This volume gathers contributions from both junior and senior scholars whose studies have developed in dialogue with Elaine Pagels' work on Nag Hammadi literature and ancient heresiology. The essays engage each stage of Pagels' vast trajectory, and provide critical evaluations of the field of "Gnosticism studies."

Autorentext
Born 1968; MA in Religious Studies from New York University; PhD in the Religions of Late Antiquity from Princeton University; currently visiting research fellow at the Käte Hamburger Kolleg, Ruhr University Bochum. Born 1980; studied History, Classics, and Religion at the University of Washington (Seattle) and Princeton University; PhD in the Religions of Late Antiquity from Princeton University; currently Lecturer in the Department of Classics and Program in Religious Studies at Washington University in St. Louis. Born 1966; BA in Religious Studies from the University of Toronto; MA and PhD from Princeton University in Religion and the Program in the Ancient World; currently Visiting Associate Professor of Religious Studies at Brown University. Born 1975; degrees in Classics from Cambridge University and University College London, in Religion from Harvard University and Princeton University; PhD from Princeton in the Religions of Late Antiquity; currently Assistant Professor of Philosophy and Religion at Ursinus College, Pennsylvania.

Inhalt
Harold Attridge: Plato, Plutarch, and John: Three Symposia about Love - April DeConick: Gnostic Spirituality at the Crossroads of Christianity: Transgressing Boundaries and Creating Orthodoxy - Ismo Dunderberg: How Far Can You Go? Jesus, John, the Synoptics and Other Texts - John Gager: Paul the Zealot, A Man of Constant Sorrow - Deirdre Good: Jesus, Mary and Joseph in Egypt - Eduard Iricinschi: 'The Teaching Hidden in Silence' (NH II 1,4): Questions, Answers, and Secrets in a Fourth-Century Egyptian Book - Lance Jenott: Clergy, Clairvoyance, and Conflict: The Synod of Latopolis and the Problem with Pachomius' Visions - David Jorgensen: "Nor is one ambiguity resolved by another ambiguity": Irenaeus of Lyons and the Rhetoric of Interpretation - Karen King: Rethinking the Diversity of Ancient Christianity: Responding to Suffering and Persecution - Nicola Denzey Lewis: The Problem of Bad Baptisms: Rethinking Early Christian Initiation and Its Implications - AnneMarie Luijendijk: Buried and Raised: Gospel of Thomas Logion 5 and Resurrection - Hugo Lundhaug: Begotten, Not Made, to Arise in This Flesh: The Post-Nicene Soteriology of the Gospel of Philip - John Marshall: 6 Ezra and Jewish Reception of Revelation - Marvin Meyer: Thought, Forethought, and Afterthought in the Secret Book of John - Geoff Smith: Irenaeus, the Will of God, and Anti-Valentinian Polemics: A Closer Look at Against the Heresies I.12.1 - Einar Thomassen: The Valentinian Materials in James (NHC V,3 and CT,2) - John D. Turner: Baptismal Vision, Angelification, and Mystical Union in Sethian Literature - Michael A. Williams: A Life Full of Meaning and Purpose: Demiurgical Myths and Social Implications - Holger Zellentin: Jesus and the Tradition of the Elders: Originalism and Traditionalism in Early Judean Legal Theory