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Title: The Origin of Satan
Author: Elaine Pagels
Genre: Theology
Thingummies: 3.5
Synopsis: A history of how early Christians changed their view on who their enemies were as the religion expanded, and the impact of that on holy texts. Contains shockingly little Satan.
Thoughts: My senior year of college, I actually took a class with Professor Pagels on the history of early Christianity. We started with other break-away Jewish sects at the same time as the beginning of Christianity (such as the Essenes), continued through each gospel as they were written longer and longer after Jesus' death, and ended soon after the defeat of the Gnostic movement. It was a great class--Pagels is both brilliant and warm, and while she has some fairly sophisticated thoughts she wants to share, she does so in a way that is both interesting and easy to grasp.
This book is essentially a Cliff's Notes of that class.
Which would be great, except that isn't at all what the title or cover synopsis promised. There's almost nothing about Satan here at all, really. I think I'd been expecting a more detailed description of the early Hebrews' thoughts on hell and angelology, and how that morphed into the very detailed imagery that modern Christians have of Satan, his history, and his motivations.
What this actually turned out to be is a description of how the Christians rallied themselves again and again by uniting against an exterior enemy, whether that be fellow Jews at first, then pagans, and finally fellow Christians. She maps this Othering by using the occasional touchstone of who it is the writing in question says has been motivated by Satan. So there's a thread of Satan running through the book, but it really isn't the point. The real point is how different generations of Christians retold Christ's life and teachings through the lens of their own experiences, and how that influenced both the way the four gospels were each written and also which gospels ended up being canonical and which became heretical.
Which is interesting, but a little disjointed. In the class, we spent a substantial amount of time discussing Marcus Aurelius and his philosophy, the differences between the gospels of Mary, Thomas, Philip, and others, the Q document, and more. So to me, at least, her ten page diversions on each made some sense in context. But I'm not sure they would to someone coming to this cold. We were supposed to be talking about Satan--how did we meander over to a Stoic Roman emperor? Why are we discussing the details of Pilate's career? Most of the Nag Hammadi texts don't even mention Satan--why is there a whole chapter on them?
In the introduction, Pagels mentions that the bulk of the text originated as academic papers that were repurposed for a general audience. The repurposing works fine--on a page-by-page level, this is perfectly clear. However, I think where the seams show is the fact that the overarching theme appears to have been grafted on, possibly because the publisher thought the title was sexy. There are a bunch of interesting discussions in this book--but I can't help but feel that it's mostly shortened versions of some of Pagel's other books, trimmed down and crammed into one work, with a fragile thread failing to hold them all together.
Author: Elaine Pagels
Genre: Theology
Thingummies: 3.5
Synopsis: A history of how early Christians changed their view on who their enemies were as the religion expanded, and the impact of that on holy texts. Contains shockingly little Satan.
Thoughts: My senior year of college, I actually took a class with Professor Pagels on the history of early Christianity. We started with other break-away Jewish sects at the same time as the beginning of Christianity (such as the Essenes), continued through each gospel as they were written longer and longer after Jesus' death, and ended soon after the defeat of the Gnostic movement. It was a great class--Pagels is both brilliant and warm, and while she has some fairly sophisticated thoughts she wants to share, she does so in a way that is both interesting and easy to grasp.
This book is essentially a Cliff's Notes of that class.
Which would be great, except that isn't at all what the title or cover synopsis promised. There's almost nothing about Satan here at all, really. I think I'd been expecting a more detailed description of the early Hebrews' thoughts on hell and angelology, and how that morphed into the very detailed imagery that modern Christians have of Satan, his history, and his motivations.
What this actually turned out to be is a description of how the Christians rallied themselves again and again by uniting against an exterior enemy, whether that be fellow Jews at first, then pagans, and finally fellow Christians. She maps this Othering by using the occasional touchstone of who it is the writing in question says has been motivated by Satan. So there's a thread of Satan running through the book, but it really isn't the point. The real point is how different generations of Christians retold Christ's life and teachings through the lens of their own experiences, and how that influenced both the way the four gospels were each written and also which gospels ended up being canonical and which became heretical.
Which is interesting, but a little disjointed. In the class, we spent a substantial amount of time discussing Marcus Aurelius and his philosophy, the differences between the gospels of Mary, Thomas, Philip, and others, the Q document, and more. So to me, at least, her ten page diversions on each made some sense in context. But I'm not sure they would to someone coming to this cold. We were supposed to be talking about Satan--how did we meander over to a Stoic Roman emperor? Why are we discussing the details of Pilate's career? Most of the Nag Hammadi texts don't even mention Satan--why is there a whole chapter on them?
In the introduction, Pagels mentions that the bulk of the text originated as academic papers that were repurposed for a general audience. The repurposing works fine--on a page-by-page level, this is perfectly clear. However, I think where the seams show is the fact that the overarching theme appears to have been grafted on, possibly because the publisher thought the title was sexy. There are a bunch of interesting discussions in this book--but I can't help but feel that it's mostly shortened versions of some of Pagel's other books, trimmed down and crammed into one work, with a fragile thread failing to hold them all together.
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Date: 2012-06-09 12:31 pm (UTC)From:I think you're exactly right about the publisher picking the title.
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Date: 2012-06-09 02:59 pm (UTC)From: