Karen L. King (2) (1954–)

In Christian history, Jesus Christ gathered twelve people to his side to be his apostles and spread his beliefs throughout the world. According to The Bible, Judas Iscariot accepts payment of thirty silver coins from the Sanhedrin priests and agrees to point out Jesus to the local authorities so that he can be captured and tried for purporting to be the Son of God. Judas’s betrayal results in the trial, crucifixion, and resurrection as depicted later in the Gospels. The traditional telling of this matter is done by the four Gospels—Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John--, but what if Judas himself got a say in the matter? In the 1970s, a papyrus codex was discovered near Beni Masah, Egypt which appears to be from Judas’s point of view. In Reading Judas, Elaine Pagels and Karen King tackle the new text to see if it can shed new light on old mythology.

There are a lot of things to learn from a shredded piece of paper from 1,700 years ago. First, Christianity was, is, and will always be an infinitely nuanced and an infinitely personal set of beliefs. Each iteration of the religion in each person begets a new system. In the Bible, each voice has a different Christianity, and in this new text, we hear the voice of the oft-reviled Judas Iscariot. The text is short, but packed with historical details, research, and annotations to the original document. It is a Coptic translation of a 2nd century Greek text, so things can definitely get lost through the years. Judas’s act, seen through Gnostic eyes, is one of love and loyalty, setting in motion the inevitable resurrection of his friend and the salvation of mankind.

Pagels’s and King’s text is nice and tight. They know that not everyone will be pleased to read about the “good” deeds of Judas Iscariot. Traditionalists will see this as a deliberate blurring of the lines between good and evil, but the codex is still a legitimate piece of history. Scholars can debate among themselves about the literal meanings of certain words and phrases, but they are more qualified than I in this matter. Overall, this was a very interesting book that illuminates a rather shady character in the Bible.… (more)

Pretty good. She doesn't actually define Gnosticism, but rather delves into the history of the way it has been defined. Frequently, it's been defined in a way that serves prevailing opinions on religion, Christianity, Orientalism, and the practice of history. It seems that there never really was any single movement or religion that could go by the name "gnostic", just a collection of heresies that have very little in common.
She does indicate two main branches of gnostic thought, based largely on similarities of Nag Hammadi texts to what we are told various heretics believed - Sethian and Valentinian gnosticism. Seth here refers to the son of Adam, and the school of thought focuses on the joy of learning from all that wisdom has to offer, regardless of where it is to be found (note: crazy sex orgies don't seem to belong to this category). Valentinian refers to the teachings of Valentinus, who taught that there was a secret teaching revealed by Christ to those who seek and are initiated into the mysteries.
Mostly though the focus is on past scholars of Gnosticism, what they believed, how it influenced others, and how they may have gone wrong.
The last part of the book concerns historical methodology, particularly the methods she used in researching, evaluating, and writing this book. She acknowledges her debt to Foucault and Bourdieu, and how she differs from their methods.
4 stars on completion, mostly because I like the thoroughness and transparency of her method.… (more)

This is sort of wonderful. King follows the ancient polemical and modern scholarly views of Gnosticism down through the ages. Her main point is that the late 19th-early 20th century scholars for the most part accepted and reinforced the views of the early church polemicists (Irenaeus, Tertullian, etc.). She gives detailed example after detailed example. We look at the work of Harnack, Reitzenstein, Bousset, Bultmann, Bauer, Jonas and others. She then undertakes a review of shifting scholarly positions after the astonishing discovery in 1945 of a trove of ancient mostly Gnostic manuscripts near the Upper Egypt village of Nag Hammadi. These manuscripts, written in Coptic, were hidden in a jar under the sand and estimated to be 1,600 years old. They threw much light on the formation of the early church and raised many questions. Does King belabor her point a bit? Yes, she is nothing if not thorough, but it's such a fascinating overview, requiring only minimal googling for the general reader, that one is borne along. Her writing is clear and free of jargon save for the first chapter or so where she pays the requisite obeisance to scholarly argot. Though she isn't the writer her peer Elaine Pagels is, King nevertheless does a rock solid job which is to be commended. Her approach is chronological for the most part. She wants to follow the sequence of ideas and compare and contrast them as she goes along. Just the sort of treatment of the subject matter I was looking for. Thorough and admirable.… (more)