The birth of the Christian Church—and what it means for modern religion and philosophy. This engaging guide presents an accessible overview of the birth of the Christian Church, using the historical works found at the famous Nag Hammadi site in Egypt. With chapters discussing each of the major and minor documents found at Nag Hammadi, this volume also includes an overview of Gnosticism and the major players, revealing not only what the texts say, but also what they mean. - Renewed interest in Gnosticism and the Gnostic gospels is driven by interest in the Nag Hammadi documents, The Da Vinci Code, the Matrix movies, the Kabbalah, renewed interest in the divine feminine ideal, and the fact that many who’ve left the Church are looking for new answers in the early church. - Author is a scholar and expert who’s studied with some of the top people in the field.

The founding of the early Christian Church had as much to do with politics and intrigue as it did with theology and religion. This history and the documents uncovered at the Nag Hammadi site in Egypt have formed the basis of some of the most interesting and mysterious questions today. Was Mary Magdalene a disciple of Jesus? What role did Jesus mother Mary play? What does the Gospel of Thomas tells us? Enter The Complete Idiot's Guide to the Gnostic Gospels. Expert author J. Michael Matkin has provided easy and understandable overviews to all these major works and more. With chapters discussing each of the major and minor documents found at Nag Hammadi, the book also includes an overview of Gnosticism and its most influential people. Readers get an easy, understandable view of the early Church, these relatively new documents, and their meaning to modern religion and philosophy today.

With around 2 billion followers, Christianity is the most widespread religion in the world. Especially dominant in the western world, today's Christianity has a wide variety of forms, beliefs, and practices. But what kind of world was Jesus of Nazareth born into? How was the initial Christian message received by the different cultures into which it was spread? What was its early background and foundation, and how did it set the stage for what Christianity became? The Complete Idiot's Guide to Early Christianity explores who the early Christians were, how they lived, what they believed-and what their impact was on the church we know today.

The books of the Bible are not the only ancient writings to tell the stories of Jesus and his followers - other Gnostic texts have also been found as well. The Everything Gnostic Gospels Book provides an overview of Gnosticism and the historical figures who are believed to be the authors: Thomas, James, Mary Magdalene, and others. This accessible guide explores the following questions: What do Gnostics believe? Who were the authors of the Gnostic Gospels? How are the Bible scriptures and Gnostic Gospels different? How are they the same? How were "official" Christian texts chosen? Learn about the different versions of Christianity that battled for supremacy in the first centuries after the death of Jesus. This entertaining and educational book describes each of the Gnostic Gospels, providing insight into the turbulent times of early Christianity as well as the renewed contemporary interest in these mysterious writings.

Selected by the Modern Library as one of the 100 best nonfiction books of all time The Gnostic Gospels is a landmark study of the long-buried roots of Christianity, a work of luminous scholarship and wide popular appeal. First published in 1979 to critical acclaim, winning the National Book Award and the National Book Critics Circle Award, The Gnostic Gospels has continued to grow in reputation and influence over the past two decades. It is now widely recognized as one of the most brilliant and accessible histories of early Christian spirituality published in our time. In 1945 an Egyptian peasant unearthed what proved to be the Gnostic Gospels, thirteen papyrus volumes that expounded a radically different view of the life and teachings of Jesus Christ from that of the New Testament. In this spellbinding book, renowned religious scholar Elaine Pagels elucidates the mysteries and meanings of these sacred texts both in the world of the first Christians and in the context of Christianity today. With insight and passion, Pagels explores a remarkable range of recently discovered gospels, including the Gospel of Thomas and the Gospel of Mary Magdalene, to show how a variety of “Christianities” emerged at a time of extraordinary spiritual upheaval. Some Christians questioned the need for clergy and church doctrine, and taught that the divine could be discovered through spiritual search. Many others, like Buddhists and Hindus, sought enlightenment—and access to God—within. Such explorations raised questions: Was the resurrection to be understood symbolically and not literally? Was God to be envisioned only in masculine form, or feminine as well? Was martyrdom a necessary—or worthy—expression of faith? These early Christians dared to ask questions that orthodox Christians later suppressed—and their explorations led to profoundly different visions of Jesus and his message. Brilliant, provocative, and stunning in its implications, The Gnostic Gospels is a radical, eloquent reconsideration of the origins of the Christian faith.

In December 1945, two Egyptian fellahin, digging for natural fertilizer in the Nile River valley unearthed a sealed storage jar. The jar proved to hold treasure of an unexpected sort: a collection of some fifty-two ancient manuscripts, most of which reflect the teachings of a mystical religious movement we call Gnosticism (from the Greek word gnosis, "knowledge"). The texts are also, with few exceptions, Christian documents, and thus they provide us with valuable new information about the character of the early church, and about the Gnostic Christians within the church. In this volume, Marvin W. Meyer has produced a new English translation for general readers of four of the most important and revealing of these early Christian texts -- the Secret Book of James, the Gospel of Thomas, the Book of Thomas, and the Secret Book of John.