Gnosticism and the History of Religions

Gnosticism and the History of Religions PDF

Author: David G. Robertson

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing

Published: 2021-08-12

Total Pages: 239

ISBN-13: 1350137715

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Building on critical work in biblical studies, which shows how a historically-bounded heretical tradition called Gnosticism was 'invented', this work focuses on the following stage in which it was “essentialised” into a sui generis, universal category of religion. At the same time, it shows how Gnosticism became a religious self-identifier, with a number of sizable contemporary groups identifying as Gnostics today, drawing on the same discourses. This book provides a history of this problematic category, and its relationship with scholarly and popular discourse on religion in the twentieth century. It uses a critical-historical method to show how and why Gnosis, Gnostic and Gnosticism were taken up by specific groups and individuals – practitioners and scholars – at different times. It shows how ideas about Gnosticism developed in late nineteenth- and twentieth-century scholarship, drawing from continental phenomenology, Jungian psychology and post-Holocaust theology, to be constructed as a perennial religious current based on special knowledge of the divine in a corrupt world. David G. Robertson challenges how scholars interact with the category Gnosticism, and contributes to our understanding of the complex relationship between primary sources, academics and practitioners in category formation.

Studies in Gnosticism and Alexandrian Christianity

Studies in Gnosticism and Alexandrian Christianity PDF

Author: Roelof van den Broek

Publisher: BRILL

Published: 2020-10-26

Total Pages: 312

ISBN-13: 9004439684

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The discovery of the Nag Hammadi Library (1945) has given an enormous impetus not only to the study of ancient Gnosticism but also to that of early Christianity in general. Most of the studies contained in this volume deal with mythological conceptions and theological ideas found in various Nag Hammadi writings. The gnostic views on the nature of God and on creation and salvation receive particular attention, ranging from Philo to the medieval Cathars. The Nag Hammadi Library also shed new light on the development of early Alexandrian Christianity and its theology. The book contains six studies which explicitly deal with these topics. This volume is of interest to students of Gnosticism, early Christianity and Graeco-Roman religious and philosophical ideas in general.

Christian Gnosis

Christian Gnosis PDF

Author: Ferdinand Christian Baur

Publisher: James Clarke & Company

Published: 2023-01-26

Total Pages: 511

ISBN-13: 0227178076

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Ferdinand Christian Baur's Die Christliche Gnosis, first published in 1835, is considered by many to be the most important book on Gnosticism published in the nineteenth century and is a pivotal work within Baur's canon. Baur's unique thesis of a link between ancient and modern religious philosophy, as well as his conception of Gnosticism - developed through dialogues with his predecessors and contemporaries - consolidate Christian Gnosis as an important contribution to Christian theology. In this seminal work, written over a hundred years before the manuscript discovery at Nag Hammadi, Baur classifies the gnostic systems in terms of how they conceive the relationship of Christianity to Judaism and paganism, describing them in detail. He then goes on to describe the criticism of and reaction to gnosis in church history, before contending with the modern religious philosophy of his time, discussing Boehme, Schelling, Schleiermacher and Hegel. Christian Gnosis is Baur's first great religio-historical study, and Robert Brown's masterful translation ensures the work is as impactful today as it was on its first publication.

Studies in Gnosticism and Hellenistic Religions Presented to Gilles Quispel on the Occasion of his 65th Birthday

Studies in Gnosticism and Hellenistic Religions Presented to Gilles Quispel on the Occasion of his 65th Birthday PDF

Author: M. J. Vermaseren

Publisher: BRILL

Published: 2015-08-24

Total Pages: 644

ISBN-13: 9004295690

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Preliminary material /R. Van Den Broek and M. J. Vermaseren -- LIST OF PROFESSOR QUISPEL'S PUBLICATIONS /R. Van Den Broek and M. J. Vermaseren -- TRACES OF AN ALEXANDRIAN ORPHIC THEOGONY IN THE PSEUDO-CLEMENTINES /J. VAN AMERSFOORT -- THE RELIGIO-HISTORICAL RELEVANCE OF LK 20:34-36 /UGO BIANCHI -- THE CREATION OF ADAM'S PSYCHIC BODY IN THE APOCRYPHON OF JOHN /R. VAN DEN BROEK -- DAĒNĀ, LICHTJUNGFRAU, ZWEITE GESTALT /CARSTEN COLPE -- THE ANGELS OF THE NATIONS AND THE ORIGINS OF GNOSTIC DUALISM /IOAN P. CULIANU -- GNOSTISCHE SPUREN BEI PLUTARCH /H. DÖRRIE -- ODES OF SOLOMON AND PSALMS OF MANI /H. J. W. DRIJVERS -- ELEMENTS GNOSTIQUES DANS L'ŒUVRE DE MACROBE /JACQUES FLAMANT -- SAMARITAN DEMIURGICAL TRADITIONS AND THE ALLEGED DOVE CULT OF THE SAMARITANS /JARL FOSSUM -- CHARGES OF “IMMORALITY” AGAINST VARIOUS RELIGIOUS GROUPS IN ANTIQUITY /ROBERT M. GRANT -- THE PROBLEM OF THE ANTI-GNOSTIC POLEMIC IN RABBINIC LITERATURE /ITHAMAR GRUENWALD -- LES SÉMITISMES DANS L'ÉVANGILE SELON THOMAS ESSAI DE CLASSEMENT /ANTOINE GUILLAUMONT -- POINTES ANTIGNOSTIQUES D'ORIGÈNE: LE QUESTIONNEMENT IMPIE DES ÉCRITURES /MARGUERITE HARL -- AN ANALYSIS OF THE USE OF THE STORY OF THE FLOOD IN THE APOCALYPSE OF ADAM /A. F. J. KLIJN -- LE LIVRE D'ADAM GEORGIEN /JEAN-PIERRE MAHÉ -- BAD WORLD AND DEMIURGE: A 'GNOSTIC' MOTIF FROM PARMENIDES AND EMPEDOCLES TO LUCRETIUS AND PHILO /JAAP MANSFELD -- CATALOGUES OF SINS AND VIRTUES PERSONIFIED (NHC 11,5) /GERARD MUSSIES -- JEWISH ELEMENTS IN CORPUS HERMETICUM I (POIMANDRES) /BIRGER A. PEARSON -- HELLENISTIC MAGIC: SOME QUESTIONS OF DEFINITION /ALAN F. SEGAL -- INTERPRETAZIONI GNOSTICHE E MISTERIOSOFICHE DEL MITO DI ATTIS /GIULIA SFAMENI GASPARRO -- ABERAMENTHŌ /MICHEL TARDIEU -- L'ICONOGRAPHIE D'ATTIS MOURANT /MAARTEN J. VERMASEREN -- UNE ANAPHORE INCOMPLÈTE? /H.A.J. WEGMAN -- GNOSIS AND THE MYSTERIES /R. MeL. WILSON -- “TERRA AUTEMSTUPIDA QUADAM ERAT ADMIRATIONE” /J.C.M. VAN WINDEN -- JEWISH GNOSTICISM? /EDWIN M. YAMAUCHI -- “THE TEACHINGS OF SILVANUS” (NHC VII,4) AND JEWISH CHRISTIANITY /J. ZANDEE -- INDEX OF SOURCES /Roel B. Van Den Broek and M. J. Vermaseren -- INDEX OF NAMES AND SUBJECTS /Roel B. Van Den Broek and M. J. Vermaseren.

Gnosticism

Gnosticism PDF

Author: John Glyndwr Harris

Publisher: Liverpool University Press

Published: 1999

Total Pages: 246

ISBN-13:

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Harris, former head of the religious studies department at Gwent and author of scholarly volumes on religious topics, introduces the basic ideas and practices of Gnosticism, a system of religious and philosophical beliefs which was widely embraced in the earlier centuries of Christianity. Distributed by ISBS. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

The Oxford Handbook of Early Christian Studies

The Oxford Handbook of Early Christian Studies PDF

Author: Susan Ashbrook Harvey

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2008-09-04

Total Pages: 1049

ISBN-13: 9780199271566

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Provides an introduction to the academic study of early Christianity (c. 100-600 AD) and examines the vast geographical area impacted by the early church, in Western and Eastern late antiquity. --from publisher description.

Studies in Later Greek Philosophy and Gnosticism

Studies in Later Greek Philosophy and Gnosticism PDF

Author: Jaap Mansfeld

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 1989

Total Pages: 346

ISBN-13:

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It is a curious fact that many of the sources for the Presocratic and Stoic philosophers are early Christian authors; similarly, one can even find an echo of Parmenides in a Gnostic treatise from Nag Hammadi. Such writers were often dependent for their knowledge on a whole chain of previous interpretations and traditions, and it is these with which Professor Mansfeld is here largely concerned. He has tried to discover what in an earlier writer - Plato, and Aristotle, of course, as well as the Early Greeks - was of interest to a later one, notably the Middle Platonists. These articles demonstrate the value of such an approach, showing how a familiarity with the later history of an idea, say in a Gnostic text, can contribute to the understanding of the idea itself; or how the study of the selection of ideas used by Philo, for instance, not only sheds light on his own projects, but also helps explain why some motifs survived and not others, and why philosophical thought took the directions it did.