What Is Gnostcism?

[Dave Monroe]

King, Karen L.  What Is Gnosticism?
   Cambridge, MA: Harvard UP, 2003.

A distinctive Christian heresy? A competitor of
burgeoning Christianity? A pre-Christian folk religion
traceable to "Oriental syncretism"? How do we account
for the disparate ideas, writings, and practices that
have been placed under the Gnostic rubric? To do so,
Karen King says, we must first disentangle modern
historiography from the Christian discourse of
orthodoxy and heresy that has pervaded--and
distorted--the story. 

Exciting discoveries of previously unknown ancient
writings--especially the forty-six texts found at Nag
Hammadi in 1945--are challenging historians of
religion to rethink not only what we mean by
Gnosticism but also the standard account of Christian
origins. The Gospel of Mary and The Secret Book of
John, for example, illustrate the variety of early
Christianities and are witness to the struggle of
Christians to craft an identity in the midst of the
culturally pluralistic Roman Empire. King shows how
historians have been misled by ancient Christian
polemicists who attacked Gnostic beliefs as a "dark
double" against which the new faith could define
itself. Having identified past distortions, she is
able to offer a new and clarifying definition of
Gnosticism. Her book is thus both a thorough and
innovative introduction to the twentieth-century study
of Gnosticism and a revealing exploration of the
concept of heresy as a tool in forming religious
identity. 

http://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog/KINWHA.html


		
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