BEYOND BELIEF: THE SECRET GOSPEL OF THOMAS – ELAINE PAGELS
This book pulls a bit of a bait and switch. Going by the cover and the blurb on the back, you’d get the idea its focused primarily on the Gospel of Thomas. Really, though, aside from a chapter which discusses the Gospel of Thomas and how the Gospel of John might relate to it, the book’s really all about early Christianity, the unity – or lack thereof – of its disparate factions, and the factors which contributed to the formation of the Christian canon/orthodox mentality as we have them today.
Still, it’s quite a good read. Pagels is a gifted writer, I learned things about the early Church I hadn’t known before, and getting to read the Gospel of Thomas itself was … euphoric; a number of its teachings correlate pretty strongly with my own theological musings.
8/10