{"id":2379,"date":"2006-05-04T11:35:08","date_gmt":"2006-05-04T11:35:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/viamedia\/2006\/05\/how-many-gnostics-can-dance-on-the-head-of-a-pin.html"},"modified":"2006-05-04T11:35:08","modified_gmt":"2006-05-04T11:35:08","slug":"how-many-gnostics-can-dance-on-the-head-of-a-pin","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2006\/05\/how-many-gnostics-can-dance-on-the-head-of-a-pin.html","title":{"rendered":"How many gnostics can dance on the head of a pin?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Gashwin Gomes takes a look at an article in the Chronicle of Higher Education examining new views of gnosticism<\/a>; namely the conviction among some that "gnosticism" as a category should be abandoned.<\/p>\n

(I assume these scholarly advocates are only speaking about the Christian versions of gnosticism. But of course.)<\/p>\n

\n
\n

In an interview, Ms. King expands on her theory. "When you map out the similarities rather than the differences between the two sides \u2014 or what Irenaeus says are the differences \u2014 the territory of similarity is huge," she says. "Both work with this notion of humanity created in the image and likeness of God \u2014 and the need for a restoration of that. They both see Christ as the revealer figure, with the body as the place where the struggle takes place. They both have views at the end where humanity is divided into three groups depending on how you do."<\/p>\n

Ms. Pagels agrees that "if we drop the invented terms, what we have is many different types of early Christianity. When I used the title The Gnostic Gospels, I assumed that they were all Gnostic. Now I would say that these are other Christianities. … It’s difficult for all of us who were raised the way we were to get rid of the assumptions. The act of shedding assumptions is only done one by one, and with great difficulty."<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Gashwin has good comments, including on the final paragraph which (sigh) invites readers intrigued by DVC to read further. As if anything DVC says about anything (even gnosticism) is accurate or a reasonable jumping-off point. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Gashwin Gomes takes a look at an article in the Chronicle of Higher Education examining new views of gnosticism; namely the conviction among some that "gnosticism" as a category should be abandoned. (I assume these scholarly advocates are only speaking about the Christian versions of gnosticism. But of course.) In an interview, Ms. King expands…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":180,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2379","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"yoast_head":"\nHow many gnostics can dance on the head of a pin? - Via Media<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2006\/05\/how-many-gnostics-can-dance-on-the-head-of-a-pin.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"How many gnostics can dance on the head of a pin? - Via Media\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Gashwin Gomes takes a look at an article in the Chronicle of Higher Education examining new views of gnosticism; namely the conviction among some that "gnosticism" as a category should be abandoned. 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The Catholicism comes from her side. Amy grew up in a number of places - Indiana - Washington, DC - Lubbock Texas - Arlington, Virginia - DeKalb, Illinois - Lawrence, Kansas - and Knoxville, Tennessee, where the family settled in 1973. She attended Knoxville Catholic High School, then the University of Tennessee where she majored in history. She received an MA in Church History from Vanderbilt University, where she wrote a thesis on the changing role of women in 19th century American Protestantism, and the ways Scripture was used to justify those changes. She worked as as a teacher in Catholic high schools and a Parish Director of Religious Education and started writing for the diocesan press - the Florida Catholic - in 1988. Amy has written columns for Our Sunday Visitor and Catholic News Service at times over the past twenty years. Her articles have been published in venues ranging from Our Sunday Visitor to the New York Times to Commonweal. She has written 17 books. 18, if you included the as yet tragically unpublished novel. Amy has five children, ranging in age from 26 to 4 and was married to Michael Dubruiel, who died unexpectedly in February 2009. She lives in Birmingham, Alabama.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/author\/awelborn"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2379","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/180"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2379"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2379\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2379"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2379"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2379"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}