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Loading... The Gnostic Religion (original 1958; edition 2001)by Hans Jonas
Work InformationThe Gnostic Religion by Hans Jonas (1958)
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Sign up for LibraryThing to find out whether you'll like this book. No current Talk conversations about this book. A lot of books about the Gnostics talk about how they were suppressed by the mainstream Christian church, were an influence on church beliefs, acted as a catalyst to force the church to define its beliefs when it rejected the Gnostic beliefs or goes over the history of the discovery of hidden texts. They do all that but don't really cover what the Gnostics believed. This book covers the beliefs and the differences between the beliefs of various sects. I highly recommend it if you want to know the Gnostics instead of knowing ABOUT the Gnostics. ( ) Outdated, but still a good, solid introduction to the travails of the Gnostics of assorted hue. Addendum: I think it was Philip K. Dick who noted that gnosticism was information theory, and of course Bakunin noted that the great unanswered question about everything, about every religion, was The Fall. In any case, any given paragraph will suck you in. no reviews | add a review
Belongs to Publisher SeriesAula-boeken (429)
"' ... All investigations of detail over the last half century have proved divergent rather than convergent, and leave us with a portrait of Gnosticism in which the absence of a unifying character seems to be the salient feature' - Hans Jonas, Preface, 1958. No modern writer that I am aware of has brought life to Gnosticism as Jonas has. While in no way neglecting historical or theological issues, Jonas didn't get bogged down in them: he insisted on revealing the existential import of Gnosticism. Indeed, at the end of this book he explores the commonalities of ancient Gnosticism and Heidegger's existentialism. What does it mean to feel one is in a cosmos in which God is alien or absent? Jonas provides a broad sweep of the conditions at the time Gnosticism developed at the beginning of the Christian era. His writing is that of a scholar but not targetted only to scholars ... He writes: ' ... Gnosticism is actually a product of synceticsm [so] each of these theories can be supported from the sources and none of them is satisfactory alone; but neither is the combination of all of them [supportable] which would make Gnosticism out to mere a mere mosaic of these elements and so miss its autonomous essence.' Yet nearly fifty years later some scholars look for a single source for Gnosticism while many are unable to find a suitably bounded definition. Jonas would not cage Gnosticism. Instead he asserts 'The gnostic movement - such as we must call it - was a widespread phenomena in the critical centuries indicated, feeding like Christianity on the impulses of a widely prevalent human situation, and therefore erupting in many places, many forms, and many languages.' Jonas discusses many Gnostic texts and themes ..."--Amazon.com. No library descriptions found. |
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Google Books — Loading... GenresMelvil Decimal System (DDC)273.1Religions History, geographic treatment, biography of Christianity Doctrinal controversies & heresies Gnostic (First 3 centuries)LC ClassificationRatingAverage:
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