ELAINE PAGELS / Beyond Belief The Secret Gospel of Thomas Signed 1st ed 2003

Description: Beyond Belief: The Secret Gospel of Thomas Author: PAGELS, ELAINE Title: Beyond Belief: The Secret Gospel of Thomas Publication: Random House, May 2003 Edition: First Edition Description: Hardcover. Very Good / Very Good. Special edition including the complete text of the Gospel of Thomas Elaine Pagels, one of the world's most important writers and thinkers on religion and history, and winner of the National Book Award for her groundbreaking work "The Gnostic Gospels," now reflects on what matters most about spiritual and religious exploration in the twenty-first century. This bold new book explores how Christianity began by tracing its earliest texts, including the secret Gospel of Thomas, rediscovered in Egypt in 1945. When her infant son was diagnosed with fatal pulmonary hypertension, Elaine Pagels's spiritual and intellectual quest took on a new urgency, leading her to explore historical and archeological sources and to investigate what Jesus and his teachings meant to his followers before the invention of doctrine-and before the invention of Christianity as we know it. The astonishing discovery of the Gospel of Thomas, along with more than fifty other early Christian texts unknown since antiquity, offers startling clues. Pagels compares such sources as Thomas's gospel (which claims to give Jesus' secret teaching, and finds its closest affinities with kabbalah) with the canonic texts to show how Christian leaders chose to include some gospels and exclude others from the collection we have come to know as the New Testament. To stabilize the emerging Christian church in times of devastating persecution, the church fathers constructed the canon, creed, and hierarchy-and, in the process, suppressed many of its spiritual resources. Drawing on new scholarship-her own, and that of an international group of scholars-that has come to light since the publication in 1979 of The Gnostic Gospels, Pagels shows that what matters about Christianity involves much more than any one set of beliefs. Traditions embodied in Judaism and Christianity can powerfully affect us in heart, mind, and spirit, inspire visions of a new society based on practicing justice and love, even heal and transform us. Provocative, beautifully written, and moving, "Beyond Belief," the most personal of Pagels's books to date, shows how "the impulse to seek God overflows the narrow banks of a single tradition." Pagels writes, "What I have come to love in the wealth and diversity of our religious traditions-and the communities that sustain them-is that they offer the testimony of innumerable people to spiritual discovery, encouraging us, in Jesus' words, to 'seek, and you shall find.'" Signed and dated by Elaine Pagels on the half-title page. Seller ID: 332969 Subject: Religion/Philosophy/Spirituality Atlanta's only in-town, full-service bookstore since 1989. For more than three decades, A Cappella Books has been serving the Atlanta community with our unique selection of new, used, and antiquarian titles. Together with a wide range of partners across Atlanta, we bring great authors to the city all year long for book signings and literary events, and our signed titles garner us customers from all around the world. From our humble beginnings in Little Five Points to our cozy current shop in Inman Park, we're always in the business of buying, selling, and trading used books. All orders ship within two business days. Standard mail is USPS Media Mail.This listing was created by Bibliopolis.

Price: 63 USD

Location: Atlanta, Georgia

End Time: 2024-11-22T19:09:38.000Z

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