![]() ![]() The key to understanding this gospel, they argue, is its relentless unmasking of the triumphant rhetoric of martyrdom. Such persecution, they say, drove the author of the Gospel of Judas, who could not reconcile his belief in a deeply loving, good God with a particular idea other Christians held at the time: that God desired the bloody sacrificial death of Jesus and his followers. In their hundred-page introductory essay, Pagels and King date the gospel to the middle of the second century and situate it amidst the deadly persecution of Christians in the Roman Empire. Together they take on the controversial Gospel of Judas, published in April 2006 after some years of languishing in a safety deposit box after its initial discovery in the 1970s. This accessible, engaging book has Princeton religion professor Pagels (The Gnostic Gospels Beyond Belief) in a dream team pairing with King (The Gospel of Mary of Magdala), who teaches ecclesiastical history at Harvard Divinity School. ![]()
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