Rethinking Gnosticism
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| Author | : Michael Allen Williams |
| Publisher | : Princeton University Press |
| Total Pages | : 356 |
| Release | : 1999-04-12 |
| Genre | : Religion |
| ISBN | : 1400822211 |
Most anyone interested in such topics as creation mythology, Jungian theory, or the idea of "secret teachings" in ancient Judaism and Christianity has found "gnosticism" compelling. Yet the term "gnosticism," which often connotes a single rebellious movement against the prevailing religions of late antiquity, gives the false impression of a monolithic religious phenomenon. Here Michael Williams challenges the validity of the widely invoked category of ancient "gnosticism" and the ways it has been described. Presenting such famous writings and movements as the Apocryphon of John and Valentinian Christianity, Williams uncovers the similarities and differences among some major traditions widely categorized as gnostic. He provides an eloquent, systematic argument for a more accurate way to discuss these interpretive approaches. The modern construct "gnosticism" is not justified by any ancient self-definition, and many of the most commonly cited religious features that supposedly define gnosticism phenomenologically turn out to be questionable. Exploring the sample sets of "gnostic" teachings, Williams refutes generalizations concerning asceticism and libertinism, attitudes toward the body and the created world, and alleged features of protest, parasitism, and elitism. He sketches a fresh model for understanding ancient innovations on more "mainstream" Judaism and Christianity, a model that is informed by modern research on dynamics in new religious movements and is freed from the false stereotypes from which the category "gnosticism" has been constructed.
| Author | : Karen L. King |
| Publisher | : Harvard University Press |
| Total Pages | : 372 |
| Release | : 2003 |
| Genre | : Religion |
| ISBN | : 9780674017627 |
A study of gnosticism examines the various ways early Christians strove to define themselves in a pluralistic Roman society, while questioning the traditional ideas of heresy and orthodoxy that have previously influenced historians.
| Author | : Tuomas Rasimus |
| Publisher | : BRILL |
| Total Pages | : 400 |
| Release | : 2009-10-31 |
| Genre | : Religion |
| ISBN | : 9047426703 |
This book offers a new understanding of Sethianism and the origins of Gnosticism by examining the mythology in and social reality behind a group of texts to which certain leaders of the early church occasionally attached the label ‘Ophite.’ In the unique Ophite mythology, which rewrites the Genesis paradise story and is attested, for example, in Irenaeus’ Adversus haereses 1.30, The Apocryphon of John and On the Origin of the World, the snake’s advice to eat of the tree of knowledge is considered positive, the creator and his angels are turned into demonic beasts and the true Godhead is presented as an androgynous heavenly projection of Adam and Eve. It is argued that Hans-Martin Schenke’s influential model of the ‘Sethian system’ only reveals part of a larger whole to which the Ophite material belongs as an important and organic component.
| Author | : Jonathan Cahana-Blum |
| Publisher | : Rowman & Littlefield |
| Total Pages | : 211 |
| Release | : 2018-11-15 |
| Genre | : Religion |
| ISBN | : 1498566294 |
This book demonstrates that ancient Christian Gnosticism was an ancient form of cultural criticism in a mythological garb. It establishes that, much like modern forms of critical theory, ancient Gnosticism was set on deconstructing mainstream discourses and cultural premises. Strains of critical theory dealt with include the Frankfurt School, queer theory, and poststructural philosophy. The book documents how in both ancient Gnosticism and modern critical theories issues that used to serve as premises for discussion or as concepts relegated to the realms of the “natural” and the “given” in their respective historical contexts, are transformed into objects of contention. The main aim of this book is to salvage the historical category of Gnosticism from its present scholarly disavowal, if only because Gnosticism, when read as a cultural, and not only a religious phenomenon, presents us an ancient form of culture criticism which would be hard to parallel until (post) modernity. While Hans Jonas remarked many years ago that “something in Gnosticism knocks at the door of our Being and of our twentieth-century Being in particular,” by the 21st century global world this something has already entered and lives with us. We can thus still benefit from another perspective, even if it comes from Mediterranean people who lived almost 2,000 years ago.
| Author | : Ismo Dunderberg |
| Publisher | : Columbia University Press |
| Total Pages | : 325 |
| Release | : 2008 |
| Genre | : Religion |
| ISBN | : 0231141726 |
Valentinus (100-160 C.E.) was an influential Gnostic opposed to the practices that would later become part of the Christian orthodoxy. This text covers Valentinus's interpretation of the biblical creation myth, in which he affirms mankind's original immortality and places a special emphasis on the 'frank speech' afforded to Adam by God.
| Author | : Alastair Logan |
| Publisher | : Bloomsbury T&T Clark |
| Total Pages | : 184 |
| Release | : 2006-06-23 |
| Genre | : Religion |
| ISBN | : |
This book is an attempt to demonstrate the existence and explore the character, theology, liturgy and cultic beliefs and practices of the Gnostic movement. This is a fascinating study into the past to identify the Gnostics as a cult movement originating in the late first century and arising out of Christianity. Logan explores the Gnostics' own sense of identity against the Catholics, seeks to reconstruct the unique Gnostic rite of initiation from Nag Hammadi and related texts and, finally, argues that the early third certury Hypogeum of the Aurelii in Rome, with its remarkable series of paintings, represents a cult centre of Gnostics, where they recalled their initiation and theology and buried their dead.
| Author | : Willem Styfhals |
| Publisher | : Cornell University Press |
| Total Pages | : 333 |
| Release | : 2019-05-15 |
| Genre | : Philosophy |
| ISBN | : 1501731025 |
Throughout the twentieth century, German writers, philosophers, theologians, and historians turned to Gnosticism to make sense of the modern condition. While some saw this ancient Christian heresy as a way to rethink modernity, most German intellectuals questioned Gnosticism's return in a contemporary setting. In No Spiritual Investment in the World, Willem Styfhals explores the Gnostic worldview's enigmatic place in these discourses on modernity, presenting a comprehensive intellectual history of Gnosticism's role in postwar German thought. Establishing the German-Jewish philosopher Jacob Taubes at the nexus of the debate, Styfhals traces how such figures as Hans Blumenberg, Hans Jonas, Eric Voegelin, Odo Marquard, and Gershom Scholem contended with Gnosticism and its tenets on evil and divine absence as metaphorical detours to address issues of cultural crisis, nihilism, and the legitimacy of the modern world. These concerns, he argues, centered on the difficulty of spiritual engagement in a world from which the divine has withdrawn. Reading Gnosticism against the backdrop of postwar German debates about secularization, political theology, and post-secularism, No Spiritual Investment in the World sheds new light on the historical contours of postwar German philosophy.
| Author | : Karen Baker |
| Publisher | : Wipf and Stock Publishers |
| Total Pages | : 131 |
| Release | : 2017-09-28 |
| Genre | : Religion |
| ISBN | : 1532619707 |
The secrets of a complex belief system that have sustained the Mandaeans in their centuries-old native lands in Iraq and Iran have been collapsing before their eyes. This little-known Gnostic sect has been hidden from global awareness until now. With a passion for the obscure, Karen Baker has delved into this secret sect, exploring the effects of the turmoil they have faced in their homeland, and are now facing in Diaspora. The Iraqi and Iranian Mandaeans have fled their homes with nothing more than the clothing on their backs, being thrust into the status of refugees, watching their traditions and cultures crumble as they encounter new lands and new cultures. This book discusses the potential receptivity of Mandaeans to Christianity through several perspectives including an evaluation of their relationship to the Gnosticism of the first through third centuries CE as well as its syncretic adaptations to Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. It will be of interest to those interested in little-known cultures from a historical and religious perspective; those involved with refugees and immigrants; and those who desire to understand the foundational beliefs of Mandaeism.
| Author | : Paul A. Hartog |
| Publisher | : Wipf and Stock Publishers |
| Total Pages | : 307 |
| Release | : 2015-01-30 |
| Genre | : Religion |
| ISBN | : 163087955X |
Eighty years ago, Walter Bauer promulgated a bold and provocative thesis about early Christianity. He argued that many forms of Christianity started the race, but one competitor pushed aside the others, until this powerful "orthodox" version won the day. The victors re-wrote history, marginalizing all other perspectives and silencing their voices, even though the alternatives possessed equal right to the title of normative Christianity. Bauer's influence still casts a long shadow on early Christian scholarship. Were heretical movements the original forms of Christianity? Did the heretics outnumber the orthodox? Did orthodox heresiologists accurately portray their opponents? And more fundamentally, how can one make any objective distinction between "heresy" and "orthodoxy"? Is such labeling merely the product of socially situated power? Did numerous, valid forms of Christianity exist without any validating norms of Christianity? This collection of essays, each written by a relevant authority, tackles such questions with scholarly acumen and careful attention to historical, cultural-geographical, and socio-rhetorical detail. Although recognizing the importance of Bauer's critical insights, innovative methodologies, and fruitful suggestions, the contributors expose numerous claims of the Bauer thesis (in both original and recent manifestations) that fall short of the historical evidence. With contributions from: Rodney Decker Carl Smith William Varner Rex Butler Bryan Litfin Brian Shelton David Alexander Edward Smither Glen Thompson
| Author | : Christoph Bochinger |
| Publisher | : Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG |
| Total Pages | : 1425 |
| Release | : 2016-11-21 |
| Genre | : Religion |
| ISBN | : 3110451107 |
Religious ideas, practices, discourses, institutions, and social expressions are in constant flux. This volume addresses the internal and external dynamics, interactions between individuals, religious communities, and local as well as global society. The contributions concentrate on four areas: 1. Contemporary religion in the public sphere: The Tactics of (In)visibility among Religious Communities in Europe; Religion Intersecting De-nationalization and Re-nationalization in Post-Apartheid South Africa; 2. Religious transformations: Forms of Religious Communities in Global Society; Political Contributions of Ancestral Cosmologies and the Decolonization of Religious Beliefs; Esoteric Tradition as Poetic Invention; 3. Focus on the individual: Religion and Life Trajectories of Islamists; Angels, Animals and Religious Change in Antiquity and Today; Gaining Access to the Radically Unfamiliar in Today’s Religion; Religion between Individuals and Collectives; 4. Narrating religion: Entangled Knowledge Cultures and the Creation of Religions in Mongolia and Europe; Global Intellectual History and the Dynamics of Religion; On Representing Judaism.
