My rating: 4 of 5 stars
A wrenching memoir matched with intellectual study of Christianity from a groundbreaking scholar.
Elaine Pagels has had to endure incredible loss: first her six-year-old son, and a year later, her husband. She survived and apparently thrived in part through her research on the "heretical" texts of early Christianity. Her own story is interspersed with passages examining the meaning of the Nag Hammadi texts, also known as the Gnostic gospels. Pagels' personal suffering informs her research, and her the texts in turn help give her perspective.
My only beef is that I wanted to keep going with her life as she raised her children and worked, but she skips those years. As a middle-aged adult, I can understand why - life happens and time flies. No doubt her existence returned to more ordinary levels of stress during that time.
I recommend this book to anyone interested in the Nag Hammadi texts and Elaine Pagels.
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