Summary: The Village Reader Review
Comment: Jesus interprets Genesis 1 to 3 in a radical new way, and the subsequent four centuries of orthodox and Gnostic Christians resulting thought process leads to modern ideas on relationships.
In first century Jerusalem there was conflict between the pagan Rome and Jewish culture and religion. There were also a struggles between Jews that had an accommodative posture toward Rome (led mostly by the upper classes and Priests that had the most to lose) and those, mostly more conservative and rural, that resisted Roman influence. In modern terms, Jesus was a resistance leader.
Pagels argues the conflict was partly due to Jesus' interpretation of Genesis. In Genesis 1:28, the basis for marriage was procreation - and by Jewish law, marriage without children was grounds for divorce. Christ turned the law upside down. When asked what the grounds for divorce were, his answer, in Matthew 19:4-6, is that there are none. "This answer shocked his Jewish listeners and, as Matthew tells it, pleased no one".
After the crucifixion, but long before the Reformation, two groups competed for the heart and soul of Christianity - the orthodox and Gnostics. The same Scriptural texts supported radically different viewpoints. Orthodox Christians read Genesis as "history with a moral" - and their viewpoint was "a proclamation of moral freedom". Pagels implies this led to the development of the rights of man, democracy and equality under the law. Gnostics believed that Genesis was a "myth with a meaning". They argued that Genesis could not be read literally because it didn't make sense. There were two different creation texts which didn't agree (Genesis 1:26, 27 and 2:7); they questioned if Adam and Eve could hear God's footsteps (Genesis 3:8) and wonder why God an omniscient God would ask "where are you?" (Genesis 3:9). They looked for a deeper meaning to scripture.
For four centuries orthodox and Gnostic waged a philosophical battle for the heart of Christianity. Orthodoxy won, and only now, nearly sixteen hundred years later, are some of the early arguments and texts being reexamined, after the discovery of the Nag Hammadi texts in 1945 and the Dead Sea Scrolls in 1947. This well written, probing, thought provoking book is a part of a reexamination of the development of religious thought.
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Summary: The many influences of one myth...
Comment: "Adam, Eve, and the Serpent" is a brief, fascinating introduction to the world that shaped early Christian thought. Pagels writes that, during the first four centuries of the common era, there were many different schools of thought about religion, almost as many as there are in the contemporary American setting that she writes.
In this book, she examines how one myth -- the story of the fall of Adam and Eve-- shaped different religious thinkers. Some, like Augustine, took it as an illustration of the inherantly sinful nature of people, and used the story to flesh out his highly influential beliefs about original sin. Other religious thinkers, like Gnostics, saw the myth as an allegory about the spirit (Eve) within the flesh (Adam) and even went so far to see the serpant as an early foreshadowing to Christ. The fall wasn't a bad thing -- it was an allegory of emerging spiritual consciousness.
Readers may be surprised to discover just how influential the Adam and Eve myth really was. For many under Roman rule, it was the first introduction to a notion of human equality-- all people were equal creations of God-- and a spark that lead to contemporary American concepts that "all men are created equal." (Just to be accurate, in both of these periods it was only men who were seen as equal, and no consideration was given to women, slaves, etc...) Pagels points out that an idea like this, which the American founding fathers took to be 'self-evident' is in fact an empirically unprovable concept, and philosophers like Aristotle would have found it absurd.
Elsewhere in the book, Pagels provides an interesting window into Christian attitudes about celibacy. I was surprised to learn a life of renunciation was seen as a freedom from the responsibilities of family life -- my modern mind was more trained to see it as a purely religious concept, not a practical one.
Pagels has a succint, controlled writing style that is hypnotic. In just 154 pages, she covers a lot of ground. I thoroughly enjoyed the book, and would be curious to see other treatments of the singular influence of certain Bible stories.
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Summary: So Much For That Simple And Unified Body Of Early Christians
Comment: Elaine Pagels' knowledge of the development of Christianity during its first four centuries is very much in evidence in ADAM, EVE AND THE SERPENT as she describes the evolution of diverse interpretations of the Genesis creation stories held by succeeding generations of the new sect. In her account attitudes toward marriage, family, procreation and celibacy are shown to vary widely.
The author portrays Jesus as a man who views himself as a prophet sent to warn mankind of the coming Kingdom of God. Preparation for this event, according to Jesus, will require an allegiance that is stronger even than one's ties to family and nation.
The message of Jesus and later Paul was mostly about repentance and purification. Pagels claims that this emphasis became modified as the religion spread to Rome, Greece, Asia and Africa. A struggle then ensued between orthodox believers who sought a new ethical system and institutional structure which set them apart from the neighboring pagans and the gnostics who wished to achieve an elevated level of spiritual consciousness without the supervision of bishops and clergy.
The author points out that the lessons of the creation stories as interpreted by the first Christians allow them to validate the freedom of humans to choose between good and evil. In the fifth century Augustine looks at Genesis more as a story of human bondage. While the earlier Christians see people as being capable of self government, the prevailing attitude among believers reverses itself abruptly after the time of Constantine.
Elaine Pagels writes with clarity and she has the ability to make difficult material seem understandable to those of us who are not academics.
In this book I learned more about the incredible assortment of beliefs prevalent within the early church. The vision of a simple and unified body of beginning Christians has always apparently been just a myth.
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Summary: Accessible and fascinating...
Comment: This scholarly though very accessible text explores the early Christian interpretations of the Book of Genesis, particularly Adam and Eve's exile from paradise, due to disobeying God, and partaking of the forbidden fruit. The Fall of Man continues to be debated as to its significance, in terms of its influence on modern civilization: sexual, religious, cultural, political and sociological affect on our general attitudes and beliefs about human nature, the nature of the Divine, and our place in existence, as Pagels convincingly points out, is truly pervasive and profound.
It can be argued that the subject of theology is or has become a disciplined subject like any other `social science', because it employs similar methods of analysis and interpretation to present its perspective arguments. The arguments on this particular point continue to rage, too, in academic circles. Because religion and the `reading' of scripture can be tainted with prior beliefs and literal interpretations, some would argue that exegesis does not belong in the `rigorous' systems of the secular humanities. But here we are touching upon another subject of the humanities known as hermeneutics: the interpretation of texts. In the realm of theology, the term `exegesis' (interpretation of scripture or what one reads out of the text) and `eisegesis': an analysis or meaning one projects into scripture, or reading into the text, as a way to justify the readers pre-conceived beliefs, is another subject of contention. (It can also be argued that all reading is subjective, and what the individual reader brings to the text is what gives the text meaning.) However, Pagels presents her method of interpretation of scripture and the historical perspectives she intends to use clearly in her introduction:
"I am interested in a process of intellectual history...in the hermeneutical process - how Christians read the story of Adam and Eve, and often projected themselves into it, as a way of reflecting upon such matters as sexuality, human freedom, and human nature." (xxi)
Pagels' text is an historical analysis of the various interpretations of The Fall, and how these interpretations were affected by cultural and historical conditions, beginning with the early Christian writers in the New Testament, including the radical interpretations of certain early Gnostic writers, ending with the highly influential interpretations of St. Augustine and the writings of John Chrysostom and the Pelagians. St. Augustine and the Pelagians hold entirely opposite views on the meaning of The Fall, where only one, interestingly, has managed to hold significance, down through the ages, for modern Christians.
On the surface, this text appears complex and written purely for an academic audience. But what makes this book brilliant is its accessibility to all intelligent readers interested in the history of Western religion and how its ideas has shaped our modern world.
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Summary: Reads like a suspense story
Comment: The nice thing about this book is that it is written like a suspense story. I couldnt stop it till I finished it. Very talented scholar/writer
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