Hans Jonas (1903–1993)

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 show more know the Gnostics instead of knowing ABOUT the Gnostics. show less

Outdated, but still a good, solid introduction to the travails of the Gnostics of assorted hue.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.

Hans Jonas (1903-93) was a German Jew, pupil of Heidegger and Bultmann, lifelong friend and colleague of Hannah Arendt at the New School for Social Research, and one of the most prominent thinkers of his generation. The range of his topics never obscures their unifying thread: that our mortality is at the root of our moral responsibility to safeguard humanity's future. Mortality and Morality both consummates and demonstrates the basic thrust of Jonas's thought: the inseparability of ethics show more and metaphysics, the reality of values at the center of being.

http://nupress.northwestern.edu/title.cfm?ISBN=0-8101-1286-8 show less

So far this book has been too much work for what its worth. Jonas is very often repetitive without much corresponding increase in clarity, insight, and, or information. The writing is needlessly dense, probably even considering that it is German translated to English.