Not since Elaine Pagels's ground-breaking and best-selling The Gnostic Gospels (1979) has there been a work that communicates so clearly the content and significance of the "Gnostics" for our understanding of early Christian history. The public and the academy need The Gnostics. -- Denise Buell, Williams College A model for how to engage in careful social historical reconstruction. -- Stephen Davis, Yale University
David Brakke is Joe R. Engle Chair in the History of Christianity and Professor of History, Ohio State University.
Not since Elaine Pagels's ground-breaking and best-selling The
Gnostic Gospels (1979) has there been a work that communicates so
clearly the content and significance of the "Gnostics" for our
understanding of early Christian history. The public and the
academy need The Gnostics.
*Denise Buell, Williams College*
A model for how to engage in careful social historical
reconstruction.
*Stephen Davis, Yale University*
Brakke has a growing reputation for his studies on the history and
literature of ancient Christianity, and he moves easily among the
sources, making good sense of the sometimes scanty evidence...The
Gnostics is a book to be warmly commended to those who have an
interest in the development of Christianity.
*Times Literary Supplement*
Perhaps the finest aspect of this book is the way that Brakke
successfully nuances the conflict models of early Christian history
that remain current in most introductory texts. Rather than merely
keying students to the varieties of early Christianity, Brakke
introduces beginners to a more open narrative that has emerged
recently. This model focuses on the agonistic production of
orthodox and heterodox identities through processes of textual
production, interpretation, ritual, and so forth. Brakke
accomplishes this through a style that is lucid without falling
into oversimplification.
*Choice*
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