Alive to irony and historical nuance, this remarkably concise primer opens readers to a plausible and often persuasive interpretation of the disquieting Gospel of Judas. Elaine Pagels Reading Judas: The Controversial Message of the Ancient Gospel of Judas Paperback by Pegals Elain & King Kern L (Author) 95 ratings See all formats and editions Kindle 12.99 Read with Our Free App Hardcover 23.26 2 Used from 12.24 4 New from 23.26 Paperback 30.57 3 Used from 19.25 3 New from 30. Instead, they delve deeply into his theological view that a pure, spiritual realm exists beyond the physical world that we seea Gnostic chestnut that recurs in other second-century texts. Though the gospel text appears angry and polarizing, Pagels and King have come to realize that they cannot easily dismiss this author as either a madman or a lunatic. Reading Judas: The Gospel of Judas and the Shaping of Christianity (Hardcover) by Elaine Pagels (shelved 13 times as gnosticism) avg rating 3. The recently unearthed Gospel of Judas is a.

The key to understanding this gospel, they argue, is its relentless unmasking of the triumphant rhetoric of martyrdom. The instant New York Times bestseller interpreting the controversial long-lost gospel.

Such persecution, they say, drove the author of the Gospel of Judas, who could not reconcile his belief in a deeply loving, good God with a particular idea other Christians held at the time: that God desired the bloody sacrificial death of Jesus and his followers. In their hundred-page introductory essay, Pagels and King date the gospel to the middle of the second century and situate it amidst the deadly persecution of Christians in the Roman Empire. Together they take on the controversial Gospel of Judas, published in April 2006 after some years of languishing in a safety deposit box after its initial discovery in the 1970s. This accessible, engaging book has Princeton religion professor Pagels (The Gnostic Gospels Beyond Belief) in a dream team pairing with King (The Gospel of Mary of Magdala), who teaches ecclesiastical history at Harvard Divinity School.

Reading Judas by Elaine Pagels