03:36⁠] Watcher Worship and the Ruling Elites [⁠02:25:18⁠] Human Misery in the Collapse of Civilization [⁠02:54:57⁠] The Happy Ending of Revelation ~~~ Christopher Knowles: ⁠The Secret Sun Blog ⁠Secret Sun on X Patreon LinkTree ~~~ MENTIONED IN THIS PODCAST "Endless American Midnight" - Christopher Knowles "Our Gods Wear Spandex" - Christopher Knowles "Adam and Eve and the Serpent" - Elaine Pagels "The Externalization of the Hierarchy" - Alice Bailey Bloomberg's ⁠ London Mithraeum The ⁠Mithras Liturgy⁠ ~~~ 12 RULES FOR CHASTITY - FREE GUIDE! https://renofmen.gumroad.com/l/12rules SPONSORS https://ReformationCoffee.com Use the code SUBFREE to get one free bag of coffee with subscription. https://obrienfitnesslifestyle.com Use code RENOFMEN to get 10% off any online training package. ~~~ The Renaissance of Men: Connect on X Instagram YouTube LinkTree ~~~~~~~ From ⁠⁠⁠Me⁠⁠⁠: ⁠⁠⁠Be Good Broadcast⁠⁠⁠ Many thanks to Will and Chris for their permission to broadcast this episode. Two legends who deserver your undivided attention. I just rebroadcast those spreading The Word. Propagate it. Share it. ⁠⁠⁠Contact⁠⁠⁠ Me Please Rate or Review on⁠⁠⁠Spotify⁠⁠⁠ or ⁠⁠⁠Apple.⁠ This and all works are protected by ⁠CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 DEED⁠ ⁠Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 4.0 International License --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/begoodbroadcast/message Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/begoodbroadcast/support

In this fascinating panel discussion, co-hosts Matthew Distefano and Keith Giles talk with new testament and early church scholars, Elaine Pagels, Christopher Skinner and William G. Duffy to answer your questions about the Gospel of Thomas to determine if it's a legitimate collection of the sayings of Jesus.If you want to call in to the Bonus Show, leave a voicemail at (530) 332-8020. We would love to get to your calls!To buy the Heretic Happy Hour book, find it on Amazon!LINKSQuoirCast on PatreonQuoirCast on PatheosPANELElaine PagelsWilliam DuffyChristopher Skinner

Elaine Pagels is an American historian of religion. She is the Harrington Spear Paine Professor of Religion at Princeton University. Pagels has conducted extensive research into early Christianity and Gnosticism. See me speak at Level Up in Atlanta this June: http://levelupconferences.org/

This week we are talking to Elaine Pagels about her book "Why Religion?" We talk about grief, loss, and experiences that surpass our understanding. Enjoy! SHOW NOTES: ELAINE PAGELS: https://www.elaine-pagels.com WHY RELIGION?: https://www.amazon.com/Why-Religion-Personal-Elaine-Pagels/dp/0062368540/ref=sr_1_5?crid=I4PB2QTUZP88&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.yfo2bGO0S3IqJmtSysGHtBEhBxBLk2PSrCRToILleiuW0_qUKltgwCaWosr7wEDku2iil_JZRIUCFr9x_N4cGNliIJa3hrGRFr803tUKezkNq_E5fui4Wa-CoJ7xDn2tCANHSzmzrnarZ8cjcoGncQ4R1vywxNhNml8jIN61_kn6Uk46vN48pr82wDpwGCGFcyUkphwqfpuJTVmnTN2yZtXQkSBlLa3InQ7ANQ_f_cBHVBdm5LF2amQkoxInNJl5DvafvSA-ywf2L6eqlT8S8ZXThuKylbWY_212nDzydHA.JdnYwZLtWlmFNZWRnZeqMBjrMhAZ9GyJWAot121dbmI&dib_tag=se&keywords=elaine+pagels&qid=1709053771&sprefix=elaine+pagle%2Caps%2C183&sr=8-5 MY BOOK: https://www.amazon.com/Emerging-Rubble-Stories-Shattered-Relationships/dp/B0C7T5TJD4/ref=sr_1_1?crid=2B051GGV2WCSI&keywords=glenn+siepert&qid=1700157759&sprefix=glenn+%2Caps%2C399&sr=8-1 SUPPORT THE SHOW: https://www.whatifproject.net/support SPECIAL MUSIC: HATAMITSUNAMI (Artist) / Funky Munky Biznis (Song Name) / courtesy of epidemicsound.com

Elaine Pagels presents the compelling theory that the Gospel of John might have intentionally silenced the Gospel of Thomas. This interview not only explores the hidden gospels but also challenges us to rethink the foundational narratives of Christianity through the insights of Elaine Pagels. Thoughts, questions, stories? Please email almostheretical@gmail.com Become a member and get: 1. Bonus episodes of Utterly Heretical (our private podcast) every month 2. All full-length episodes 3. Access to our private community of 350+ listeners Become a member: almostheretical.com/subscribe Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The Book Of Revelation is said to be the strangest, most controversial book in the Bible. Some love it, and some hate it. Some Christians never talk about it; some never stop talking about it. And, some people use it as a predictor of current events, as part of their impetus for violence and fervor for hatred and political gain. Others apply Revelation as evidence of a war between good and evil to almost any situation.Elaine Pagels, Harrington Spear Paine Professor of Religion at Princeton University, refers to The Book of Revelation as “war literature.” Pagels explains that John of Patmos, a war refugee, wrote Revelation sixty years after the death of Jesus, and twenty years after 60,000 Roman troops crushed the Jewish rebellion in Judea and destroyed Jerusalem and its Great Temple. Pagels persuasively interprets Revelation as a scathing attack on the decadence of Rome.This FRONT ROW podcast features special guests Charlene Sinclair and Peter Laarman.Dr. Charlene Sinclair is an organizer, thinker, and writer whose work centers on the intersection of race, gender, economy, and democracy. Strongly influenced by the pathbreaking thought of the late James Cone, founder of Black Liberation Theology, Dr. Sinclair is committed to fashioning strategies that embrace a liberationist approach to faith and spirituality in the context of popular struggles for racial, economic, and gender justice. Peter Laarman is a retired United Church of Christ minister and activist who led Judson Memorial Church in New York and Progressive Christians Uniting in California. He is currently involved with the King & Breaking Silence webinar project of the National Council of Elders and with the development of a new formation called Social Ethics Energizing Democracy. Charlene and Peter approach Revelation from very different positions.

In this episode with sit down with Elaine Pagels and talk about her book, "Revelations: Visions, Prophecy, and Politics in the Book of Revelation" and deep dive into the background and context of Revelation and the very real consequences of ignoring that context in modern day interpretations. Enjoy! SHOW NOTES: ELAINE PAGELS: https://www.elaine-pagels.com REVELATIONS: https://www.amazon.com/Revelations-Visions-Prophecy-Politics-Revelation/dp/0143121634/ref=sr_1_1?crid=2285RF63KZB83&keywords=elaine+pagels+revelation&qid=1697475242&sprefix=elaine+pagels+reve%2Caps%2C255&sr=8-1 MY BOOK: https://www.amazon.com/Emerging-Rubble-Stories-Shattered-Relationships/dp/B0C7T5TJD4/ref=sr_1_1?crid=29CHHUZGNTDW9&keywords=glenn+siepert&qid=1697117753&sprefix=glenn+sieper%2Caps%2C137&sr=8-1 SUPPORT THE SHOW: https://www.whatifproject.net/support SPECIAL MUSIC: Oomiee (Artist) / Married to the Light (Song Name) / courtesy of epidemicsound.com

How do we locate divinity within our own bodies, and within the ordinariness of our lived experiences? On the latest episode I explore this topic with Kay Louise Aldred, a researcher, writer, and teacher who catalyzes individual, institutional, and collective evolution through education, embodiment, and creativity (and not to worry, we break this all down in this episode).  Kay is the author of several books, all published by Girl God Books: "Mentorship with Goddess: Growing Sacred Womanhood;" "Making Love with the Divine: Sacred ,Ecstatic, Erotic Experiences;" "Somatic Shamanism: Your Fleshy Knowing and the Tree of Life;" and "Embodied Education: Creating Safe Space for Learning, Facilitating, and Sharing."On this episode we discuss:The nature of Kay's work, and why she's passionate about using cognition, intuition, and instinct to access deeper, more holistic wisdomThe importance of turning toward the wisdom of the heart when in doubt or confusionKay's long journey out of mind-based religion and into a spirituality that fuses mind, body and and spiritWhat "tangible divinity" means, and why it mattersHow we can make love with the divine through a variety of "ordinary" experiences available to all of usAnd much more!Show NotesIf you'd like to know whose ancestral tribal lands you currently reside on, you can look up your address here: https://native-land.ca/You can also visit the Coalition of Natives and Allies for more helpful educational resources about Indigenous rights and history.Please check out my latest course offering! Returning to the Well: Sacred Feminine Wisdom  for Your Motherhood Journey, begins Sunday, October 29! This 5-week online course explores the divine journey of motherhood and what it means to parent in partnership with the Sacred Feminine,  and is offered via Home to Her Academy, a school dedicated to seekers of Sacred Feminine wisdom! Learn more and register here: https://www.hometoheracademy.com/course/returning-to-the-well.   And while you're there, don't forget to sign up for my newsletter to stay up to date with upcoming classes.My book, “Home to Her: Walking the Transformative Path of the Sacred Feminine,” is available from Womancraft Publishing! To learn more, read endorsements and purchase, please visit  https://womancraftpublishing.com/product/home-to-her/. It is also available for sale via Amazon, Bookshop.org, and you can order it from your favorite local bookstore, too.Please – if you love this podcast and/or have read my book, please consider leaving me a review! For the podcast, reviews on iTunes are extremely helpful, and for the book, reviews on Amazon and Goodreads are equally helpful. Thank you for supporting my work!You can watch this and other podcast episodes at the Home to Her YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/@hometoherGot feedback about this episode or others you've heard? Please reach out on Instagram (https://www.instagram.com/hometoher/ ), Facebook  (https://www.facebook.com/hometoher)You can follow Kay on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Instagram @kaylouisealdred. You can learn more about her books at Girl God Books:  https://www.thegirlgod.com/During this episode, Kay mentioned the work of Meggan Watterson, who is well known for her her book "Mary Magdalene Revealed."She also referenced the Gnostic Gospels; Elaine Pagels has written an excellent book about them  titled (appropriately) "The Gnostic Gospels."I mentioned the dance practice 5 Rhythms, which was founded by Gabrielle Roth. You can learn more about it here: https://www.5rhythms.com/Kay also mentioned the work of Irene Lyon: https://irenelyon.com/Related episodes:Telling the Stories of the Sacred Feminine with Trista Hendren: https://hometoher.simplecast.com/episodes/telling-the-stories-of-the-sacred-feminine-with-trista-hendren

Elise Loehnen is a writer, editor, and podcast host of Pulling the Thread. Ultimately, Elise is a seeker and synthesizer, braiding together wisdom traditions, cultural history, and a deep knowledge of healing modalities to unlock new ways to contextualize who we are and why we're here. She's also the author of the instant New York Times bestseller On Our Best Behavior: The Seven Deadly Sins and the Price Women Pay to Be Good. The book explores the ways patriarchy embeds itself in our consciousness. The Seven Deadly Sins—Sloth, Envy, Pride, Gluttony, Greed, Lust, Anger—reads like a checklist of what it means to be a "good" woman and offers a path forward, moving ourselves and each other toward freedom and balance. Elise is a frequent contributor to Oprah and has written for The New York Times, Elle Decor, Stylist, and more. She has co-written 12 books, including five New York Times Best Sellers. Previously, she was the chief content officer of goop, and co-hosted The goop Podcast and The goop Lab on Netflix. Before goop, Elise was the editorial projects director of Condé Nast Traveler. Before Traveler, she was the editor at large and ultimately deputy editor of Lucky Magazine, appearing regularly on Today, E!, Good Morning America, and The Early Show. She has a B.A. from Yale. In this episode, Nada sits down with Elise to learn what prompted her to write On Our Best Behavior and to unpack how women have contorted themselves to find a place in history. Elise shares anecdotes about how modesty was prioritized and impacted her life. She discusses the importance of women showing up together and gives us context for why collectivism is essential. This cultural therapist (recently coined at a conference and an appropriate title for Elise) is at once a researcher, teacher, student, and friend. Her ability to clearly articulate our cultural condition gives wings to our unnamed inklings and fragmented thoughts. Elise is currently reading The Origin of Satan by Elaine Pagels, Morality by Jonathon Sack, and Integral Psychology by Ken Wilber. You can find additional recommendations at Bookshop, or Goodreads. Check out Elise's website, book, and podcast.Please follow us at @thisislibertyroad on Instagram--where we hang out the most and connect with our community. And please rate and review this podcast. It helps to know if these conversations inspire and equip you to consider what's now and what's next. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

We all believe in something greater than ourselves, and with that belief, we are able to overcome obstacles, no matter how hard life gets sometimes.In this episode of The Founder Spirit, Professor Elaine Pagels, a historian of religion at Princeton University and a Trustee of the Aspen Institute, discusses the significance of the Gnostic Gospels. These ancient texts (nearly 2000 years old), believed to be the secret teachings of Jesus, were discovered in 1945 buried in the deep desert of Upper Egypt and were denounced as heresy in the early Christian era. They suggest that within each of us, there is the ability to access divine energy.The episode also explores the concept of inner light as key to Gnosis (knowledge in Greek) and living a fulfilling life. It also discusses the role of women in early Christian societies and their impact on religious practices. Elaine explores the idea of God as both masculine and feminine emanations of energy, as well as her personal story with the tragic deaths of her young son Mark and her late husband Heinz.TUNE IN to this incredibly enlightening episode! Join us for a thought-provoking journey with Professor Elaine Pagels whose heart not only healed from unimaginable losses, but also continues to blossom in her new-found bliss.For detailed transcript and show notes, please visit TheFounderSpirit.com. Also follow us on: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/the-founder-spirit-podcastInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/thefounderspirit_podcastYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@TheFounderSpiritPodcastFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/TheFounderSpiritTwitter: https://twitter.com/founder_spiritIf this podcast has been beneficial or valuable to you, feel free to become a patron and support us on Patreon.com, that is P-A-T-R-E-O-N.com/TheFounderSpirit.As always, you can find us on Apple, Google, Amazon and Spotify, as well as social media and our website at TheFounderSpirit.com.About This Podcast:Whether you are an entrepreneur, a mid-career professional or someone who's just starting out in life, The Founder Spirit podcast is for you!In this podcast series, we'll be interviewing exceptional individuals from all over the world with the founder spirit, ranging from social entrepreneurs, tech founders, to philanthropists, elite athletes, and more. Together, we'll uncover not only how they manage to succeed in face of multiple challenges, but also who they are as people and their human story.So TUNE IN & be inspired by stories from their life journey!

Near the end of the extraordinary book that is the subject of this book lunch, The Disenchantment of the World, A Political History of Religion, the author, Marcel Gauchet, says the following about aesthetics, the very topic of our podcast: "The aesthetic experience seems to me amenable to a similar analysis, insofar as it can be related to a primordial source, which in turn attests the continuing existence of a relation to the world, a relation previously the basis of religious sentiment. The capacity for emotion art the sight of things arises from a basic mode of inscription in being, which connects us with what used to be the meaning of the sacred for thousands of years." Of course I read that passage when first I discovered this remarkable book, partly due to a now famous review of it in the New Republic by the late, great Jean Bethke Elshtain. It is not every host of a podcast who was reading The New Republic in the 1990s - and then going out and buying an obscure text on the recommendation of one The New Republic's writers. Of course the name Gauchet is far from the celebration and fame of the more familiar and famous writers on religion Elaine Pagels and Karen Armstrong. But I have always felt that his book is among the most important ones on the subject and, as one of the aims of our podcast is to introduce to a wide audience intellectual matters that might be more unfamiliar, I was only too happy about my conversation with Michael Behrent. Dr. Behrent's Bio My recent scholarship has sought to historicize the work of the French philosopher Michel Foucault. An initial set of essays evaluated the political significance of his reflections on free-market economics by situating his work in the shifting ideological landscape of France in the 1970s. My current project seeks to show how Foucault's thought was (to a significant degree) rooted in his upbringing in Poitiers (France) from the 1920s to the 1940s. A subsequent project seeks to reconstruct the thought of the “young Foucault” (spanning 1949 through to the mid-1960s). I have also written on nineteenth-century French political thought (particularly the relationship between religion and republicanism), the history of liberal and democratic thought, and contemporary French political philosophy. Finally, I write about American politics and culture for several French publications, notably Esprit. I also write about French politics and culture for several American and British venues (such as, Dissent, Foreign Policy, and Oxford University Press blog). Links to Professor Behrent's Work https://www.pennpress.org/ 9781512825145/becoming- foucault/ For a more comprehensive list of his works, visit his website, here: https:// appstate.academia.edu/ MichaelBehrent       #democracy #humanrights #sociology #individualism #multiculturalism #identity #raymondaron #France #socialismorbarbarism   #claudelefort #corneliuscastoriadis #mauricemerleau-ponty  #may68 #anthropology #christianity #islam #judaism #buddhism #politics #gladysswain #michelfoucault #alainbadoi #marxism #capitalism #neoliberalism #postmodernism #emmanuelemacron #robespierre #globalisation #francoismiterrand #jacqueschirac #spirituality #law #constitution  --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/mitch-hampton/message Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/mitch-hampton/support

What made gnostics different from other Christians? And did it matter? A discussion of Elaine Pagels' 1979 monograph, The Gnostic Gospels.

For this special classic episode, Aaron delves deeply into a provocative claim made on NPR's This American Life. In a conversation with host Ira Glass, Princeton historian Elaine Pagels argues that Jesus's death on the cross was an "utter failure." This piques Aaron's curiosity. He decides to explore the topic further, questioning leading scholars and theologians about whether Jesus's crucifixion really was a failure as Pagels suggests. Aaron brings on apologist Thomas Fretwell and his friend Wavey Cowper to share revelatory insights and historical context. They examine what Jesus and his earliest followers truly understood about his death on the cross. Was Jesus's crucifixion the Roman Empire successfully squashing a would-be revolution? Or was it the enactment of God's eternal plan of salvation for humanity? Join Aaron and his friends as they pick at Pagels' thesis - and explores the far-reaching implications of Jesus willingly enduring the ultimate human failure, in order to achieve the ultimate divine victory. Through thoughtful discussion, historical evidence and theological reflection, they aim to provide you with a fresh perspective on the death and resurrection of Christ. --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/goodlion/message

After making a spiritual resolution, Country Roots Singer Amanda Anne Platt talks to Elaine Pagels (Professor of Religion at Princeton University) to come to a greater understanding, and write a beautiful new song - "Miracles". Stream the song: https://ffm.to/amandamiracles LYRICS: I saw Jesus in a parking lot he said to give the world what I got but nobody believed me yeah they said I was crazy and now it's gonna turn me to stone like milk for the baby that never came home it's the saddest thing that I've ever known and can't nobody save me Sometimes the heart breaks just like an egg hatches tiny and barely breathing hungry for some meaning Sometimes the world laughs just trying to hold the tears back sometimes we're lonely sometimes we're only dreaming We were short on miracles Guess they needed them for the war so we said "we don't believe in miracles anymore" but I don't wanna be scared to love I don't wanna be scared to hope I don't wanna be scared to call out just cause there might be no answer She misses her brother today asks me why he went away I say "honey, it's beyond me" I been trying to wrap my head around the whole damn thing trying to find the truth, trying to make it sing sometimes the truth just seems so ugly We were short on miracles Guess they needed them for the war so we said "we don't believe in miracles anymore" but I don't wanna be scared to love I don't wanna be scared to hope I don't wanna be scared to call out just cause there might be no answer CREDITS: Amanda Anne Platt : Vocals Dulci Ellenberger : Harmonies Jack Stafford : Backing Vocals Luigi Falcione : Acoustic Guitar, Banjo Massimino Voza : Drums, Strings, Vibes Maurizio Sarnicola : Bass Guitar Written by Amanda Anne Platt & Jack Stafford Produced, mixed and mastered by Maurizio Sarnicola at Goldmine Records Italy // SUPPORT THIS CHANNEL // Newsletter, donations and download the song for €/$1 @ https://podsongs.com // LINKS // Website: https://podsongs.com Podcast episodes: https://podsongs.com/podcast-episodes Songs: https://podsongs.com/music Spotify artist: https://open.spotify.com/artist/32FYyRx1y1ex3jHHAgLMC7?si=4Nv7WW85SbSPZvCsj1o7Ig Spotify playlist: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/6sN1viy82HPiNTVX2YBxpq?si=1b84c2b9bdea4656 // SOCIAL // Twitter: https://twitter.com/podsongs Instagram: https://instagram.com/podsongs Facebook: https://facebook.com/podsongs --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/podsongs/message

Books discussed in this episode: The Gnostic Gospels, Elaine Pagels; The Gnostic Jung, Stephan Hoeller; Answer to Job, CG Jung. Music: Sigur Rós, Björk, Radiohead. Béa laments the burning of the library at Alexandria and Jay explores the notion of mystery and how it applies to music. Song: This 'Ol World from Jay's album, Harvesting James. You can find Jay's music on Spotify, Apple Music, Amazon and all other music distribution services.        

“When he entered Jerusalem, the whole city was in turmoil asking, ‘Who is this?'” Mt. 21 Matthew 21:1-11 Isaiah 50:4-9a Philippians 2:5-11 Matthew 26:14-27:66 What is God like? And how will we respond? Give me your hand and we will see. In December 1945, halfway up the Egyptian portion of the Nile River, a farmer named Muhammad ‘Alī al-Sammān made an extraordinary archaeological discovery. Thirty years later he told his story. Not long before he and his brothers avenged their father's murder, they were digging for soil to fertilize their crops when they found a three foot high red, earthenware jar. Wondering if it contained an evil spirit, at first they hesitated to break it open. Then he had the idea that it might contain gold, so he smashed it with his axe and discovered thirteen papyrus books bound in leather. [i] At home he dropped the books on a pile of straw by the oven. His mother used much of the papyrus along with the straw to kindle fire. A few weeks later, after killing their father's enemy ‘Alī worried that the police might search the house, so he left the books with a local priest. For years experts tried to collect the manuscripts. In the end they discovered fifty-two texts at Nag Hammadi. Carbon dating of the papyrus used in the bindings places these Coptic translations sometime between the years 350-400 CE. Some scholars, including my New Testament professor Helmut Koester, believe that these are translations of Greek manuscripts that may be even older than the gospels of the New Testament. One of the first European scholars to discover the texts was startled to read the following line, “These are the secret words which the living Jesus spoke, and which the twin Judas Thomas, wrote down.” [ii] This is the opening of the first complete copy of the Gospel of Thomas ever discovered. We had fragments of it in Greek but suddenly we had the whole thing along with pages of other sources we had never dreamed of. My favorite quotes from the Gospel of Thomas describes the kingdom of God as a “state of self-discovery.” That ancient papyrus says, “Rather, the Kingdom is inside of you, and it is outside of you. When you come to know yourselves, then you will be known, and you will realize that you are the sons of the living Father.” It says, “If you bring forth what is within you, what you bring forth will save you. If you do not bring forth what is within you, what you do not bring forth will destroy you.” [iii] For years all we knew about the Gnostic Christians in the first centuries after Jesus' death came from the orthodox Christians who called them heretics. Now finally, to some degree, we can hear them speak for themselves. I first encountered these ideas at the age of twenty-one when I read Elaine Pagels' book The Gnostic Gospels. I am attracted to their thought primarily because Jesus has changed my life and I long to learn more about what people in the first centuries thought of him. I am also sympathetic to the Gnostics' respect for wisdom. We are often trapped in stories that make us miserable. Great thinkers can lift us into a truth that frees us. The Greek word gnosis means a kind of knowing by experience that differs from rational or scientific knowing. [iv] It also describes an ancient faith, a family of religious convictions that shaped what we believe today. This year on Palm Sunday as we enter Holy Week rather than trying to tell the whole story of Jesus' passion, I want to talk about this ancient faith. We cannot be a Gnostic in the way that third century people could. But studying these ideas give us a way of talking about our tradition's value and how we experience God in our own lives. On this Palm Sunday I am going to talk about three central gnostic ideas. But first I need to say a little more about what Gnostics believed. Gnostic groups differed from each other but mostly they believed in a kind of dualism between the spiritual which they regarded as good and the evil material world. They held that the spiritual human soul is part of the Divine and is imprisoned in physical existence. They believed that the soul could be saved by coming to realize its greatness, its origin in a superior spiritual world. For Gnostics an inferior god or demiurge (sometimes called the god of the Old Testament) made the material world. In their upside down interpretation of the Genesis creation story, the snake was the hero. Many Gnostic Christians (the Docetists) believed that it only seemed as if Jesus suffered, or was mortal. 1. The first idea that I would like to criticize is the Gnostic belief that there are secret teachings for the elite that are not available to everyone else. The Gnostic believed that, in the words of an ancient manuscript, he was, “one out of a thousand, or two out of ten thousand.” [v] This contrasts with Christians who believe that everything we need to know about God and Jesus is public. There is no hierarchy of secret knowledge, or spiritual wisdom. We can all read the Bible and with help, draw our own conclusions. Christians go further than this. In Paul's Letter to the Galatians he writes, “There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus” (Gal. 3:28). This may be one of the most difficult ideas for us to assimilate. It is the basis for our democracy. We are all equal before God, and before the law. As humans we naturally form groups and are drawn into conflict based on our identity. For instance, it is very difficult to avoid the culture war tension between liberals and conservatives. The philosopher Agnes Callard spoke about this recently at Harvard. She pointed out that the science journal Nature endorsed Joe Biden in the 2020 presidential election. It's editors wanted to speak out for science and objective truth. She pointed out that in a world where everything becomes ideological this had the unintended outcome of making some people distrust science as political. Callard said that people on the left use the same tactics as those on the right. “We bully people without knowing it. Not bullying people is harder than it appears.” Her answer is to take a Socratic approach. We should ask people to explain their position rather than trying to beat them in an argument. She says that Socrates is, “not trying to win. He's trying to find out.” [vi] 2. A second Gnostic belief is that we should focus on overcoming illusion through introspection rather than worrying about sin or morality. The important thing for the Gnostic is a relation with our true self not our neighbors. In the second century Irenaeus rejected the idea that knowledge is enough to save us. He insisted that participating and growing in Christ is a “practical, daily form of salvation.” [vii] In the third century Clement of Alexandria writes that God became human so that humans can become God. Every day we improve. He writes about choosing to live joyously so that, “all our life is a festival; being persuaded that God is everywhere present on all sides we praise him as we till the ground, we sing hymns as we sail the sea, we feel God's inspiration in all that we do.” [viii] 3. Finally, Gnostics taught that the material world is evil. In contrast, Christians believe that God created the world and that it is good. We have a responsibility for nature. We see God through the material world. It gives us opportunities to care for each other. Over the next seven days we will experience the implications of this belief. We will follow Jesus through the exultant crowds, witness his poignant goodbye at his last meal with friends. We will see his betrayal, abandonment death and finally his triumphant resurrection and reunion with his loved ones. My friend Matt Boulton says that we cannot take all of this in at once. These events require time and space for us to adequately feel and understand them. [ix] Last night I received an email from one of our readers who feels overwhelmed by the passion narrative. My friend writes, “the most powerful moment that stands out for me is Jesus' response to Judas' kiss.” Jesus says, “Friend do what you are here to do” with no blame or shame, just a sense of love and grief. This idea that God is present to us in the material world gives us the hope that we can change some things for the better. In an interview the poet Maya Angelou said that believing in God gave her courage. “I dared to do anything that was a good thing. I dared to do things distant from what seemed to be in my future. When I was asked to do something good, I often said, yes, I'll try, yes, I'll do my best. And part of that is believing, if God loves me, if God made everything from leaves to seals and oak trees, then what is it I can't do?” [x] What is God like? And how will we respond? There is no secret religious knowledge or a spiritual elite. Introspection will not bring us as close to God as care for those around us. The material world matters and the presence of Jesus in this world then and now is a message of hope and salvation. All our life is a festival, so bring forth what is within you and may God bless you as you walk with Jesus this week. I would like to close with these lines from the Austrian poet Rainer Maria Rilke (1875-1926). “God speaks to each of us as he makes us / then walks with us silently out of the night.//These are the words we dimly hear. // You, sent out beyond your recall, / go to the limits of your longing / embody me. //Flare up like flame / and make big shadows I can move in. // Let everything happen to you: beauty and terror. / Just keep going. No feeling is final. / Don't let yourself lose me. // Nearby is the country they call life. / You will know it by its seriousness. // Give me your hand.” [xi] [i] Elaine Pagels, The Gnostic Gospels (NY: Random House, 1979) xiff. [ii] “These are the secret sayings which the living Jesus spoke and which Didymos Judas Thomas wrote down.” The Gospel of Thomas, translated by Thomas O. Lambdin. https://www.marquette.edu/maqom/Gospel%20of%20Thomas%20Lambdin.pdf [iii] And later, “When you make the two one, and when you make the inside like the outside and the outside like the inside, and the above like the below, and when you make the male and female one… then you will enter [the Kingdom].” Elaine Pagels, The Gnostic Gospels (NY: Random House, 1979) 152, 154-5. [iv] Elaine Pagels, The Gnostic Gospels (NY: Random House, 1979) xvii. [v] Ibid., 176. [vi] Clea Simon, “In an era of bitter division, what would Socrates do?” The Harvard Gazette, 27 March 2023. https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2023/03/in-era-of-bitter-division-what-would-socrates-do/ [vii] Margaret Ruth Miles, The Word Made Flesh: A History of Christian Thought (Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing, 2005) 33. [viii] Ibid., 38. [ix] https://www.saltproject.org/progressive-christian-blog/2020/3/29/palms-and-passion-salts-lectionary-commentary-for-palmpassion-sunday [x] https://www.saltproject.org/progressive-christian-blog/2019/2/6/maya-angelou-on-being-christian [xi] Rainer Maria Rilke, Rilke's Book of Hours: Love Poems to God tr. Anita Barrows and Joanna Macy (NY: Riverhead, 2005) 119.

Over thirty years ago, Elaine Pagels' young son and husband died within the same year. In this tender conversation, Kate and Elaine discuss surviving the aftermath of such devastation, the painful explanations religion often offers, and how we love and keep loving even after so much tragedy. Together, they discuss: The need for connection to others during grief Religion's often painful and punitive explanations for suffering (and why they aren't helpful or complete) Why parents often feel like they've “failed” when a child dies How suffering pulls us closer to mystery  This episode is for someone who has ever had the thought “haven't I suffered enough?” Elaine and Kate are trusted companions in a life that hasn't turned out like we thought it should. CW: death of a child, death of a spouse***Looking for the transcript or show notes? Click here.Find Kate on Instagram or Facebook or Twitter.THE LIVES WE ACTUALLY HAVE: 100 Blessings for Imperfect Days is out now. Learn more, here.We have free Lent guides for you to use by yourself, with a group, or with your church. Click here to get started.Leave us a voicemail and who knows? We might even be able to use your voice on the air: 919-322-8731A big thank you to Jed Meyers for contributing his beautiful poem to today's episode. To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoicesSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Over thirty years ago, Elaine Pagels' young son and husband died within the same year. In this tender conversation, Kate and Elaine discuss surviving the aftermath of such devastation, the painful explanations religion often offers, and how we love and keep loving even after so much tragedy.  Together, they discuss: The need for connection to others during grief Religion's often painful and punitive explanations for suffering (and why they aren't helpful or complete) Why parents often feel like they've “failed” when a child dies How suffering pulls us closer to mystery  This episode is for someone who has ever had the thought “haven't I suffered enough?” Elaine and Kate are trusted companions in a life that hasn't turned out like we thought it should.  CW: death of a child, death of a spouse *** Looking for the transcript or show notes? Click here. Find Kate on Instagram or Facebook or Twitter. THE LIVES WE ACTUALLY HAVE: 100 Blessings for Imperfect Days is out now. Learn more, here. We have free Lent guides for you to use by yourself, with a group, or with your church. Click here to get started. Leave us a voicemail and who knows? We might even be able to use your voice on the air: 919-322-8731 A big thank you to Jed Meyers for contributing his beautiful poem to today's episode. To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

When it comes to Deadly Sins, there's one option you can always count on for putting skin in the game. So why do conventional religions have so many intimate inhibitions about Lust, and what can we do with the baggage we've inherited from them?   SHOW LINKS Salon: "The Samuel Alito's Mom's Satanic Abortion Clinic" is a thing that exists now, Kelly McClure (2023) Cathechism of the Catholic Church, Second Edition The Seven Deadly Sins: Society and Evil, by Stanford M. Lyman (1989) The Book of Watchers (Third Century BCE) The Old Enemy, by Neil Forsyth (1989) Adam, Eve, & the Serpent, by Elaine Pagels (1988) The Devil: A New Biography, by Philip C. Almond (2014) Satanic sexuality: understanding Satanism as a diversity issue for sex and relationship therapists, Eric Sprankle et al. (2021)   GET IN TOUCH WITH BLACK MASS APPEAL Facebook Twitter Instagram Patreon Tabitha Slander's Instagram Discord server   SATANIC BAY AREA Website Facebook Twitter (as @SatanicSF) Instagram Sign up for Satanic Bay Area's newsletter On TikTok as DailyBaphirmations Coffee Hour is the third Thursday of every month from 6 – 8 pm at Wicked Grounds in San Francisco!

If you'd like to know whose ancestral tribal lands you currently reside on, you can look up your address here: https://native-land.ca/My new book, “Home to Her: Walking the Transformative Path of the Sacred Feminine,” is now available Womancraft Publishing! To learn more, read endorsements and purchase, please visit www.womancraftpublishing.com.  It is also available for sale via Amazon, Bookshop.org, and you can order it from your favorite local bookstore, too. Please – if you love this podcast and/or have read my book, please consider leaving me a review! For the podcast, reviews on iTunes are extremely helpful, and for the book, reviews on Amazon and Goodreads are equally helpful. Thank you for supporting my work! You can watch this and other podcast episodes at the Home to Her YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCK6xtUV6K7ayV30iz1ECigwSophie's latest book is The Flowering Wand: Rewilding the Sacred Masculine https://bookshop.org/p/books/the-flowering-wand-rewilding-the-sacred-masculine-sophie-strand/You can follow her on Instagram @cosmogyny, and subscribe to her writings on Substack at https://sophiestrand.substack.com/We covered lots of ground in this episode! Here are links to some of the resources we discussed:This conversation with the late Barbara Ehrenreich, explores the fact that ancient cave art is primarily nature-based, which Sophie refers to: https://www.theguardian.com/news/audio/2020/jan/10/humans-were-not-centre-stage-how-ancient-cave-art-puts-us-in-our-place. “The Dawn of Everything”, by David Graeber and David Wengrow is an excellent, updated exploration of ancient history Sophie referenced the social change platform Advaya , with whom she offers coursework – you can learn more here:  https://advaya.co/Sophie also mentioned many books and authors who explore the historical evidence of Jesus. These include: “Rabbi Jesus” by Bruce Chilton; “Gospel Q” and the “Gnostic Bible”; “The Gnostic Gospels” by Elaine Pagels; the work of Neil Douglas-Klotz; and “The Historical Jesus”, by John Dominc Crossan Sophie made the comment that mother myths become monster myths. One example of this is Tiamat, the ancient Sea Serpent Mother Goddess whose murder is described in the ancient Babylonia text the Enuma Elish. You can read this text in its full here: https://www.worldhistory.org/article/225/enuma-elish---the-babylonian-epic-of-creation---fu/Past podcasts that are relevant to this conversation include:Sacred Activism with Ruby and Christabel Reed: https://hometoher.simplecast.com/episodes/sacred-activism-with-ruby-and-christabel-reedRewilding the Rosary with Clark Strand and Perdita Finn: https://hometoher.simplecast.com/episodes/exploring-the-secrets-of-the-rosary-with-clark-strand-and-perdita-finn

In 1945 fifty-two papyrus texts were found concealed in an earthenware jar buried in the Egyptian desert. They turned out to be early Christian writings, some dating all the way back to the first few centuries AD. Elaine Pagels, a historian of religion at Princeton university, has dedicated her life to studying and interpreting these texts and it turns out that there are some surprisingly powerful connections between some of the teachings in these ancient texts and the doctrines of the Restored Gospel. In this episode, Zach Davis spoke with Elaine about her life and research, the importance of wrestling with the big questions of existence, and how religion can open transformative new relationships and perspectives.Elaine Pagels is a historian of religion and the Harrington Spear Paine Professor at Princeton University. Her ground-breaking books include The Gnostic Gospels, The Origin of Satan, and the New York Times best-seller Beyond Belief: The Secret Gospel of Thomas. Her most recent book tells her own story and why she loves investigating the history of religion: Why Religion? A Personal Story.

Our Church Trauma Series continues with the massive nationwide abuse scandal and cover-up by America's largest protestant denomination, the Southern Baptist Church. Plus, our Heretic of the Week is Professor of Religion at Princeton and author Elaine Pagels.

Dr. Elaine Pagels joins us to talk about manic pixie dream girls, lost Gnostic texts like Thunder, Perfect Mind, and why being a heretic might not be so bad. Stereotypes about women aren't solely a modern phenomenon. Two pervasive archetypes in early Christian writings were the devil's gateway and bride of Christ . Where did these labels come from? And what were some alternative perspectives among gnostic texts like the Gospel of Mary and Thunder, Perfect Mind? Where did Eve go wrong? Who were the leaders Eustochium, Junia, and Marcellina? How do the Pauline and deuteropauline letters differ in their takes on women? Women Who Went Before is written, produced, and edited by Emily Chesley and Rebekah Haigh. This episode was fact-checked by Jillian Marcantonio. The music is composed and produced by Moses Sun. Episode show notes: womenwhowentbefore.com/fall-girlSponsored by the Center for Culture, Society, and Religion, the Program in Judaic Studies, and the Stanley J. Seeger Center for Hellenic Studies at Princeton UniversityViews expressed on the podcast are solely those of the individuals, and do not represent Princeton University.

Unlocked after one year for patrons only: The secretive Gnostic stream of Christianity, which taught a radically different metaphysics and spiritual cosmology from "orthodox" doctrine in the first four hundred years of the church, was largely lost to history, until 1945, when a camel-herder in a remote part of Egypt stumbled upon an old ceremic jar with 13 massive books containing 52 ancient Gnostic texts. We consider what the so-called "Nag Hammadi LIbrary," which may have been hidden in the desert to protect it from destruction, reveals about the origins and importance of the Gnostics' secret teachings. Image: A Nag Hammadi codex open to the beginning of the Apocryphon of John. Suggested further reading: Jean Doresse, "The Discovery of the Nag Hammadi Texts"; Elaine Pagels, "The Gnostic Gospels." Please sign up as a patron to hear all patron-only lectures: https://www.patreon.com/user?u=5530632

Los títulos de la entrega de hoy de La ContraPortada, el especial de libros de La ContraCrónica son: - "Novela de ajedrez" de Stefan Zweig - https://amzn.to/3yrOmFP - "KL: Historia de los campos de concentración" de Nikolaus Wachsmann - https://amzn.to/39QzfvW - "Los evangelios gnósticos" de Elaine Pagels - https://amzn.to/3Or00q0 Consulta los mejores libros de la semana en La ContraBiblioteca: https://diazvillanueva.com/la-contrabiblioteca/ · “La ContraHistoria de España. Auge, caída y vuelta a empezar de un país en 28 episodios”… https://amzn.to/3kXcZ6i · “Lutero, Calvino y Trento, la Reforma que no fue”… https://amzn.to/3shKOlK Apoya La Contra en: · Patreon... https://www.patreon.com/diazvillanueva · iVoox... https://www.ivoox.com/podcast-contracronica_sq_f1267769_1.html · Paypal... https://www.paypal.me/diazvillanueva Sígueme en: · Web... https://diazvillanueva.com · Twitter... https://twitter.com/diazvillanueva · Facebook... https://www.facebook.com/fernandodiazvillanueva1/ · Instagram... https://www.instagram.com/diazvillanueva · Linkedin… https://www.linkedin.com/in/fernando-d%C3%ADaz-villanueva-7303865/ · Flickr... https://www.flickr.com/photos/147276463@N05/?/ · Pinterest... https://www.pinterest.com/fernandodiazvillanueva Encuentra mis libros en: · Amazon... https://www.amazon.es/Fernando-Diaz-Villanueva/e/B00J2ASBXM #FernandoDiazVillanueva #KL #Evangelios Escucha el episodio completo en la app de iVoox, o descubre todo el catálogo de iVoox Originals

Elaine Pagels is one the most celebrated scholars of early Christianity in the world.  She is the author of such popular works as "The Gnostic Gospels," "Adam, Eve and the Serpent" and "Beyond Belief: The Secret Gospel of Thomas."  Dr. Pagels talks with Sean Marlon Newcombe and Dawn "Sam" Alden about the role and identity of women in early Christianity including the radical early movement known as "Gnosticism."

Distinguished historian, Princeton professor and best-selling author Elaine Pagels talks with Zainab about the hidden history of religion and her lifelong spiritual and academic journey to understand the purpose religion can hold in each of our lives.

Elaine Pagels is a ground-breaking scholar of Christianity. Back in the Sixties she was a student at Harvard when long-forgotten ancient texts re-emerged, secret gospels challenging old religious ideas. That research shook up Christian history, but for Pagels, it was also really personal. And unlike most scholars, she decided to take her intensely personal stories public, writing about the incredible ups and tragic downs happening behind the scholarly scenes. Transcript at firesidepod.org/episodes/pagels.Buy the book and other merch at firesidepod.org/store.